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originally posted by: IkNOwSTuff
a reply to: BlackJackal
That email looks like it was Hillary colluding???
So is this what this whole thing is about?
The Trump campaign looking into dirt that Russia had on Hillary?
What an absolute cluster truck this sham is hahaha
We may as well accuse police of colluding with rape victims to put their attackers in jail, seems like the same thing to me
This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump
originally posted by: Grambler
originally posted by: BlackJackal
originally posted by: Grambler
originally posted by: BlackJackal
a reply to: Grambler
Are you talking about the Steele Dossier? Seriously? You consider that Russian Collision?
Why is the dirt hillary and the dems got from foriegn spies and kremlin officials perfectly reasonable
But the dirt that don jr was willing to look at but didnt get from kremlin officials is reason for this huge investigation.
Because what the Hillary campaign did was well within the law. They paid an American company for opposition research. That company contacted Steele and he contacted people in Russia to get information.
Trump allegedly worked directly with Russia to get Clinton’s emails. He even asked Russia to get her deleted emails during a debate.
How In the world are those two things comparable?
This has been over before.
The law says that you may not get something of value directly OR INDIRECTLY from foriegn people.
Hence paying a third party to do it does not make it legal.
Also, there has been not one shred of evidence that trump directly worked with russia to get hillarys emails.
please provide that.
If he did do that, he should be impeached and charged with a crime. But i see no proof of that whatsoever.
There’s the meeting in June 2016 at Trump Tower, in which Donald Trump Jr., campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner met with a lawyer with connections to the Russian government. The lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, apparently proceeded to outline how a businessman facing questionable criminal charges in Russia allegedly made donations to Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
Then there’s the hiring of former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele to dig up dirt on Trump on behalf of a research firm paid by a law firm working for Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee. Steele’s research involved talking to Russian government officials about what Trump and his campaign might have done, which Steele then compiled into reports that were eventually shared with federal law enforcement officials.
Most of the political conversation has centered on the impropriety and possible illegality of the first point of contact while not raising similar concerns about the second. President Trump has deliberately and regularly conflated the two, arguing that the former meeting was innocuous and that the real malfeasance — the real collusion — was between Clinton’s campaign and those Russians who were speaking to Steele.
Trump is incorrect. There is no reason to think that Clinton’s campaign is culpable for any illegal act related to the employment of Steele and good reason to think that the law was broken around the meeting at Trump Tower — and that members of the Trump team might face legal consequences.
...... (I cut out all the stuff explaining why Trump is culpable for Conspiracy since it is not pertinent, feel free to read if you would like)
So why doesn’t all of this apply to the pathway linking Clinton, the law firm, Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele? For a few key reasons.
One argument is that, since Steele is not a U.S. citizen, he would be barred from involvement in the campaign as surely as the Russians should have been. Lawrence Noble, former chief counsel for the FEC, explained the difference in the situations over email.
“Paying a foreign national fair market value for opposition research is generally not illegal,” Noble wrote. “It is considered a commercial transaction, which is not a contribution.” Clinton’s campaign had paid Fusion GPS directly; it’s a campaign expenditure, not a campaign contribution. Since it’s not a contribution, the FEC allows it.
Steele was hired by Fusion GPS to see what links might exist between Trump and Russian actors. Those connections, built during his service for the British government, were why he was valuable to Fusion GPS. It’s akin to a campaign looking to investigate an opponent’s history of real estate deals in Mexico: Hiring a Mexican firm that’s familiar with the available records would be perfectly legal, if the firm were paid with legally raised campaign contributions.
“I think there is something fundamentally different about the interference when it comes from a foreign government, as opposed to a foreign national individual or even business,” Noble added. “The campaign finance law doesn’t explicitly make that distinction, but it does implicitly show up in some FEC decisions regarding individuals. For example, a foreign national individual can undertake volunteer activity for a campaign, while a government can’t.”
Bauer noted that, since foreign nationals aren’t entitled to the same constitutional protections as Americans, it was rare for the campaign prohibitions to be tested. But the question of whether even a small contribution to a campaign could be made by a foreign national was at the center of Bluman v. Federal Election Commission, upheld by the Supreme Court in 2012. In that case, a D.C. Circuit Court panel determined that such contributions could not be allowed because “it is fundamental to the definition of our national political community that foreign citizens do not have a constitutional right to participate in, and thus may be excluded from, activities of democratic self-government.”
The majority opinion in that case was written by Brett Kavanaugh.
originally posted by: IkNOwSTuff
a reply to: BlackJackal
Either way I don’t see how Trump is the bad guy here
originally posted by: BlackJackal
originally posted by: IkNOwSTuff
a reply to: BlackJackal
Either way I don’t see how Trump is the bad guy here
Uh, he was colluding with a foreign government to assist him get elected. There is an email that states Russia is working with him. That is illegal. Are you really that ignorant?
