Republicans Block Attempt To Question Donald Trump’s Interpreter

originally posted by: angeldoll
DONALD TRUMP does NOT have the right to run this country in secret. If any of you think so, you have lost your freaking minds.

Triggered.

a reply to: Arnie123

Not only triggered, wrong (at least in the context that angel meant it). The president needs to be able to negotiate privately with a whole host of people. Now, what he agrees to is always overseen by congress, but the negotiation aspect is not part of their oversight. IOW, he isn't running the country in secret, he's negotiating in secret. Any actions he takes (the actual running the country part) will be public.

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: Southern Guardian

No one provides oversight to the president. Your claim of such betrays a ridiculous ignorance of our government.

The Dems that did this are embeciles. Executive privilege. They know this and acted simply to whip their less insightful base into a froth (again).

Actually, our entire constitution is designed such that each branch of government is supposed to provide checks and balances on the others. Maybe you never took a middle school civics class, but the rest of us did.

a reply to: Southern Guardian

The right people have been informed. Others will be as their need to know arrives.

The MSM will be the last, until they start supporting America again. Their barrage of negatives post Kim Jong summit was horrible.

a reply to: andrewh7

It's your middle school civics understanding that is incorrect. BFFT is correct in the context he is presenting. You are correct in the context you are presenting. Yes, each branch checks the others. No, congress doesn't have the right to hear every word the president says nor the context of every meeting the president has.

Isn’t all of this really a moot point when you consider Putin speaks English very fluently?

There are many YouTube vids of him speaking English in news interviews.

More sensationalism for nothing, I’m noticing a trend in your threads.

a reply to: carewemust

The right people have been informed.

Which people? You have no clue yourself dear.

a reply to: Sookiechacha

How many times now, that we find out from The Kremlin what happened, what Trump said, in a meeting or call with Pres Trump? Every time, that's how many! It's like Trump has acquiesced all Russia/USA public relations to Russia and the Kremlin!

Find out what? We're hearing Russian media reporting on Putin just like our media reports on Trump. It's going to be spun just like our media spins.

I cannot believe the hypocrisy I am hearing. You seem to be terrified that Putin is taking over the US somehow, yet you are literally pledging allegiance to their media! Trump is not giving Russia any power... you are!

Please wake up.

TheRedneck

a reply to: TheRedneck


You are conflating my trust in the US government's intel community with the White House's lack of transparancy and secrecy that surrounds every meeting and phone call that Trump has with Russian officials.

When the Russian Ambassador visited the Oval Office, and Trump gave them state secrets about Israeli assets, the US media was banned from that meeting and the American people learned about it from Russian news. The first time, that we know of, that Trump spoke with Putin over the phone, Nov. 2017, we found out about it from Russian news, not the White House. When Trump went to the Asian Summit, it was Russian news that informed us the special Putin/Trump sideline meetings. December 2017, the Kremlin, Putin's office, issued a read out of a conversation with President Trump, that the White House later confirmed happened.

Now, we are hearing about agreements that were supposedly made at the Helsinki Summit from Russian news, as the White House walks back and spins Putin's claims.

a reply to: Sookiechacha

No, you're still not getting my point... let's try this from another angle. Let's say for the sake of argument you're right, and the following conversation ensued at Helsinki:

Trump: Vlad, ol' buddy, ol' pal, thanks for the help getting elected. Now here's what you do to get around those sanctions by Congress: you just have one of your ships be in the North Sea at 3:00 AM Greenwich time next Saturday and I'll have one of ours meet up with a load of weapons and supplies. No one will ever know.

Putin: You have been good servant, Donald. We will be there.

Now, that's sedition, right? Nope. It's attempted sedition. Russia hasn't gotten anything yet! For them to get anything, the ships have to show up and meet in the dead of night and transfer the goods. CNN is following Trump around like a sad-eyed puppy. Intel is watching every ship Russia has. CIA is inside Russia watching every move the government makes. Do you really think such a move would go unnoticed? With so many people who want Trump gone so badly they will abandon all reason and make up fake stories about him and peeing prostitutes? There would be full page headlines in every newspaper across the country and an impeachment vote before they finished the transfer! You'd see Navy Admirals on Fox and CNN screaming bloody murder.

Trump can't do anything alone without it becoming known. All he can do is talk.

Now, you seem to want reporters in these private meetings. How on earth do you expect peace talks to happen between two leaders when the media can't get over Trump getting an extra scoop of ice cream?

