President 'The Donald' Trump and Surprising Consequences - Mod warning in OP

Hank Scorpio

CMOTDibbler wrote: »

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I understood the recent leaks to be about hacking of the election software systems and the above to be of voter databases.

Are they not different and separate systems?

Does it matter if they are? Comey and all the goons testified post election there was attempts to hack vote tallies but they weren't successful.

mcmoustache

Christy42 wrote: »

As much as I have disagreed with him I agree with Hank.

Someone who supports Trump is not necessarily a Russian bot.

That's a response to an argument that nobody's making though.

Billy86

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

Old news. There's been sworn testimonies about it, but none effected the outcome of the election.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/russians-hacked-two-u-s-voter-databases-say-officials-n639551

I don't remember ever saying people never talked to Russians, that's not a crime.

EDIT: Old news that Trump fans tried to laugh off as fake news up until today, though I'm sure plenty will still give it a go. also that's a completely different story you linked to, from August. This occurred days before the election, do November or late October.

Why did they repeatedly lie about having not talked to Russians, both before and after the election?

I have a pretty distinct memory of you implying Flynn did nothing wrong as there was no proof he did anything wrong, and it being pointed out to you that it was still being looked into. Not long after, it was shown Flynn did indeed to plenty wrong and he was shown the door (a full two weeks after the Trump administration were made aware but only right after it got more traction in the news) and the line shifted.

CMOTDibbler

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

Does it matter if they are? Comey and all the goons testified post election there was attempts to hack vote tallies but they weren't successful.

I think you'll find that they said that there was no evidence that they were successfully hacked. Not quite the same thing.

mcmoustache

NinjaKirby wrote: »

Serious question for you.

Do you think that Trump would have won the election without Russian interference?

He certainly could have won without Russian interference, yes. He made more appearances in important sates than his opponent and that stuff counts. I won't say that he definitely would have won because that's impossible at this point.

Again, though, I'm not sure that many people are making the argument that he wouldn't have won without Russian help.

Christy42

mcmoustache wrote: »

That's a response to an argument that nobody's making though.

It read that way a bit. As I said later in the post the discussion seemed largely unclear and not massively important.

On a different topic. As for the Russian interference with the machines it is still a serious issue even if they did fail. It may not de legitimise the victory Trump had but he should respond. Until further collusion is proven that is the big take for me.

Trump is either too weak to stand up to Russia (diplomatically) or compromised or is currently thinking of a response (from his twitter this seems unlikely). People can take their pick of the first two but his record on Russia is hilarious and it should be hammered in as much as possible. I still want journalists and senators to refuse to let him speak about anything else till he admits he was lying about having proof of Russia's innocence or offers up said proof.

A simple admission of misleading the public should only take a second and we all know he was lying.

Billy86

CMOTDibbler wrote: »

I think you'll find that they said that there was no evidence that they were successfully hacked. Not quite the same thing.

We've been down this road umpteen times before...

Hank Scorpio

Billy86 wrote: »

Why did they repeatedly lie about having not talked to Russians, both before and after the election?

I have a pretty distinct memory of you implying Flynn did nothing wrong as there was no proof he did anything wrong, and it being pointed out to you that it was still being looked into. Not long after, it was shown Flynn did indeed to plenty wrong and he was shown the door (a full two weeks after the Trump administration were made aware but only right after it got more traction in the news) and the line shifted.

Are you talking about Stone, Page, Manafort etc? Page and Stone are on TV interviews all day loving the attention. If you're talking about Sessions I still think it's ridiculous the scrutiny he got when he was clearly asked about the dossier and his meetings with the Russian ambassador were public knowledge.

I said Flynn was fired for misleading Pence and that the FBI cleared his phone-calls of any wrongdoing. My view did shift on him though, if I had to pick one person who I think has something to hide it's Flynn. That's still not evidence of collusion though , he hid lobbying activities.

I think if you pulled up a random Politician in US Government and scrutinised their connections enough, you could make story after story by saying X talked to this Russian and Y talked to this Russian, and IMO, for the most part, that's what's been going on.

mcmoustache

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

What has Trump done that's illegal? He won the election and this partisan entitlement that's he's not legitimate is ridiculous. He's messed up badly so far but constant hot air about Russia isn't going to change anything.

I see we're at that point now. It's probably best not to claim that Trump never did anything illegal. I'd recommend getting ahead and saying "never been convicted of anything illegal".

Also, this is much more than hot air but you already know that. You can run around screaming "FAKE NEWS" all you like but that doesn't fly outside of Breitbart, infowars et al.

