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Tags donald trump , lying charges , Russia conspiracies , Trump controversies , Trump-Russia connections , US-Russia relations , vladimir putin

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Old 5th December 2017, 08:17 AM   #3121
Hlafordlaes
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Originally Posted by Stacko View Post
... The arrogance of these fools is amazing.
My guess is that they are all counting on pardons for the guilty and a mass firing of anyone not kissing Trump's ring in the Justice Dept/FBI/CIA/Defense. The GOP has clearly lost all pretense of supporting in the rule of law, and is absolutely giddy at the idea of a right-wing takeover of government, so who, exactly, will stop Trump when he does go after Mueller? GOP donors!!!???
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Old 5th December 2017, 08:27 AM   #3122
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Originally Posted by CapelDodger View Post
"Obviously because" hardly meets the standard of evidence an academic would expect, does it?

It's obvious because it's in the book. Pay attention to what is said.
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Old 5th December 2017, 01:02 PM   #3123
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Originally Posted by Stacko View Post
"The BEST people...."
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Old 5th December 2017, 02:19 PM   #3124
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2016 RNC Delegate: Trump Directed Change To Party Platform On Ukraine Support

Quote:
President Trump may have been involved with a change to the Republican Party campaign platform last year that watered down support for U.S. assistance to Ukraine, according to new information from someone who was involved.

Diana Denman, a Republican delegate who supported arming U.S. allies in Ukraine, has told people that Trump aide J.D. Gordon said at the Republican Convention in 2016 that Trump directed him to support weakening that position in the official platform.

Ultimately, the softer position was adopted.

Denman is scheduled to meet this week with the House and Senate Intelligence committees to discuss what she saw, said two sources familiar with the briefings.
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Old 5th December 2017, 02:53 PM   #3125
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Originally Posted by BobTheCoward View Post
The law is definitely not objective. A judge is not even allowed to provide jurors a definition if they ask what reasonable doubt is.
You are wrong again.
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Old 5th December 2017, 03:16 PM   #3126
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Fredo's in trouble.

Quote:
Donald Trump Jr. asked a Russian lawyer at the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting whether she had evidence of illegal donations to the Clinton Foundation, the lawyer told the Senate Judiciary Committee in answers to written questions obtained exclusively by NBC News.

The lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, told the committee that she didn't have any such evidence, and that she believes Trump misunderstood the nature of the meeting after receiving emails from a music promoter promising incriminating information on Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump's Democratic opponent.

Once it became apparent that she did not have meaningful information about Clinton, Trump seemed to lose interest, Veselnitskaya said, and the meeting petered out.

...

Though some may see her answers as self-serving, Veselnitskaya's written answers reinforced what has long been understood about the Trump Tower meeting: that Donald Trump Jr. accepted it on the promise of incriminating information about Clinton that he had been told was coming from the Russian government. And he asked Veselnitskaya directly whether she had it, according to her written answers. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were also in attendance, as were a Russian lobbyist, a Russian businessman and a translator.
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Old 5th December 2017, 03:39 PM   #3127
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Originally Posted by Crossbow View Post
You are wrong again.
Nope, check out Illinois. If a jury asks for the definition of reasonable doubt, state law is not cool with a judge giving one.
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Old 5th December 2017, 03:45 PM   #3128
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Originally Posted by Stacko View Post
Hard to square with the email exchange, the list of attendees and Trump's announcement of something about Clinton to be revealed soon that happened just after the meeting.

It conveniently matches Jr's excuses and Daddy's reply written for Jr made before Jr's emails revealed he was lying.

Last edited by Skeptic Ginger; 5th December 2017 at 03:52 PM.
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Old 5th December 2017, 03:50 PM   #3129
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Originally Posted by Stacko View Post
But...but...the didn't actually get any info, so it doesn't matter!

It's like telling the judge, ''Sure, I shot him, but he didn't die, so...''
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Old 5th December 2017, 05:03 PM   #3130
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Originally Posted by Delphic Oracle View Post
Republican primary candidates paid to generate said Russian dirt.

This is where the tapatalk signature that annoys people used to be
Which one(s)? And When?

