Was very proud to have him as my rep when I lived in Pasadena CA… He is very engaged with his constituency as well. Always polling them, taking their pulse on a regular basis. I met him twice, and offered my own take on a couple of policy positions. He not only listened but incorporated some of it into his own platform, which I found pretty amazing. A rep who both listens and acts? I wonder how many of our congress-critters actually do that?
But he is right in my view. A clear “intent to collude”. Never mind the results, those don’t matter here. Intent certainly does.
I’m still bothered by the detail so far overlooked by the media. The Russian attorney was flying in from Moscow for a separate meeting, which Don Jr. was apparently aware of, and so they scheduled the Tower meeting for “after 3pm”… If Don Jr. knew nothing of her identity, as he claimed, then how was he already privy to her other planned event that day? And if he knew about that event, how could he not know who she was?
I really want to know what that other meeting was. She was flying in from Moscow “for this Thursday”… a meeting that Trump already knew about. What was it? And did he know exactly who she was? I’m guessing yes.
Just because no names were mentioned in the emails doesn’t mean they didn’t know the people involved.
…demonstrated “a willingness not only to accept” information from the lawyer “but to indicate to Russia what the best timing was.”
Once again, Schiff comes through. This is an excellent point, and one that hasn’t received enough attention. Consider the already-infamous statement “I love it, especially later in the summer.”
The “I love it” part of that sentence got a lot of attention (and rightfully so), but the second part – “especially later in the summer” – is even more damning, as it shows an intent to actively coordinate with the Russians on the release of damaging materials.
But the bank vault turned out to be empty, your honor.
Or any number of other analogies.
And of course we only have the (pretty worthless) personal assurances of Don Jr, etc, that the drugs were bad / the vault empty. But it’s already so bad that even if he’s (now) telling the whole truth about this meeting, it’s already a pretty clear example of collusion. And that’s my only quibble with Schiff’s phrasing here…the e-mail exchange certainly does show intent, but actually sitting down for the meeting on those terms seems like it goes beyond casual interest/intent and amounts to actual collusion, albeit a (supposedly) failed incident of collusion. Whether it rises to the level of a prosecutable criminal conspiracy, I dunno. But presumably that’s what Mueller is going to have to decide.
I think it’s totally plausible that PP thought they were going to get specific information to use against Clinton, and then announced he’d soon give a speech on what he learned. Then at the next meeting it was explained that HE wasn’t going to be given info to announce, that the American people were going to be fed a series of damaging stories about Clinton directly through their social media accounts.
Good to hear that you’re so pleased with Schiff as your representative and that he’s no media hound, but a serious Democratic member of Congress. Thanks for the background info!
Agreed. To use my To Catch a Predator analogy, I’m not sure the predator can get in much trouble for simply chatting with someone in a chat room who they believe is a child. But once he shows up to what he believes is her house then all bets are off. DJ showed up with the equivalent of a box of condoms and a bottle of liquor, and now they’re claiming there was nothing wrong with what he did because the only person there was Chris Hansen.
And as needs to be pointed out every time this comes up, it doesn’t matter whether there was an exchange of info: just taking the meeting itself, under these terms, was itself compromising and could be used for leverage, which they only made worse by proceeding to lie about it. That’s why the legality is a side issue: it could be technically legal, but that would be no defense against the moral, ethical and political repercussions of having it exposed. The mere fact of taking the meeting was to wittingly or obliviously open themselves to blackmail. Because whatever lies they told us, the Russians knew what happened.
Has it been claimed that the folder did in fact contain dirt?
And that it was the dirt on HRC or some organization she’s involved with?
All I’ve seen thus far is that Akmetshin gave an account which included an assertion that Veselnitskaya brought a folder with her to the meeting and did not leave with it.
If it is the context of impeachment proceedings, yes.
Article II section 2:
“and he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.”
They can if the motive of the person posing as a “child” is blackmail–if that’s the predator, and the other party was just, hey, y’know, curious. Want your wife to know? Your boss? I think that’s the analogy here.
I’m being a bit of a Johnny one-note on this but it’s important to see that the meeting itself was (I’m quite certain) meant to compromise the attendees. It’s standard practice–they tried the same thing on the doofus Carter (“but I didn’t give 'em anything secret”) Page. The mere fact of showing interest to the extent of a first step, any step, becomes leverage for more serious acts going forward. I suspect these shitheads were so eager and oblivious that they went ahead with whatever nod/wink arrangement was worked out at the meeting, but even that needn’t have occurred in order for it to work as leverage, given “Russians in favor of the Trump campaign and wanting to help with secret dirt on HRC” as an explicit part of the set-up.
What bugs me, and what I simply don’t get is why Trump thinks that all Americans, and not just the far right, consider Russia a model government to be emulated??? Russia is SO unattractive right now, I find it very hard to understand why Trump is so certain that Americans are lusting for a loving relationship with a country that generates little but oil, natural gas and a lot of criminals and hackers.
White House - Months 1 - 5. We didn’t collude; it’s a hoax; it’s a ruse; it’s disappointed democrats.
White House - Month 6 - We didn’t collude, but if we did, there’d be nothing wrong with it.
White House - Month 7 - We tried to collude, but nothing came of it. Waste of time.
Mr. Kushner, there is a call for you on line 2. It’s the Kremlin about your loans. Mr. Kushner?..
