All the denials have become poorly articulated pathetic excuses that none of this was "illegal" all of the sudden. Unfortunately for them, the legality or illegality isn't up to those making the claim. Lock 'em all up! Fox News host wrong that no law forbids Russia-Trump collusion By Jon Greenberg on Wednesday, May 31st, 2017 at 3:41 p.m. Fox News host Gregg Jarrett has a distinctive take on the investigation into possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. Jarrett, a former defense attorney, said that even if the two worked together, it wasn’t illegal. "Collusion is not a crime, only an antitrust law," he said on May 30. "You can collude all you want with a foreign government in an election. There's no such statute." Jarrett made the same point in an article on the Fox News website. He wrote that special counsel Robert Mueller had been given the "futile" task of investigating a crime that doesn’t exist. "As special counsel, Mueller can engage in all manner of spectacular jurisprudential gymnastics," Jarrett wrote. "However, it will not change the fact that colluding with Russia is not, under America’s criminal codes, a crime." Really? We thought we’d look into the legal landscape. We wanted to know what election law does or doesn’t say; this is a separate question from what did or did not occur. By way of brief recap, the U.S. Justice Department appointed Mueller to investigate Russian interference with the 2016 presidential election. His first task was to explore "any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump." Jarrett said the only real trouble for the Trump campaign would be if it committed some other crime, such as helping the Russians hack into Democratic emails. He dismissed that as implausible and unsupported by any public evidence. We ran Jarrett’s argument by three election law professors, and they all said that while the word "collusion" might not appear in key statutes (they couldn’t say for sure that it was totally absent), working with the Russians could violate criminal laws. Nathaniel Persily at Stanford University Law School said one relevant statute is the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002. "A foreign national spending money to influence a federal election can be a crime," Persily said. "And if a U.S. citizen coordinates, conspires or assists in that spending, then it could be a crime." Persily pointed to a 2011 U.S. District Court ruling based on the 2002 law. The judges said that the law bans foreign nationals "from making expenditures to expressly advocate the election or defeat of a political candidate." Another election law specialist, John Coates at Harvard University Law School, said if Russians aimed to shape the outcome of the presidential election, that would meet the definition of an expenditure. "The related funds could also be viewed as an illegal contribution to any candidate who coordinates (colludes) with the foreign speaker," Coates said. To be sure, no one is saying that coordination took place. What’s in doubt is whether the word "collusion" is as pivotal as Jarrett makes it out to be. Coates said discussions between a campaign and a foreigner could violate the law against fraud. "Under that statute, it is a federal crime to conspire with anyone, including a foreign government, to ‘deprive another of the intangible right of honest services,’ " Coates said. "That would include fixing a fraudulent election, in my view, within the plain meaning of the statute." Josh Douglas at the University of Kentucky Law School offered two other possible relevant statutes. "Collusion in a federal election with a foreign entity could potentially fall under other crimes, such as against public corruption," Douglas said. "There's also a general anti-coercion federal election law." In sum, legal experts mentioned four criminal laws that might have been broken. The key is not whether those statutes use the word collusion, but whether the activities of the Russians and Trump associates went beyond permissible acts. Our ruling Jarrett said that "you can collude all you want with a foreign government in an election," because there’s no law that says collusion is a crime. Three prominent election law scholars said there are at least four laws that would prohibit the sort of activities under investigation, whether those laws mention collusion or not. Jarrett’s focus on a single word fails to reflect the reach of the criminal code. We rate this claim False.
We don't really know yet whether any laws were broken, and I think the Politifact piece is stretching. A prosecutor might very well use some or all of the laws mentioned to present an indictment but it's up to a court to decide whether any illegalities occurred. So the claim that no laws were broken is whistling past the graveyard, but I don't agree that it can be called 'false.' It's completely predictable that right wing media would be shamelessly claiming that even if the Russians were involved with the Trump campaign, it wasn't illegal, after months of denying that anything like that occurred. Too bad the right-wing members of this site have all scuttled off. It would be hilarious to see them standing on their heads and jumping through flaming hoops as they parroted the desperate twaddle their heroes are reduced to at this point. Here's another take on the question: "Collusion is not a crime': Trump's media allies have a striking new talking point that experts say is 'flawed' and 'absurd'" 'Andy Wright, a professor of constitutional law at Savannah Law School, said that if Americans entered into an agreement to assist illegal Russian influence operations, "it could create a conspiracy which is a federal crime." 'Additionally, Wright said, American citizens colluding with a foreign power to illegally affect an election "could constitute aiding and abetting that foreign power’s criminal campaign finance violation." 'Ultimately, questions about whether the Trump campaign's encouragement of Russia's cyberattacks constituted a form of collusion revolve around whether Trump and his associates incorporated Moscow's meddling into their overall campaign strategy, Bauer asserted. 'That includes whether "specific plans" were made to build messaging around the hacked emails and Wikileaks, and if the campaign made a conscious decision not to denounce the Russians so that the meddling would continue. '"Was the message intended for Russia discussed during preparations for the presidential debate, which would explain Mr. Trump’s special care in refusing to assign direct blame for the hacking to the government or to reject any assistance from the hackers?" Bauer wrote. 'The idea that collusion is inherently legal, moreover, is "absurd," said Mark Kramer, the program director for the Project on Cold War Studies at Harvard's Davis Center for Eurasian Affairs. He added the form such collusion would have taken — hacking, a clandestine transfer of funds, conspiracy — would be serious crimes on their own. 'More broadly, the notion that it would be above water for an American presidential candidate to leverage a foreign adversary to subvert an election "would really signal the death of outrage," said Wright. And those repeating the talking point are also ignoring the very real possibility that the candidate who colluded would then be beholden to that foreign government — and irrevocably compromised. '"Our national security clearance system relies on being able to vet foreign sources of leverage," Wright said. "Of course, the premise of kompromat is shame. Some of the president's defenders appear to be post-shame."'
