When the President Does It, That Means It's Not Illegal

[Norman]

Pass the popcorn!

Obama's spying scandal is starting to look a lot like Watergate.

https://nypost.com/2018/05/27/obamas-spying-scandal-is-starting-to-look-a-lot-like-watergate/

“F.B.I. Used Informant to Investigate Russia Ties to Campaign, Not to Spy, as Trump Claims,” read the headline on a lengthy New York Times story May 18. “The Justice Department used a suspected informant to probe whether Trump campaign aides were making improper contacts with Russia in 2016,” read a story in the May 21 edition of the Wall Street Journal.

So much for those who dismissed charges of Obama administration infiltration of Donald Trump’s campaign as paranoid fantasy. Defenders of the Obama intelligence and law enforcement apparat have had to fall back on the argument that this infiltration was for Trump’s — and the nation’s — own good.

It’s an argument that evidently didn’t occur to Richard Nixon’s defenders when it became clear that Nixon operatives had burglarized and wiretapped the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters in June 1972.

Related.
” Bad as these latest developments are, however, they pale in comparison to looming negative consequences now that the State Department has begun dribbling out more than 30,000 missing Clinton emails, together with supporting attachments.”

They aren't spying people, they are looking after people.

 

[forkup]

So, when do you think Putin and the Russians approached Trump, like they have done many times with many different Presidential candidates, and offered him aid were he to run?

I got my money on the Pageant in Moscow.

I'm just curious whether Mueller has testimony or some document showing that someone in the Trump campaign agreed to accept aid from the Russian govt. And it there's any showing Trump personally agreed to accept the help.

There'd not be anything illegal in Legal Team Trump paying some private person in Russia for dirt on Hillary. But if the private person actually handed over illegally obtained data/documents, then it's illegal. It's like when someone handed Al Gore debate material from W's campaign - they immediately called the FBI because they smelled something fishy. Don't touch the kryptonite.

It's a fact that Trump told the Boychinkins to meet with the Russian spy to get dirt on Hillary. But I don't think we know whether she actually gave anything. And while Team Trump ordered the platform to take out language on Ukraine, I don't think there's yet any evidence publically shown that proves a quid pro quo of giving that explicitly for help.

What might happen is that Team Trump got facebook data from Russia. Proving the link to the Russians to the Govt would seem difficult, though there's not really a distinction between the gummit and oligarchs. It might not be obviously illegal, but it may stink like dead carp in Volga.

I think you left out an important little piece of information. The private Russian person you refer to, advertised herself as speaking for the Russian government. This at the very least speaks to a willingness to accept the help of an adversarial foreign government. As to the illegality of it. It seems to me that if a person buying powdered sugar on the presumption of buying cocaine can still be arrested. Then this instance of false advertising could very well be illegal too. All on the presumption I accept the premise that the lawyer wasn't in fact speaking for Putin, something that is being questioned.