This is hard evidence that he was working with Russia. What evidence do you have that Clinton was working with Russia? If not, guess what it's just hearsay.
“The statute’s written very, very broadly,” said Bob Bauer, a former White House counsel under Barack Obama who now teaches at New York University Law School. “It applies to promises of support — promises express or implied. It applies to independent expenditures, meaning those with express advocacy. It applies to any expenditure, meaning those that may not be express advocacy expenditures but are for the purpose of influencing the federal election. It applies to disbursements. It is extremely broad.”
“Paying a foreign national fair market value for opposition research is generally not illegal,” Noble wrote. “It is considered a commercial transaction, which is not a contribution.” Clinton’s campaign had paid Fusion GPS directly; it’s a campaign expenditure, not a campaign contribution. Since it’s not a contribution, the FEC allows it.
originally posted by: Grambler
a reply to: BlackJackal
So paying foreigners for dirt on your opponent is ok, but getting it for free is not? Hahahaha!!!
So how do we know don jr wasnt willing to pay the russian he met for the dirt if it had been presented?
And it wasnt just russian nationals giving hillarys team dirt, it was Kremlin officials.
originally posted by: BlackJackal
originally posted by: Grambler
a reply to: BlackJackal
So paying foreigners for dirt on your opponent is ok, but getting it for free is not? Hahahaha!!!
So how do we know don jr wasnt willing to pay the russian he met for the dirt if it had been presented?
And it wasnt just russian nationals giving hillarys team dirt, it was Kremlin officials.
If you can't see the difference between hiring a company for opposition research and secretly working directly with a foreign government and then lying about it, I can't help you.
originally posted by: BlackJackal
originally posted by: Grambler
a reply to: BlackJackal
So paying foreigners for dirt on your opponent is ok, but getting it for free is not? Hahahaha!!!
So how do we know don jr wasnt willing to pay the russian he met for the dirt if it had been presented?
And it wasnt just russian nationals giving hillarys team dirt, it was Kremlin officials.
If you can't see the difference between hiring a company for opposition research and secretly working directly with a foreign government and then lying about it, I can't help you.
originally posted by: BlackJackal
originally posted by: Grambler
a reply to: BlackJackal
So paying foreigners for dirt on your opponent is ok, but getting it for free is not? Hahahaha!!!
So how do we know don jr wasnt willing to pay the russian he met for the dirt if it had been presented?
And it wasnt just russian nationals giving hillarys team dirt, it was Kremlin officials.
If you can't see the difference between hiring a company for opposition research and secretly working directly with a foreign government and then lying about it, I can't help you.
You hava to provide proof, opinions are not facts. There is no email that states that, Jo cox user fell for that and seeing you lap it up shows your ignorance.
originally posted by: BlackJackal
originally posted by: IkNOwSTuff
a reply to: BlackJackal
Either way I don’t see how Trump is the bad guy here
Uh, he was colluding with a foreign government to assist him get elected. There is an email that states Russia is working with him. That is illegal. Are you really that ignorant?
This is hard evidence that he was working with Russia. What evidence do you have that Clinton was working with Russia? If not, guess what it's just hearsay.
originally posted by: JinMI
a reply to: BlackJackal
*ahem*
§30121. Contributions and donations by foreign nationals
(a) Prohibition
It shall be unlawful for-
(1) a foreign national, directly or indirectly, to make-
(A) a contribution or donation of money or other thing of value, or to make an express or implied promise to make a contribution or donation, in connection with a Federal, State, or local election;
(B) a contribution or donation to a committee of a political party; or
(C) an expenditure, independent expenditure, or disbursement for an electioneering communication (within the meaning of section 30104(f)(3) of this title); or
(2) a person to solicit, accept, or receive a contribution or donation described in subparagraph (A) or (B) of paragraph (1) from a foreign national.
www.nytimes.com...
During the Republican primaries, a research firm called Fusion GPS was hired by The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website, to unearth potentially damaging information about Mr. Trump. The Free Beacon — which was funded by a major donor supporting Mr. Trump’s rival for the party’s nomination, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida — told Fusion GPS to stop doing research on Mr. Trump in May 2016, as Mr. Trump was clinching the Republican nomination.
After Mr. Trump secured the nomination, Fusion GPS was hired on behalf of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign and the D.N.C. by their law firm, Perkins Coie, to compile research about Mr. Trump, his businesses and associates — including possible connections with Russia. It was at that point that Fusion GPS hired Mr. Steele, who has deep sourcing in Russia, to gather information.