Trump: We have information that your people tried to interfere with our elections.

Putin: Nyet, nyet, we do not interfere. Your information is wrong.

Trump: Well, we've got legal indictments that say otherwise. What are we going to do about that?

Putin: I will allow questioning...

Reporter 1: Mr. President! Is it true you plan on stationing more troops along the Polish-Russian border?

Putin: More troops?

Reporter 2: Mr. Putin! How do you feel about Trump calling you a thug?

Putin: You call me thug? I call you foe! Get out of my sight! Talks are over!

Yeah, that would be a great idea.... so when should we launch the nukes on Moscow?

TheRedneck

a reply to: TheRedneck

Trump: Vlad, ol' buddy, ol' pal, thanks for the help getting elected.

You misrepresent my concerns. It seems that Trump acquiesces to Putin's requests, in detriment to the American agenda. He was thrilled with the idea of working with Russia on cyber security, after their first meeting. Trump's aides squashed that. Trump seemed thrilled with Russia interrogating US intel agents involved in the hacking case. His aides pulled that back. He seemed to be okay with a Ukraine referendum vote. His aides squashed that too.

Trump can't be trusted, when it comes to Russia especially, to make deals or forge relationships alone, without his aides input.

a reply to: Southern Guardian

Subpoena Trump. Going after interpreters will have ramifications.

a reply to: Sookiechacha

You misrepresent my concerns.

I do not understand your concerns.

He was thrilled with the idea of working with Russia on cyber security, after their first meeting. Trump's aides squashed that.

I'm torn on that issue; we would likely gain a lot of information about Russian hacking techniques, but they could gain from us too. Perhaps his aides just informed him of risks he hadn't considered? That is their job.

Trump seemed thrilled with Russia interrogating US intel agents involved in the hacking case. His aides pulled that back.

I am thoroughly confused about that. Not one word was said in the press conference about doing that. Russia said they would interrogate Russian operatives with US officials present, if the US would interrogate US operatives with Russian officials present. Not one word about Russians interrogating US operatives.

Suddenly the issue is something that wasn't even mentioned, and Trump is against that something that wasn't even mentioned... hello?

He seemed to be okay with a Ukraine referendum vote. His aides squashed that too.

I'm not familiar enough with that to take a position. But again, perhaps his aides did their job by filling him in on details he hadn't considered?

I am also thoroughly confused about something else. Trump speaks freely, sometimes too freely. That's the definition of transparency. We know his thoughts constantly, before, during, and after making final decisions. You are complaining about this transparency, yet the complaint seems to be that he does too much in secret?

He needs to be more transparent! Transparency is bad!

How in the name of Robert E. Lee do you manage to take both sides of that position?

TheRedneck

a reply to: TheRedneck

CNN has been airing Trump wanted to hand Americans over to Russia to interrogate.

I just heard them say it again an hour ago.

a reply to: TheRedneck

am thoroughly confused about that. Not one word was said in the press conference about doing that. Russia said they would interrogate Russian operatives with US officials present, if the US would interrogate US operatives with Russian officials present. Not one word about Russians interrogating US operatives.

No, that's exactly what Putin said:

We are now talking about the private — the — the individuals, not about particular states. And as far as the most recent allegation is concerned, about the Russian intelligence officers, we do have an intergovernmental treaty. Please do send us the request. We will analyze it properly, and we’ll send a formal response.

And as I said, we can extend this cooperation, but we should do it on a reciprocal basis, because we would await (ph) our Russian counterparts to provide us access to the persons of interest for us who — who we believe can have something to do with the intelligence services.

time.com...

Maybe this piece can help you understand the issue.

It all stems from an offer Russian President Vladimir Putin made to Trump during their meeting in Helsinki on July 16.
Here’s the proposal:

Putin offered to “help” with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation (the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, which we know was directed by Putin himself) by having his government interrogate the 12 Russian military intelligence officers charged in the probe last Friday — and letting Mueller watch.

But in exchange for this totally legit offer that in no way would be a complete and utter farce (ahem), Trump would have to allow Russian government officials to come to the US and question a group of Americans — including former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul — about their alleged “illegal activities” (in the words of the Kremlin).

It was a patently ridiculous proposal. Obviously.

Trump called it “an incredible offer.”

www.vox.com...

a reply to: OccamsRazor04

CNN has been airing Trump wanted to hand Americans over to Russia to interrogate.