It has been reported that the Washington Free Beacon funded Fusion GPS up until the spring in 2016. Then, in April, 2016, Perkins Coie, on behalf of the Clinton Campaign and DNC, retained them to continue. It wasn't until June, 2016 that Christopher Steele was contracted for the Russian dirt.

What am I missing?
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Old 5th December 2017, 05:10 PM   #3131
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Originally Posted by BobTheCoward View Post
The law is definitely not objective. A judge is not even allowed to provide jurors a definition if they ask what reasonable doubt is.
Reasonable doubt applies to the case made, not to the law which defines the crime.
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Old 5th December 2017, 05:32 PM   #3132
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Originally Posted by CapelDodger View Post
Reasonable doubt applies to the case made, not to the law which defines the crime.
That makes sense. Then what is a word for objective but outside of the ability of humans to apply without full information?
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Old 5th December 2017, 05:42 PM   #3133
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Originally Posted by Delphic Oracle View Post
Republican primary candidates paid to generate said Russian dirt.
Finding dirt is not the same as generating it.
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Old 5th December 2017, 05:47 PM   #3134
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Originally Posted by CapelDodger View Post
Finding dirt is not the same as generating it.
But do we know which one it was?
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Old 5th December 2017, 05:48 PM   #3135
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Originally Posted by BobTheCoward View Post
That makes sense. Then what is a word for objective but outside of the ability of humans to apply without full information?
Justice and the law are different things.
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Old 5th December 2017, 05:49 PM   #3136
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Originally Posted by BobTheCoward View Post
But do we know which one it was?
Can we really know anything?

What if the way I perceive yellow is how you perceive blue?
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Old 5th December 2017, 05:51 PM   #3137
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Originally Posted by BobTheCoward View Post
But do we know which one it was?
Can we actually know anything?

ETA :Ninja'd, damn it.
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Old 5th December 2017, 05:52 PM   #3138
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Originally Posted by CapelDodger View Post
Can we actually know anything?
Probably not.
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Old 5th December 2017, 06:08 PM   #3139
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Originally Posted by jimbob View Post
From that article it's actually impossible to tell if a subpoena has been issued.
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Old 5th December 2017, 07:30 PM   #3140
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Yes but... Perhaps Mueller is even more clever than he seems, and he seems very clever.

Reuters: Trump lawyer denies Deutsche Bank got subpoena on Trump accounts

According to Maddow reporting tonight, the subpoena was for accounts connected to Trump rather than Trump's accounts directly.

What I think, if you ask for accounts connected to but not directly Trump's accounts, guess what? You don't need to notify Trump or his attorneys and they cannot then seek injunctions.

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Old 5th December 2017, 07:34 PM   #3141
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Faux News is reporting "breaking news" that Mueller's investigation has anti-Trump bias.........
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1. He'd never do that. 2. Okay but he's not currently doing it. 3. Okay but he's not currently technically doing it. 4. Okay but everyone does it. 5. He's doing it, we can't stop him, no point in complaining about it. 6. We all knew he was going to do it which... makes it okay somehow. 7. It's perfectly fine that's he's doing it.
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Old 5th December 2017, 08:12 PM   #3142
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Originally Posted by thaiboxerken View Post
Faux News is reporting "breaking news" that Mueller's investigation has anti-Trump bias.........
That's quite humorous considering Trump's collusion with the Russians is the investigation.
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Old 5th December 2017, 08:39 PM   #3143
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Originally Posted by BobTheCoward View Post
Nope, check out Illinois. If a jury asks for the definition of reasonable doubt, state law is not cool with a judge giving one.
You are still wrong.

Which is not at all surprising considering that you are one of the very few people who insist that torture is constitutional.
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Old 5th December 2017, 08:43 PM   #3144
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Originally Posted by Crossbow View Post
You are still wrong.

Which is not at all surprising considering that you are one of the very few people who insist that torture is constitutional.
I even quoted the state supreme Court ruling

“The law in Illinois is clear that neither the court nor counsel should attempt to define the reasonable doubt standard for the jury.”

And people pointed out to you repeatedly how you misstated my argument. I don't even think you are capable of stating the points of that thread back to someone.

