Seth

Wrong.

The entire reason for the Mueller "investigation" was not the stated "to determine if there was Russian interference in the e******n," it was, pure and simple, to "find a way, any way, to prove that Trump colluded with the Russians to influence the e******n in his favor."

To that end, Mueller's "investigative" group was staffed entirely with severe anti-Trump and fervent Hillary supporters, not a neutral soul among them, and his chief "investigator" was an anti-Trump shark/attorney with a reputation for framing anyone he set out to convict.

Anyone who even infers that there was anything impartial about Mueller and Co. is full of feces, and anyone who thinks that anything about that make-up of "investigative" staff is even remotely in keeping with any kind of fairness or the spirit of American jurisprudence is either really stupid or simply so h**eful of this president that they are willing to disregard any fragment of honesty or decency -- in other words, scum.

That said, Mueller was being paid to find Russian Collusion, not to find the t***h. Since he and his kangaroo court style "inquiry" were unable to come up with even a shred of evidence to support the lie they were paid to bring to fruition, the only thing Mueller could do was claim that he couldn't "exonerate" the president instead of being t***hful and saying there was no "there" there.

When he testified before Congress, the man couldn't even "remember" or cite a single significant element of his so-called "investigation."

The Democrats subjected the American people to two years of that bulls**t at a cost of nearly $40 million to the hard working taxpayer, with Adam Schitt and innumerable mainstream media shills parroting the "we have irrefutable proof" narrative, only to find that we had been blatantly lied to.

Do you honestly believe that We, the People are that stupid or senile that we will have already forgotten that two year farce or can be fooled by any obfuscations the Democrats try to cover it over with?

Boy, are you in for a shock on 3 November!

Blade_Runner Loc: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

Hello, anybody in there? Wake up, your house is on fire.

The POTUS cannot suppress or obstruct evidence or testimony obtained in an independent federal investigation.

It is a crying shame that so many so-called Americans don't even know what country they live in.

.

Seth

Peewee Loc: San Antonio, TX

Only until 2021, got to save some good stuff for his second term.

Lt. Rob Polans ret.

Actually, how can he be exonerated for something he didn't do?

Lt. Rob Polans ret.

It's probably a lie Seth.

Lt. Rob Polans ret.

There you go. Oh, I know what she's thinking Russia, Russia, Russia.

Seth

I wouldn't doubt it. Most Democrat talking points are based on propaganda and outright lies -- they have to lie, because if they actually laid out their actual "reasoning" or their true political agendas, over 90% of U.S. v**ers would utterly reject them as a viable American political party.

Milosia2 Loc: Cleveland Ohio

Don’t you ever get s**k of faux noise lying to you?
We The People have no Representation!
Citizens United is now we the people.
Corporations have replaced people
And money is now speech!
They have bought and paid for their representation.
Don’t cry now you’ve been working for them against your own interests now for a while.

Milosia2 Loc: Cleveland Ohio

Ok you got me , I added the word exonerate.
Tongue in cheek.
I should’ve known better.
If it would exonerate him, Why would he suppress it?

Seth

Have you been drinking?

Seth

That's why many of us question whether this item about his trying to suppress it is accurate.

Milosia2 Loc: Cleveland Ohio

Wrong!

As Russian Bounty Scandal Unfolds, Remember This: Robert Mueller Found Plenty of Collusion
Donald Trump
by Amanda Marcotte | July 3, 2020 - 7:38am

— from Salon



Although Donald Trump now claims the whole thing is a "h**x" — his favorite term to discredit any story that's true — the president was clearly told by intelligence officials that Russia was paying bounties to Afghan fighters to k**l American troops. Over the weekend, the New York Times reported that Trump was briefed and there was a large intra-agency meeting held by the National Security Council. When the White House denied that Trump had ever heard anything about this, sources came up with a date for the briefing: Feb. 27. Further reporting from the Associated Press indicates that Trump was shown an earlier version of this intelligence more than a year ago, and that then-national security adviser John Bolton personally briefed him in March 2019. Financial documents also back up the story, and the name of one Afghan middleman has surfaced.

Indeed, it's obvious Trump is lying about this is just from the fact that he's dismissing the entire story as a "h**x," even though his White House officials and Republican politicians are not contesting that these intelligence reports about Russian bounties actually exist. Yet Trump continues both to deny that he was briefed and also to claim, preposterously, "this is all a made up F**e News Media H**x."

Whenever he labels a story a "h**x," it's usually a safe bet that it's true. For instance, he declared that concerns about the novel c****av***s were a "h**x," and now we've seen 130,000 deaths and nearly 3 million people infected. Throughout the impeachment process he claimed the whole thing was a "h**x," even though White House transcripts made clear he had tried to blackmail the Ukrainian president into smearing Joe Biden. And of course, Trump loved to yell about the "Russian h**x" in reference to extensive interference with the 2016 e******n and the Trump's campaign's extensive collusion with that conspiracy.

Because of the meat grinder that is our current political situation and because of Trump's wind-up doll repetition of "no collusion," a lot of folks, especially in the media, have forgotten that last point: While special counsel Robert Mueller didn't find actions that could be charged as criminal conspiracy on Trump's behalf, he found extensive collusion with that conspiracy, by both Trump himself and his campaign staff. Like anything else Trump calls a "h**x," the Russia collusion story was real — and very damning.

That matters right now, and indeed it always did. The current scandal about the Russian bounties — which is in the mix with other scandals, such as Trump's mishandling of the economic crisis and his non-decision to let the c****av***s wash over the country in a deadly wave and, oh yeah, the w***e s*********t stuff — goes right back to Trump's peculiar affection for Russia and its authoritarian leader, Vladimir Putin. It isn't just that Trump loves Putin and won't hear a bad word about Russia. It's that he has a long history, documented in the Mueller report, of inviting Russia to help him c***t in e******ns and making it clear that he would use his power to assist Putin's agenda in return.

In April 2019, the website Just Security put together a thorough analysis of the Mueller report and found that "it provides significant evidence that Trump Campaign associates coordinated with, cooperated with, encouraged, or gave support to the Russia/WikiLeaks e******n i**********e activities."

The amount of such activity — some might call it collusion — is dizzying. Trump's campaign chair, Paul Manafort, shared internal campaign data with a Russian spy. Deputy campaign manager Rick Gates was in the car with Trump when Trump got a call tipping him off to a WikiLeaks dump, which we now know involved emails stolen by Russian intelligence. Donald Trump Jr. and other campaign staffers took a meeting in Trump Tower to discuss what they clearly hoped was a chance to get deeper into the conspiracy. Behind the scenes, Trump Jr. encouraged the Russian conspiracy and tried to set up back channels in order to get more involved.

For their efforts, the Russians got some important love tokens from Trump and his campaign in return. Trump rewrote the Republican platform to remove language condemning Russian aggression toward Ukraine. Trump's first, and very short-lived, national security adviser, Michael Flynn, got in trouble during his time on the t***sition team by implicitly promising Russia that sanctions levied under Barack Obama, in response to the e******n i**********e, would be removed. Arguably, Trump's threat to pull military aid from Ukraine was just more of the same, as it served not just his interests but Putin's as well.

Mueller proved a "quid." There was a ton of evidence of the "quo." There just wasn't direct evidence of the "pro," so much as a lot of raised eyebrows and a mutual, if unspoken, understanding.

Remember that 34 individuals were indicted or convicted or pled guilty to crimes as a result of Mueller's investigation. Trump himself clearly committed multiple obstruction of justice crimes in his efforts to cover up the conspiracy, and it's somewhere between possible and likely that his obstruction successfully concealed more evidence of collusion or even outright conspiracy.

Most likely there wasn't an overt conspiracy because there didn't have to be. Trump understood he was getting illegal help from the Russians, and used his public platform repeatedly to indicate to let Moscow know they would feel his gratitude for their help. Furthermore, reading the Mueller report, one gets the impression that Russian spies looked into the possibility of more direct conspiracy with the Trump campaign, but when they witnessed what a bunch of incompetent amateurs they were dealing with, felt it was better to leave Trump and his family out of the loop with the conspiracy against the American people.

It's important to reiterate all these facts and analysis because it helps us understand what the hell is going on with this Russian bounty story. Trump is both grateful for the extensive and illegal help he got from the Russia in the 2016 e******n and hoping to get more such help in 2020. (Which he hasn't exactly been coy about.)

This history suggests that Trump may not be directly conspiring with Putin, but appears to have an unspoken understanding with the Russian president: Putin will give Trump campaign help and Trump will look the other way when Putin takes actions to undermine Western democracy.

As anyone with a Twitter account and a political opinion could tell you, Russia is upholding this end of this bargain, actively using social media to expose Americans to the same psy-ops that Putin has used against his own people for years.

This context helps us understand Trump's behavior, as well. A new report from CNN's Jim Sciutto paints a picture of Trump's attitude toward intelligence reports that have unfavorable information about Putin and Russia: He doesn't want to hear it, and has bullied and browbeaten officials so much that they've given up on offering him substantive intelligence about Russia's activities.

"The President has created an environment that dissuades, if not prohibits, the mentioning of any intelligence that isn't favorable to Russia," one official told Sciutto.

This isn't really that mysterious. Trump is grateful for Russia's help and wants more of it. He understands that the price of such help is not interfering with Putin's anti-democratic machinations. So he's intimidated intelligence officials into rarely or never broaching the subject, and has actively used the powers of his office to aid Putin, such as trying to get Russia back into the G7. It doesn't need to be a conspiracy. But one might call it collusion.

There have already been American deaths linked to these Russian bounties. Trump refuses to own up to the fact that it was wrong to ignore the intelligence in the first place, and even continues to deny that any of it's true. By calling the story a "h**x," Trump is signaling to Putin that he's got the Russian leader's back, and that wh**ever Putin wishes to do in the global arena, Trump will not only look the other way but will make excuses for him.

There's a lot of chatter about Trump having been blackmailed or paid off by Russians, and heaven knows our situation is so bonkers that you can't rule that out entirely. But we also don't need that sort of explanation, when the most obvious one is staring us in the face: Trump wants Russia to help him c***t in 2020, just like they helped him c***t in 2016, and he's willing to do wh**ever he can to make sure that happens. If the price requires the blood of American soldiers, then so be it.

Seth

Salon couldn't get any farther left if it lost its right foot. It could have given Pravda propaganda lessons back in the day.

If you want to know about "bounty," you need look no further than the Bidens and Ukraine.

Milosia2 Loc: Cleveland Ohio

Welcome to your new world where everything everything is to the left of you and your trumpet party.
This proves how far you’ve gone to the right. Now you’ve lost all hope of centrist anything. Centrist for you is still way far right.