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

Even Democrats as of two days ago are still saying there's no evidence of collusion.

I'm not sure which statements those are but I'm willing to bet that they didn't make the claim that you're crediting them with. My guess is that they saw no evidence or no smoking gun. I could be wrong about this but your record of misrepresenting people is fairly consistent.

Hank Scorpio

CMOTDibbler wrote: »

I think you'll find that they said that there was no evidence that they were successfully hacked. Not quite the same thing.

It's not, but if we're going by that logic they don't know where Wikileaks got the emails.

Hank Scorpio

mcmoustache wrote: »

I'm not sure which statements those are but I'm willing to bet that they didn't make the claim that you're crediting them with. My guess is that they saw no evidence or no smoking gun. I could be wrong about this but your record of misrepresenting people is fairly consistent.

Pedantic nonsense.

Leroy42

Leroy42 wrote: »

No, Trump just said it from the podium. Saved on the phone bill.

Winning

Yeah, its a joke but it goes to the point you wer making.

Your said;

Originally Posted by Hank Scorpio View Post
Could you give an example of collusion, did they ring up the Russians and ask them to hack the DNC? I don't even know what the word means anymore.

He directly asked the Russians to find HC emails. The only way they could achieve that is to hack them. You were looking for evidence and I gave it to you.

Billy86

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

Are you talking about Stone, Page, Manafort etc? Page and Stone are on TV interviews all day loving the attention. If you're talking about Sessions I still think it's ridiculous the scrutiny he got when he was clearly asked about the dossier and his meetings with the Russian ambassador were public knowledge.

I said Flynn was fired for misleading Pence and that the FBI cleared his phone-calls of any wrongdoing. My view did shift on him though, if I had to pick one person who I think has something to hide it's Flynn. That's still not evidence of collusion though even though he hid lobbying activities.

I think if you pulled up a random Politician in US Government and scrutinised their connections enough, you could make story after story by saying X talked to this Russian and Y talked to this Russian, and IMO, for the most part, that's what's been going on.

I'm talking about multiple people across the campaign. there was Sessions. There was Stone & Manafort, if I recall. There was Kushner too if I am . Flynn also of course. Carter Page as well. I'm probably forgetting a few others too, and this from the administration whose campaign team got caught on camera looking for financial donations from foreign entities in exchange for the ability to 'whisper in the president's ear'.

Clearly there was more than enough smoke to start a fire, and Trump's apparent attempts to remove Russian sanctions as soon as he got into the White House did little to help him. Destabilisation would have been Putin's main goal which if he was involved has been achieved alright, but if he has been colluding with Trump's team, when it comes to getting even more out of the deal he really must spend some time wondering what kind of idiot he's after getting into bed with.

And as for the collusion, that's kind of the whole point of the investigation. You don't get to show up early in a court case and try and declare "see!? No evidence so far, let's just call it all off!" That's not how it works.

Billy86

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

It's not, but if we're going by that logic they don't know where Wikileaks got the emails.

Well if anyone listens to Assange, he wanted us to think Seth Rich was where they got them. Very strange, that.

Hank Scorpio

Billy86 wrote: »

And as for the collusion, that's kind of the whole point of the investigation. You don't get to show up early in a court case and try and declare "see!? No evidence so far, let's just call it all off!" That's not how it works.

Of course, we can only give our predictions but I'm hard pressed to believe it when they've been tapping people since July of last year and still found nothing incriminating. If he's guilty or not a statement needs to be made because this is just complete madness, I'll gladly eat my hat if he is, only time will tell.

mcmoustache

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

I think if you pulled up a random Politician in US Government and scrutinised their connections enough, you could make story after story by saying X talked to this Russian and Y talked to this Russian, and IMO, for the most part, that's what's been going on.

The collective amnesia over meetings with the ambassador are a bit sketchy though.

Would it be normal for a new administration to completely forget having met with the Russian ambassador when filling out security clearance forms or answering questions under oath? It's not a great look, now is it.

Neither is attempting up a back-channel which could be monitored by Russian intelligence services but not by US intelligence services.

Neither is attempting to put pressure on Comey to drop the Flynn investigation - we'll know the answer to this on Thursday.

Whatever about Trump not being convicted of anything yet and whatever about the lack of evidence made available to the public due to an ongoing FBI investigation, something stinks about this administration.

Hank Scorpio

Billy86 wrote: »

Well if anyone listens to Assange, he wanted us to think Seth Rich was where they got them. Very strange, that.

I don't believe him 100% either fwiw, if he's purposely misleading people it's a perfect disinformation tactic to maintain Wikileaks credibility masking the fact they likely got duped by the Russians.

mcmoustache

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

Pedantic nonsense.

Not at all. There's a bit difference between saying "I haven't seen the moon" versus "There is no moon".

Hank Scorpio

mcmoustache wrote: »

The collective amnesia over meetings with the ambassador are a bit sketchy though.

Would it be normal for a new administration to completely forget having met with the Russian ambassador when filling out security clearance forms or answering questions under oath? It's not a great look, now is it.

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/05/24/politics/jeff-sessions-russian-officials-meetings/index.html

"As a United States Senator, the Attorney General met hundreds -- if not thousands -- of foreign dignitaries and their staff," spokesman Ian Prior said. "In filling out the SF-86 form, the Attorney General's staff consulted with those familiar with the process, as well as the FBI investigator handling the background check, and was instructed not to list meetings with foreign dignitaries and their staff connected with his Senate activities."

That sounds like a perfectly reasonable explanation to me.

Why would he purposely lie under oath when the meetings were on public record? He was specifically asked about the dossier allegations, I genuinely believe he didn't intend to mislead and it only became a big deal the day after Trump gave his congress speech.

Neither is attempting up a back-channel which could be monitored by Russian intelligence services but not by US intelligence services.

Obama had a similar back channel with Iran. Why didn't it already exist if something dodgy was going on? If the intelligence agencies are leaking everything and preventing the white house from communicating with Russia it seems an obvious solution and there is nothing illegal about it.

Neither is attempting to put pressure on Comey to drop the Flynn investigation - we'll know the answer to this on Thursday.

Yup

Whatever about Trump not being convicted of anything yet and whatever about the lack of evidence made available to the public due to an ongoing FBI investigation, something stinks about this administration.

Can't criticise you for thinking that.

CMOTDibbler

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

It's not, but if we're going by that logic they don't know where Wikileaks got the emails.

In this context, 'successfully' means actually changing something. That's very hard to ascertain. It's far less difficult to establish illegal access to systems and to know where that originated from. It's far more difficult, if not impossible to detect what data was extracted or changed.

Hank Scorpio

CMOTDibbler wrote: »

In this context, 'successfully' means actually changing something. That's very hard to ascertain. It's far less difficult to establish illegal access to systems and to know where that originated from. It's far more difficult, if not impossible to detect what data was extracted or changed.

That's just shíte tbh which makes no sense in technical terms, the opposite is true. Anyone can hide behind a Russian IP address or use a Tor client to have anonymity. If things get altered their timestamps and so on change and server backups can be used to compare databases.

Leroy42

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

"As a United States Senator, the Attorney General met hundreds -- if not thousands -- of foreign dignitaries and their staff," spokesman Ian Prior said. "In filling out the SF-86 form, the Attorney General's staff consulted with those familiar with the process, as well as the FBI investigator handling the background check, and was instructed not to list meetings with foreign dignitaries and their staff connected with his Senate activities."

That sounds like a perfectly reasonable explanation to me.

Yes, you are correct in that is sounds perfectly reasonable. The only problem being that there is no evidence that he was meeting them as part of Senate business.

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

Why would he purposely lie under oath when the meetings were on public record? He was specifically asked about the dossier allegations, I genuinely believe he didn't intend to mislead and it only became a big deal the day after Trump gave his congress speech.

The AG, whether he meant to or not, lied under oath. That in itself should be enough to get him fired. As to the reason, are you really asking why anybody would lie?

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

Obama had a similar back channel with Iran. Why didn't it already exist if something dodgy was going on? If the intelligence agencies are leaking everything and preventing the white house from communicating with Russia it seems an obvious solution and there is nothing illegal about it.

Seems plausible, accept for the fact that Obama, as POTUS, can do that. Kushner, Flynn and even until his inaugeration Trump, are specifically disallowed from carrying out these meetings without the consent of POTUS

The IC were not stopping the WH from communicating with Russia, they were saying that Russia should be treated with suspicion. The Trump transition team seem to take this to mean that the IC should be bypassed.

Hank Scorpio

Leroy42 wrote: »

The AG, whether he meant to or not, lied under oath. That in itself should be enough to get him fired.

No it's not, perjury is willfully false testimony.

CMOTDibbler

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

That's just shíte tbh which makes no sense in technical terms, the opposite is true. Anyone can hide behind a Russian IP address or use a Tor client to have anonymity. If things get altered their timestamps and so on change and server backups can be used to compare databases.

Since it's possible (and quite widely used) to block all or most Tor exit nodes, it's unlikely that such attacks came through them. Especially since there would be bandwidth limitations inherent in using the Tor network. I'm not saying it's impossible, just unlikely.

And since the attacks have been tracked back to Russia, the reality is that they weren't that hard to track.

aloyisious

If some-one from outside the US hacked into the US electoral system to interfere with voter registration and post fake ballot papers and material, doesn't that counts as voter fraud as described under US law? I can see, from online sources outlining US voter fraud law, that offences are listed for such activities done from within the US. Maybe it's not criminal to do so from outside the US.

I'd have thought that Don, as president, should take a personal interest in getting to the bottom of that as required by the oath of office that he swore: I will to the best of my ability protect, preserve and defend the Constitution of the US. If Don denies it took place without a thorough investigation and/or hinders such an investigation, is it a sackable offence for which both upper and lower houses should make him answer?

Leroy42

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

No it's not, perjury is willfully false testimony.

Hence why I didn't use the word perjury.

He lied, he has acknowledged that. This isn't some 2 bit hustler from the Bronx or wherever. It is a man going forward for the position of AG of the USA.

There should be some standards, and I would have expected that the minimum of them would be able to tell the truth. He didn't prevaricate, he didn't say as far as I recall etc, he said he hadn't.

And he had.

If you accept that as being nothing other than a slip of the tongue, thats fine, but how you can accept that such an ill-prepared and ill-judged person should he the head legal mind in the US is beyond me,

Hank Scorpio

Leroy42 wrote: »

If you accept that as being nothing other than a slip of the tongue, thats fine, but how you can accept that such an ill-prepared and ill-judged person should he the head legal mind in the US is beyond me,

Once he stays off the tarmac he'll be grand.

mcmoustache

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/05/24/politics/jeff-sessions-russian-officials-meetings/index.html

"As a United States Senator, the Attorney General met hundreds -- if not thousands -- of foreign dignitaries and their staff," spokesman Ian Prior said. "In filling out the SF-86 form, the Attorney General's staff consulted with those familiar with the process, as well as the FBI investigator handling the background check, and was instructed not to list meetings with foreign dignitaries and their staff connected with his Senate activities."

That sounds like a perfectly reasonable explanation to me.

Why would he purposely lie under oath when the meetings were on public record? He was specifically asked about the dossier allegations, I genuinely believe he didn't intend to mislead and it only became a big deal the day after Trump gave his congress speech.

I can accept this. It would not be that unusual for a law maker to meet an ambassador. I'm not in a position to say whether the advice from the FBI agent was correct so I'll give him a pass on this one.

What's odd is the rest of his and others' amnesia. This could be somewhat understandable if they forgot meetings with the ambassador from Buttfúckistan but this was at a time when supposed Russian collusion was very much in the news. It's a bit strange that they wouldn't check their calendars for that sort of thing.

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

Obama had a similar back channel with Iran. Why didn't it already exist if something dodgy was going on? If the intelligence agencies are leaking everything and preventing the white house from communicating with Russia it seems an obvious solution and there is nothing illegal about it.

What do you mean by "similar". There's a world of difference between what Obama did and what Kushner did. A secure communication line that the Russians can monitor but not the US?

aloyisious

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

Of course, we can only give our predictions but I'm hard pressed to believe it when they've been tapping people since July of last year and still found nothing incriminating. If he's guilty or not a statement needs to be made because this is just complete madness, I'll gladly eat my hat if he is, only time will tell.

It's possible, if it still exists, that it's being kept for committee evidence hearing to get things done properly, though with so much leaking practiced by all sides it's probably hard for people to resist going down the road of least resistance. It would be really great and probably the best leak-way, for some paper of worth to come out with an absolutely triple-source-checked "Deep-Throat" insider story.

It's probable that it would take a party with major "unofficial" and deniable interests in what's happening using an established foreign non-US newspaper [say a Swiss publication] to release a flood of incriminating documents refuting Don's denials.

I can't see Don doing a "mea culpa" at this stage, or ever. It doesn't seem to be in his nature.

Igotadose

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

Obama had a similar back channel with Iran. .

Not true. http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2017/jun/02/kimberley-strassel/did-obama-seek-back-channel-talks-iran-during-his-/

And as the article goes on to state, discussions with Iran were well covered by journalists - something Trump and Tillerson badly dislike.

Plus as was pointed out elsewhere, Obama can do this when he's President. Jared Kushner can't. Ever.
Trump can't before he's POTUS.