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Old 5th December 2017, 09:22 PM   #3145
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Originally Posted by BobTheCoward View Post
I even quoted the state supreme Court ruling

“The law in Illinois is clear that neither the court nor counsel should attempt to define the reasonable doubt standard for the jury.”

And people pointed out to you repeatedly how you misstated my argument. I don't even think you are capable of stating the points of that thread back to someone.
Where I read "should", you see "shall." Not the same.

Last edited by Lurch; 5th December 2017 at 09:24 PM. Reason: Punctuation
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Old 5th December 2017, 09:36 PM   #3146
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Originally Posted by Lurch View Post
Where I read "should", you see "shall." Not the same.
Even shall isn't shall any more

http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/a...abandon_shall/

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Confronted with a “No person shall” provision, courts routinely hold that shall means may. In every English-speaking jurisdiction that I know of—don’t be so shocked—shall has been held to mean may. As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg remarked in a majority opinion: “though shall generally means must, legal writers sometimes use, or misuse, shall to mean should, will or even may.”
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Old 5th December 2017, 09:47 PM   #3147
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I amend my statement to several states take measures to discourage judges and lawyers from elucidating reasonable doubt. Please excuse my wrong and hyperbolic statement. Or don't.
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Old 5th December 2017, 09:56 PM   #3148
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Originally Posted by thaiboxerken View Post
Faux News is reporting "breaking news" that Mueller's investigation has anti-Trump bias.........
Yes Mueller should certainly devote equal time and resources to all of the extensive and high-level friendly contacts between Russian officials and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. It would only be Fair (and Balanced).
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Old 6th December 2017, 04:53 AM   #3149
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Originally Posted by BobTheCoward View Post
And then Democrats paid to receive it. I don't understand what additional modification your post is attempting to accomplish.
By the time they paid for it, their doing so had no bearing on the creation of foreign-generated dirt.

If we're talking about the Steele memos, then that's technically British ex-spy dirt, though.

This is where the tapatalk signature that annoys people used to be

Last edited by Delphic Oracle; 6th December 2017 at 04:57 AM.
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Old 6th December 2017, 05:26 AM   #3150
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Originally Posted by Delphic Oracle View Post
By the time they paid for it, their doing so had no bearing on the creation of foreign-generated dirt.

If we're talking about the Steele memos, then that's technically British ex-spy dirt, though.

This is where the tapatalk signature that annoys people used to be
I would call it still Russian dirt collated (or made up) by a British ex spy.
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Old 6th December 2017, 05:41 AM   #3151
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Originally Posted by BobTheCoward View Post
I amend my statement to several states take measures to discourage judges and lawyers from elucidating reasonable doubt. Please excuse my wrong and hyperbolic statement. Or don't.
Congratulations to you for finally recognizing the obvious.
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Old 6th December 2017, 01:01 PM   #3152
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Originally Posted by varwoche View Post
This post makes me cringe with embarrassment on your behalf. It's bad enough that you don't appreciate that circumstantial evidence is evidence
The problem (for me anyway) is that much of the circumstantial evidence being floated this past year isn't even really circumstantial evidence - it's speculative inference. And much of the circumstantial evidence that does exist supports more than one inference, and not all of those inferences lead to a foregone conclusion of guilt. There's a lot of leading narrative out there.

Yes, many of the elements brought forth have seemed suspicious based on their framing and presentation. Many of the elements could also have been presented in a different framing and seemed innocuous. And many of the elements brought forth haven't been brought forth in an objective fashion.

I agree that Trump Jr. meeting with Vesnilwhatshername with the intent of receiving damaging information about Clinton was unethical. It may or may not have been illegal - I'm not a lawyer, and legal opinion seems to show less consensus that I would like in order to form a conclusion.

But it has been presented with purposeful framing: Russian lawyer with some degree of association with Russian government offered dirt = soliciting something of value from a foreign government = evidence of active collusion/conspiracy.

What raises more skepticism in me is the double standard in play here. Democrats literally paid a foreign intelligence operative to dig up dirt about Trump = somehow not soliciting something of value from a foreign government = no problems, perfectly acceptable.