Related: smells, oh the terrible terrible smells coming from Il Douche's gaggle of goons. 'DOJ Settled Massive Russian Fraud Case Involving Lawyer Who Met With Trump Jr.' 'Democratic congressmen on the House Judiciary Committee want to know why Attorney General Jeff Sessions abruptly settled a money laundering case in May involving the same Russian attorney who met with Donald Trump Jr. during the presidential election to offer “dirt” on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. 'The civil forfeiture case was filed in 2013 by Preet Bharara, the former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York — who was fired by Trump in March. The case alleged that 11 companies were involved in a tax fraud in Russia and then laundered a portion of the $230 million they got into Manhattan real estate. 'The forfeiture case was heralded at the time as “a significant step towards uncovering and unwinding a complex money laundering scheme arising from a notorious foreign fraud,” Bharara said. “As alleged, a Russian criminal enterprise sought to launder some of its billions in ill-gotten rubles through the purchase of pricey Manhattan real estate.” 'But Instead of proceeding with the trial as scheduled, the Trump Justice Department settled the case two days before it was due to begin. By then, Bharara had already been axed by the president. Bharara’s assistant did not immediately respond to request for comment. '“We write with some concern that two events may be connected—and that the Department may have settled the case at a loss for the United States in order to obscure the underlying facts,” wrote 17 Democratic Congressmen on the House judiciary panel in a letter to Sessions on Wednesday.'
The argument I've heard is that it doesn't matter if any collusion took place by actually receiving dirt on a political opponent from a foreign govenment. All that matters is that you intended to collude with a foreign government. Similar to when a sting is set up to catch people soliciting under age girls on the internet and then showing up at their homes just to find out that the only people home are cops. They aren't charged with having sex with under age girls, they are charged with intending to have sex with under age girls.
Once one fell, they all fled. Still, I suspect it is difficult for them to remain away from here, to leave the site undefended against liberal thought. Sooner or later, one of them will feel obligated to defend the republican agenda, if not their inconvenient and inglorious master, trump.
How convenient for Russia and the trump camp, including Mr. Sessions. Backs thoroughly scratched...yet they appear to have scratched too hard and have developed a rash. Do you think Sessions has the right ointment for it? I don't lol
You may be right, but there are plenty of right-wing echo chambers where they won't have to deal with inconvenient facts. Much more cosy for people like them.
True, perhaps they've found warmth and fuzziness somewhere in the wonderful world of alternative facts. But for people with some appreciation of reality that kind of environment is not necessarily stimulating or fun This board has become a Liberal echo chamber. This is not without its positives. People seem able to write more consistently well and respond more thoughtfully than they were back when brain dead Trumpistas were continually shoveling their absurd garbage into the mix. On the other hand, all that's left is the choir. I don't wish for the return of the remaining two of the three stooges who used to lead the opposition. All they excelled in was silly Trumpian diversions. But it would be nice to have something in the way of opposition we could truly engage with.
I have always wanted opposing viewpoints here or in any forum. The problem is that all we ever got from the unholy trinity was Fox talking points and dubious memes out of them. I believe they still lurk from time to time but they know defending this disaster they voted for is well beyond their abilities. I still remember @David trying to tell me that Kentucky's Kyneck insurance exchange wasn't actually Obamacare/ACA. It definitely was none other than exactly what I told him and yet he refused to do any simple research that would have easily proven my point. I listened to the Rep. Yarmuth from Kentucky say exactly the same thing the other night. People in his state have no concept that they own one of the best functioning insurance exchanges thanks to the ACA. In other words, too damn dumb to know just how dumb they are. That gets old real fast.
This perfectly characterizes the problem with them. Fox is a model of balanced reporting compared to what we got from our resident trogs. Smokescreens, strawmen, diversions, and flat out denial of verifiable facts. I've seen it often enough on the knee jerk left as Left as well. Truth is whatever fits the narrative. Lies are whatever doesn't. It's in the genes of people like this so seek the sort of ironclad certainty that takes away their fear of thinking
That would be toughcoins, in my opinion, and he was the last to leave. He is currently a moderator on Cointalk.
I don't go there much, and definitely stopped chatting. I check out a few things I'm interested in but most of it isn't interesting to me. I got in trouble with one mod there when a few of the regulars mocked one of my comments and I mocked them back. She defended them, saying they were just letting off some steam. I said so was I, she got pissy, I got pissy and she banned me for a few days. I told her to fuck off when I got back and haven't been back there officially since then. A similar thing happened with one of Peter's other sites. The rule from one mod was that there could be no arguing.... except for himself. He posted a thread that was an opinion on something, a belief of his, and I commented that I believed something else. An example on Cointalk would be a thread where a guy says "toning" doesn't affect value, and someone else comments that it does. Something innocent and far more trivial than that though, and he went nuts, deleted my comment and posted that no one was allowed to argue in that (his) thread.... basically saying his word was God there. He also sent me some private emails that got abusive, so I told him to "calm down" and I was banned for a week for that lol ....I contacted Pete and told him the guy was too unstable to be a mod there. I left that site too, but I checked the site some months later and found out he went totally nuts and was posting really nasty things to everyone, that the site used to be his or something and Peter sucked, the other mods sucked and he was God's gift there....then he disappeared. Buh bye lol The point is that some mods are good, some are bad. Is toughcoins a bad one? Not from what I can tell, but that's at Cointalk. If he were a mod here though, he'd become Satan lol
