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WaPo: Trump asked intelligence chiefs to push back against FBI collusion probe

Zolo

Member
Unlikely, he made a number of pretty big mistakes. He needed to be ousted, Trump just did it for the wrong reasons.

On the other side though, he's a known figure for not being bipartisan now which can be considered fairly rare. What other mistakes has he also made besides the Hillary Clinton emails issue where there were other factors for what he did?
 

Tovarisc

Member
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https://twitter.com/EmmaLee05733408/status/867029661880131584

GOP pushing hard to get some cover for Trump.
 

Woo-Fu

Banned
On the other side though, he's a known figure for not being bipartisan now which can be considered fairly rare. What other mistakes has he also made besides the Hillary Clinton emails issue where there were other factors for what he did?

I think this sums it up nicely:

http://fortune.com/2017/05/21/donald-trump-james-comey-news-fired-rosenstein-memo/

There were multiple mistakes with the email situation, not just one. The biggest was his choice to jump into the political arena---bringing all of the FBI with him. He was going to get canned regardless of who won the election after that.
 
I think this sums it up nicely:

http://fortune.com/2017/05/21/donald-trump-james-comey-news-fired-rosenstein-memo/

There were multiple mistakes with the email situation, not just one. The biggest was his choice to jump into the political arena---bringing all of the FBI with him. He was going to get canned regardless of who won the election after that.

He was in a tough position though, I think we all need to acknowledge that. Everyone knew about the investigation, and if they didn't comment and it turned out after Clinton won that she was guilty of some crime, then the FBI would look political. What he did also looked political. There was no easy answer for Comey.
 

Plinko

Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
Whoa: a no comment on if they knew Russia had tried to cultivate Trump for 8 years.
 

Tovarisc

Member
Whoa: a no comment on if they knew Russia had tried to cultivate Trump for 8 years.

Open setting, some answers won't be said out loud. Just like he refused to comment on if foreign intel partners shared intel with CIA about Russia/Trump collusion.
 
That's what I've started to believe over the past few months of seeing him in "action." I think he's just that fucking dumb, and doesn't understand how this stuff works.

I don't think we can chalk this up to ignorance. I mean, he's spoken about Nixon and Watergate (saying Hillary is worse). He's aware that there is a thing called "obstruction of justice". Dimly aware, I assume, but still, he can't claim ignorance.

I would attribute this more to him just thinking he's untouchable. He's always been, his whole life. Any problem he's ever had has been solved by him just asking for it to go away.

Watch out for Fox News and all the Trump supporters, though. Fox is going to be willfully ignorant and wonder aloud: why would just saying something be obstruction of justice? It's just words. And Trump supporters will eat it up, because they're actually ignorant.
 

Surfinn

Member
Buried in this story is a direct admission that evidence of collusion does exist, which isn't something we get from many of the other leaks.

"The problem wasn’t so much asking them to issue statements, it was asking them to issue false statements about an ongoing investigation"

Yeah uh.. is this as big of a deal as I think it is? He basically said "stating that Trump's team did not collude with Russia is false".
 

mAcOdIn

Member
"The problem wasn’t so much asking them to issue statements, it was asking them to issue false statements about an ongoing investigation"

Yeah uh.. is this as big of a deal as I think it is? He basically said "stating that Trump's team did not collude with Russia is false".
Nope, until an investigation is complete saying either there was collusion or there wasn't collusion is false because the investigation isn't done and no-one knows which is true and which is false yet.
 

Surfinn

Member
Nope, until an investigation is complete saying either there was collusion or there wasn't collusion is false because the investigation isn't done and no-one knows which is true and which is false yet.

Wouldn't the correct phrasing be something like "we can't issue conclusions until the investigation is complete" instead of actually labeling compliance with Trumps request as being "false"? I mean I think I understand what he was saying but it seems like using "false statements" in that context gives the wrong impression ("false" implies factually incorrect).
 
I think Trump pissed off the wrong people in the FBI and CIA. You don't mock US intelligence agencies and call the (seemingly highly respected) former FBI director a "nut job" without those guys coming at you full bore.

I don't care the means to get there. Use Russia, call them traitors.

We know our policies are sound and work. The trick is getting there. Progressives should use every thing they have at thier disposal. