We need to talk about Donald: cursing and swearing allowed

[Tyrannical]

Don't just sack Mueller, investigate him. He was head of the FBI when manafort actions were first investigated. When he was working for the Clintons....
Oh, and get Comey too.

[Tero]

Clinton is not president.

[devogue]

I have read the evidence and resultant official charges but I genuinely can't see where Trump is implicated in any of it.

Yes, the alleged perpetrators were associates of his, but I can't see how their alleged crimes have anything to do with the Trump-Russia affair.

[Svartalf]

well, they conspired to mess with the elections and he's benefited from it, he received the stolen goods...

[devogue]

well, they conspired to mess with the elections and he's benefited from it, he received the stolen goods...

But there is absolutely nothing in the charges that suggests that.

They are based entirely on personal financial irregularities and personal concealment from the US authorities of links with foreign organisations that should have been declared. Moreover, those links were in the Ukraine, not in Russia where we have been told Trump's team commited crimes.

There is nothing in the charges to suggest illegal involvement by either defendant for or on behalf of Trump.

[Svartalf]

c'mon, are you thick or just trolling?
no, don't answer, not even seth could be so thick

[JimC]

Trump may well have said to trusted aides during the campaign "use any dirty tricks you can find to do the dirt on Hillary, just don't tell me how you got the info". With a scenario like that, it may well be that formal legal evidence of Trump's involvement will not be available, but it is pretty clear that his whole campaign was irrevocably tainted by dirty deals with foreign powers pursuing their own national interests. He is morally culpable, if not legally so...

[Svartalf]

as the beneficiary of the rigged election, he still ought to be impeached, all hail pdt pence

[devogue]

c'mon, are you thick or just trolling?
no, don't answer, not even seth could be so thick

No, I will answer.

I would love nothing more than to see Trump crash and burn, and hopefully Russia will be what brings him down - I think that irrefutable proof of treason and consorting with Putin is really the only hope of getting rid of the turd without America collapsing in on itself entirely.

However, unlike you it seems, I have carefully read the indictments against Manafort and Gates in full, and I am telling you that there is nothing within those indictments that suggests illegal communication or plotting with the Russians on behalf of the Trump campaign.

The media is attempting to create an unnecessary and impatient storm by chucking Manafort and Gates in to a pot with the undoubtedly important Papadopoulos.

[L'Emmerdeur]

The charges could supply leverage to get Manafort and Gates to tell what they know about actual collusion.

On the other hand as you mention, the guilty plea by Papadopoulos is direct evidence of attempted collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Papadopoulos’ exact level of engagement in the Trump campaign became an instant point of debate on Monday: The White House downplayed him as a low-level “volunteer,” even as photos circulated of him sitting at a table with Trump and just two people away from attorney general Jeff Sessions.

Mueller’s bombshell announcement: Papadopoulos had worked with people he knew to be involved at a high level with the Russian government in an attempt to obtain “dirt” on Hillary Clinton, notably thousands of stolen emails. He had worked to “arrange a meeting between the Campaign and the Russian government officials” and had otherwise endeavored through multiple rounds of contacts with both Russian-linked individuals and with the Trump campaign to coordinate gaining access to material that would harm Trump’s Democratic opponent. At least one of his contacts was with a woman he believed—evidently incorrectly—was a niece of Russian president Vladimir Putin.

[devogue]

The charges could supply leverage to get Manafort and Gates to tell what they know about actual collusion.

Excellent point, but I really think the media do themselves no favours (and they need to be extra careful in the current climate).

[Brian Peacock]

I have read the evidence and resultant official charges but I genuinely can't see where Trump is implicated in any of it.

Yes, the alleged perpetrators were associates of his, but I can't see how their alleged crimes have anything to do with the Trump-Russia affair.

This isn't the entirety of the investigation, just the first round of indicments, and we have to remember that the connection being investigated is between the presidential campaign of Trump and a foreign government, not between Russia and Trump himself. As it stands Trump has a certain distance from the indictments published today, which mostly focus on Manafort and Gates convoluted schemes to hide the nature of their connection with Putin's political puppets in the Ukraine along with the incomes they received from many and varied sources and in turn spent overwhelmingly on political lobbying and PR firms - as well as enriching themselves while falsifying accounts and avoiding taxes. To the extent that the indictment outlines the lengths they went to obfuscate the nature of their business and political dealings gives Trump a buffer from the action of Manafort etc - though, of course, it doesn't distance him from the fact that he employed such a shady and dodgily connected dealer to manage his campaign in the first place.

[DRSB]

TRUMP MAY NOT SEEK RE-ELECTION: RAND PAUL, CHRIS CHRISTIE
http://www.newsweek.com/trump-2020-elec ... ort-696089

[Scot Dutchy]

Just remember Watergate. Nixon thought he was safe as well. These are just a few drops of stream that will eventually wash away Trump.

[Forty Two]

Clinton is not president.

If she was, would you think the allegations merited investigation?