Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim in CT
never. i’ve said
if he committed a crime, i wNt h vine more than anyone. i was told a million times the mueller report would be the final say, but as always, the left can’t handle it when it doesn’t go their way.
do you or spence or pete or GS or wdmso care that the doj used a dossier paid for by hilary, to spy on an american citizen?
i’m concerned about trump. and i’m concerned that hilary used the doj as her personal private eye firm. i’m concerned about both of those things. are you? or do you only care about one?
you people
learned absolutely nothing in 2016. Zip.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device
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And just when would you suggest looking at political operatives involvement with Russia?
Popadopoulous told an Australian diplomat about info on Russians having emails and the Aussie had more sense than anyone in the Trump campaign, including Trump to date.
“All we did was report what Papadopoulos said, and that was that he thought the Russians may release information that could be damaging to Hillary Clinton’s campaign at some stage before the election,” Downer told Sky News. “Now, he didn’t have to tell me that. I didn’t go to the meeting thinking he was even going to mention Russia in a context like the election campaign, I had no idea he would say that.”
Papadopoulos had several meetings with foreign individuals overseas, including Downer and Maltese professor Joseph Mifsud, during the 2016 presidential election. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report stated that Mifsud told Papadopoulos that the Russians had “dirt” in the form of emails that could damage Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. Papadopoulos then told Downer about his conversations with Mifsud.
Papadopoulos has previously suggested that the Downer meeting was part of a plot to lay the groundwork for the Russia probe.
Downer said that Papadopoulos “chose” to share that information with him.
“I have no idea why he was blabbering this, but if you say that sort of thing to somebody who is part of the Five Eyes intelligence community, I mean, I would regard myself as a warrior for the western alliance, but if it is drawn to my attention that the Russians might be hacking into the campaigns of major candidates in western elections and then using that information to try to influence the outcome of those elections, that would really worry me,” he explained.
“Russia is not a friendly pal when it comes to western interests, and if they’re hacking into our elections, then that’s something we should try to stop,” Downer said. “I don’t know why he told me this, but he did and we reported it and the rest is history, but there is no defense for him saying it is some sort of weird conspiracy, I mean, it’s what he told me.”
Would you suggest we not investigate the unusual ties of several other Trump campaign aides to Russia. The early investigation focused on Papadopoulos, as well as Trump senior adviser Michael Flynn, campaign manager Paul Manafort, and foreign policy adviser Carter Page. Flynn had been paid $45,000 by Russia's state-sponsored television network RT for a 2015 speech in Moscow, where he was given a place of honor at the same dinner table as President Vladimir Putin. Manafort had been paid millions lobbying for pro-Russian interests in Ukraine. Page, an oil industry consultant who had lived in Russia for three years during the early 2000s, was already well known to the FBI. Russian spies had attempted to recruit him as an asset in 2013, after which a Russian operative was overheard in a wiretapped conversation telling his superiors that Page was "an idiot." As a Trump campaign aide, Page traveled to Moscow for three days in July 2016. While there, he gave a speech harshly criticizing the Obama administration's foreign policy toward Russia and met with officials of Rosneft, a state-run oil company. The FBI obtained a secret court order to wiretap Page in October, after he had left the campaign. That warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has become one of the most controversial parts of the investigation.
After Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, citing "this Russia thing," special counsel Robert Mueller conducted a two-year investigation that concluded that Russia had interfered in the 2016 presidential election "in a sweeping and systematic fashion." Mueller found that several people close to Trump — including Manafort and longtime confidant Roger Stone — had had dozens of contacts with Russians and were "receptive" to offers of help. Mueller also found 10 instances in which Trump personally may have obstructed justice in trying to limit or shut down the investigation. Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the committee's work had convinced him that the FBI had no choice but to begin a probe. "There was a growing body of evidence that a foreign government was attempting to interfere in both the process and the debate surrounding our elections," Rubio said. "The [FBI's] job is to investigate counter-intelligence. That's what they did."