CNN has said a lot of things since 2017. I listened to the press conference myself. If Trump comes out with a statement, then I'll believe he said that... and I'll still be confused where that issue even came from.

TheRedneck

a reply to: Sookiechacha

I transcribed his offer myself for another thread, straight from the CNN YouTube rebroadcast. This was his offer, verbatim:

Now, let's get back to the issue of these 12 alleged intelligence officers, uh, of Russia. I don't know the full extent of the situation, but President Trump mentioned the issue and I will look into it. So far, I can say the following: I think that, off of my head, we have enacting an existing agreement between the United States of America and the Russian Federation, am extradition treaty that dates back to 1999. Uh, the mutual assitance is on criminal cases. This treaty is in full effect and works quite efficiently. On average, we initiate 100, 150 criminal cases non requests from foreign states. For instance the Latvia, there was one extradition case that, upon the request sent by the United States. So this treaty has significantly good procedures. We can offer that the appropriate commission headed by, mmm, by special attorney Mueller, he can use this treaty as a solid foundation and send a formal, an official request to us so that we would interrogate, hold questioning of this individuals who he believes, uh, are privy to some crime, and our enforcement are perfectly able to do this questioning and send the appropriate information to the United States.

Moreover, we can meet you halfway; we can make another step. We can actually permit official representatives of the United States, including the members of this very commission headed by Mr. Mueller, we can let them into the country and they will be present at this questioning. But in this case there is, uh, there is another condition of this kind, and this kind of effort should be a mutual one. That we would expect that the Americans would reciprocate and they, they would question officials including the, uh, officers of law enforcement and intelligence service of the United States whom we believe are, who have something to do with illegal actions toward the territory of Russia, and we have to request the presence of our law enforcement.

For instance, we can bring up the Mr. Browder in this particular case. Business associates of Mr. Browder have earned over and one half billion dollars in Russia. They never paid any taxes. neither in Russia nor the United States, and yet the money escaped the country. They were transferred to the United States. They send huge amount of money, 400 million as a contribution to the campaign of Hillary Clinton. Well, that's a sad personal case. It might have been legal, the contribution itself, but the way the money was earned was illegal. So we have a reason to believe that some intelligence officers accompanied and guided this transaction. So we have an interest of questioning them. We can also, that can be a first step and we can also extend it. Options abound and they all can be found and brought with legal framework.

And did you direct any of your officials to help them do that?

Yes, I did. Yes, I did. Because he talked about bringing US-Russia relation back to normal.

Notice he said Russians would interrogate those accused Russians, with US officials, and he specified even Mueller himself, present. Putin did not say he would allow Mueller or any other US officials to interrogate his people. He specified Russians would interrogate Russians.

The reciprocal of that, according to any logic I have ever come into contact with, is Americans interrogate Americans with Russians present.

That's what he said. I do not give a flying radioactive cowpie what anyone else said.

TheRedneck

a reply to: TheRedneck


Did you miss this part?

They were transferred to the United States. They send huge amount of money, 400 million as a contribution to the campaign of Hillary Clinton.

Well, that's a sad personal case. It might have been legal, the contribution itself, but the way the money was earned was illegal. So we have a reason to believe that some intelligence officers accompanied and guided this transaction. So we have an interest of questioning them. We can also, that can be a first step and we can also extend it.

Putin wants to interrogate US intelligence officers and private citizens, like Browder and his associates, including the former ambassador, using Hillary Clinton donations as bait for Trump to accept the offer.

a reply to: Sookiechacha

And we have interests in questioning 12 indicted Russians. Did Putin offer to let Americans question them directly?

NO HE DID NOT.

Come on, if you want to start reading things between the lines that your imagination wrote there, you're not reading the book any more. It's not hard; just listen to what the man said and quit trying to nit-pick every syllable to find a nefarious double meaning.

TheRedneck

a reply to: TheRedneck


It's not just me that's reading it that way. Browder and McFaul also read it that way, as do most political commentators.

For example, from The Hill, a conservative media outlet.

The controversy stretched into a third day, when the White House on Thursday was forced to clarify it rejects Putin’s proposal to allow Russia to interrogate Americans, including former U.S. Ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul.

thehill.com...

And,

White House not ruling out Putin proposal to let Russia question ex-US ambassador, prominent financier www.foxnews.com...< br />

The White House said Wednesday that President Trump would consider whether to allow Russian prosecutors to interview onetime U.S. ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul and other Americans in connection with criminal claims against Bill Browder, a prominent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin.