Discussion: The Longstanding Trump-Russia Unknowns That Mueller Finally Answered

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And somehow on all of that, no charges.

I really hope that the Dems bring out Kushner and Jr. for public testimony. Will be amusing to watch 5 hours of, “I plead the fifth” from both, and make the conspiracy that couldn’t be proven because people obstructed clear to even the densest of people.

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The two sides’ accounts differ on what occurred at the meeting; Kushner says the discussion revolved around diplomatic issues, while VEB framed it in the context of potential investments, possibly including 666 Fifth Avenue.

Mueller says that the investigation “did not resolve the apparent conflict” in the two accounts […]

This makes it even more mystifying why Kushner was not subpoenaed. There really is one law for the rich and powerful and one law for the rest of us.

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You questioned that before?

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“At the meeting, Kushner made his now-infamous pitch to use the Russian embassy’s secure room for a briefing by Russian generals on the situation in Syria.”

And the perfectly innocent explanation for this request – from a private citizen in 2016 – is what exactly?

(“Who among us HASN’T tried to sneak into a Russian embassy in the trunk of a car to use the Vlad line?”)

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Wanted a custom matryoshka doll for his father-in-law to commemorate the historic victory.

Since his father-in-law was receiving regular briefings from the CIA and NSA now, didn’t want to give him a heads-up that it was coming.

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Your lips to the goddess’s ear.

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Pelosi?

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And I also hope that they use committee counsel to ask a one-hour round of questioning at the beginning of the hearing.

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“Was Kushner involved in some sinister quid-pro-quo leveraging U.S. national security in exchange for the mixed-use potential of 666 Fifth Avenue? Or was he simply taking meetings with any operative who’d call him up, Russian or otherwise?”

Aren’t these the same things? Kushner was leveraging anything he could with anyone who’d take his calls. Desperate people do desperate things. If he didn’t make a deal with the Russians, it’s because he got a better deal with someone else. I’m guessing tracking this down was outside of Mueller’s investigation, but I’d look in the direction of Saudi Arabia.

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I’m honestly beginning to think maybe there was no deliberate obstruction or collusion, because Trump & Co. are too feckin’ stupid to rise to the level of deliberate espionage.

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Works for me.

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The obtuseness of the Trump campaign members continues to impress…honestly, they couldn’t have screwed up collaborating more if they were trying to. The Russians must have looked at them as amateurs and decided to work around them, extracting a bit of data from the one person they knew (Manafort) to support their efforts. Russia’s team was sophisticated enough to do it all on their own, they didn’t need Trump et al and probably planned to get something out of them later.

It would really be interesting to see what the grand jury thought about some of this stuff…Mueller couldn’t connect the dots due to a lot of interference, which means no evidence to prove the case, but there’s a lot of smoke and a jury may have decided that it needed more investigation. This is where the Democrats need to focus, they should drag all these people in and grill them, hopefully something pops out…at the least they will appear to be the lying trash they are.

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Anyone know why Manafort wasn’t charged with obstruction?

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Mueller really seems to have been leaning over to give the younger generation the benefit of the doubt.

Usually you’d arrest the kids and use that to pressure the higher-ups, but that assumes they care about their kids’ fate.

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“and only very good things!”

What a complete dork.

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There’s a fantastic tool that you can use, if you’re part of or running an organization, to reach a decision short of consensus. It’s great because everyone’s opinion counts, they can explain their thinking and go on record. It’s called voting. Don’t want to impeach? If you’re in the House and think that way, vote against it. If it goes to a Senate trial and you’re not convinced, vote against conviction.

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Did we get an answer on WHY all the lies?

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Why is Josh taking everything within the Mueller Report as fact? It seems Mueller and his team couldn’t make up their collective minds nor come to conclusions because there were so many people dissembling and outright lying. At best, this is Mueller’s team guessing or taking leaps of faith.

Also, the Mueller Report failed to elaborate the Kushner’s and their loans from both the Middle East and China. Why?

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Manafort claimed that he passed it along as a way to prove his value to oligarch Oleg Deripaska, a former client to whom he remains in debt.

And why does he think that it would impress Oleg? I assume that Putin found it of value, because Oleg would have little personal use for polling data. It is not like a Mercedes that he can drive. So, it must have had another type of value. This is a bread crumb waiting for a nugget more of information.

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