There's always a fairly high likelihood that there is information in here that I don't know. I don't drool over the latest news tidbit, and I actually have a busy life outside of the current political drama . I simply haven't been able to fathom the distinction being used to differentiate these situations from one another that isn't more easily explainable as simple partisanship.
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Old 6th December 2017, 01:12 PM   #3153
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Originally Posted by Emily's Cat View Post
The problem (for me anyway) is that much of the circumstantial evidence being floated this past year isn't even really circumstantial evidence - it's speculative inference. And much of the circumstantial evidence that does exist supports more than one inference, and not all of those inferences lead to a foregone conclusion of guilt. There's a lot of leading narrative out there.

Yes, many of the elements brought forth have seemed suspicious based on their framing and presentation. Many of the elements could also have been presented in a different framing and seemed innocuous. And many of the elements brought forth haven't been brought forth in an objective fashion.

I agree that Trump Jr. meeting with Vesnilwhatshername with the intent of receiving damaging information about Clinton was unethical. It may or may not have been illegal - I'm not a lawyer, and legal opinion seems to show less consensus that I would like in order to form a conclusion.

But it has been presented with purposeful framing: Russian lawyer with some degree of association with Russian government offered dirt = soliciting something of value from a foreign government = evidence of active collusion/conspiracy.

What raises more skepticism in me is the double standard in play here. Democrats literally paid a foreign intelligence operative to dig up dirt about Trump = somehow not soliciting something of value from a foreign government = no problems, perfectly acceptable.

There's always a fairly high likelihood that there is information in here that I don't know. I don't drool over the latest news tidbit, and I actually have a busy life outside of the current political drama . I simply haven't been able to fathom the distinction being used to differentiate these situations from one another that isn't more easily explainable as simple partisanship.
Look at the timing of the events around the meeting

June 3 Goldstone contacts Trump Jr. to setup meeting which promises to discuss Clinton
June 7 17:16 Don Jr. confirms meeting w/ Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya
June7 21:13 Trump promises press conf the next week with Clinton dirt
June 8 Trump posts link to DCLeaks
June 9 Trump Jr, Kushner, Manafort meet with Russian operative
June 12 Assange announces Clinton emails
June 27 Hacked emails posted to DCLeaks

We have Don Jr's assertion that nothing happened in the meeting but we already know he lied several times about the meeting.

We have Trump claiming that there will be dirt on Clinton within a few hours of the meeting confirmation and the day after, posting a link to the website where the leaks were put.

That is pretty unlikely set of coincidences
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Old 6th December 2017, 01:15 PM   #3154
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Originally Posted by jimbob View Post
Look at the timing of the events around the meeting

June 3 Goldstone contacts Trump Jr. to setup meeting which promises to discuss Clinton
June 7 17:16 Don Jr. confirms meeting w/ Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya
June7 21:13 Trump promises press conf the next week with Clinton dirt
June 8 Trump posts link to DCLeaks
June 9 Trump Jr, Kushner, Manafort meet with Russian operative
June 12 Assange announces Clinton emails
June 27 Hacked emails posted to DCLeaks

We have Don Jr's assertion that nothing happened in the meeting but we already know he lied several times about the meeting.

We have Trump claiming that there will be dirt on Clinton within a few hours of the meeting confirmation and the day after, posting a link to the website where the leaks were put.

That is pretty unlikely set of coincidences
I don't think you are able to quantify the likelihood to then determine if it is likely or unlikely.
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Old 6th December 2017, 01:16 PM   #3155
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Originally Posted by Emily's Cat View Post
The problem (for me anyway) is that much of the circumstantial evidence being floated this past year isn't even really circumstantial evidence - it's speculative inference <snip>
Hard stop, and I expect you may know where I'm heading... Can you please cite one or more examples?
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Old 6th December 2017, 01:20 PM   #3156
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Originally Posted by BobTheCoward View Post
I don't think you are able to quantify the likelihood to then determine if it is likely or unlikely.
We know that the meeting was arranged

We know that the Trump team intended to arrange to illegally get dirt on Clinton at that meeting

We know that the Trump team lied about the meeting

We know that they now say that the meeting wasn't productive but that shortly after the meeting had been agreed, Trump posted links to the site where dirt on Clinton was to be put.


I think it is reasonable to say that on the balance of probabilities, the meeting did indeed cover the subjects as described in the emails arranging it, and that is why the Trump team lied about it.
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Old 6th December 2017, 01:21 PM   #3157
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Originally Posted by jimbob View Post
We know that the meeting was arranged

We know that the Trump team intended to arrange to illegally get dirt on Clinton at that meeting

We know that the Trump team lied about the meeting

We know that they now say that the meeting wasn't productive but that shortly after the meeting had been agreed, Trump posted links to the site where dirt on Clinton was to be put.


I think it is reasonable to say that on the balance of probabilities, the meeting did indeed cover the subjects as described in the emails arranging it, and that is why the Trump team lied about it.
I don't think that is reasonable compared to the alternative.
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Old 6th December 2017, 01:29 PM   #3158
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Originally Posted by BobTheCoward View Post
I don't think that is reasonable compared to the alternative.
Which is that Trump Jr suddenly started telling the truth about the meeting and that it genuinely was all about adopting orphans, and it was just a coincidence that Trump Sr had posted a link to DCleaks just after the meeting had been arranged, and this was exactly the sort of thing that the email exchanges about the meeting were describing?

Or do you have a different alternative?

I know that you have ... highly "exacting"... standards for proof, but this is not proof but simply an assessment of the most likely explanation.
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Old 6th December 2017, 01:35 PM   #3159
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Originally Posted by jimbob View Post
Which is that Trump Jr suddenly started telling the truth about the meeting and that it genuinely was all about adopting orphans, and it was just a coincidence that Trump Sr had posted a link to DCleaks just after the meeting had been arranged, and this was exactly the sort of thing that the email exchanges about the meeting were describing?

Or do you have a different alternative?

I know that you have ... highly "exacting"... standards for proof, but this is not proof but simply an assessment of the most likely explanation.
The alternative is simply to not speculate until more information is made available. There are people that need to take a less skeptical position for greater intuition (investigators). We are not investigators.
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Old 6th December 2017, 01:44 PM   #3160
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Originally Posted by jimbob View Post
Look at the timing of the events around the meeting

June 3 Goldstone contacts Trump Jr. to setup meeting which promises to discuss Clinton
June 7 17:16 Don Jr. confirms meeting w/ Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya
June7 21:13 Trump promises press conf the next week with Clinton dirt
June 8 Trump posts link to DCLeaks
June 9 Trump Jr, Kushner, Manafort meet with Russian operative
June 12 Assange announces Clinton emails
June 27 Hacked emails posted to DCLeaks

We have Don Jr's assertion that nothing happened in the meeting but we already know he lied several times about the meeting.

We have Trump claiming that there will be dirt on Clinton within a few hours of the meeting confirmation and the day after, posting a link to the website where the leaks were put.

That is pretty unlikely set of coincidences
Why do you think it's unlikely? We already knew that the DNC had been hacked, prior to that meeting being initiated in June. It had already been reported that Russia was the suspected hacker of the DNC servers, and that emails had been stolen.

The coincidence in question is only that a meeting was initiated between the time of the hack and the time of the release. It would be a more meaningful coincidence, to me anyway, if it weren't already widely known and reported that the emails had been hacked. The emails were going to come out at some point regardless. If they'd come out any time after that meeting was set up, it would be seen as a remarkable coincidence, even if it were months after the meeting.

Honestly, I keep circling back to the premise that all of this is just as explainable as attempts by a foreign country to weaken the US without any purposeful involvement from Trump or his campaign. It's just as successful, just as disruptive, and just as volatile whether Trump was actually involved or not. If he was involved, then it actually becomes somewhat less effective - we have a bad actor undermining our process, and that can be addressed as a one-off situation. If Trump were not involved, then we have never-ending speculation, and an unwillingness by a large amount of people to believe anything that indicates his lack of involvement, increased partisanship and political division, and an inability to focus on anything else for a solid year and counting.

Far more effective in terms of disruption if Trump isn't involved, and everything hinges on speculation and suspicion. That circus will never end, and will carry through into pretty much all future elections.

ETA: TL-DR - This whole mess is also explainable by a hostile foreign entity (not even necessarily Russia) exploiting superficial associations and coincidences in order to weaken the US position and distract us from... whatever.
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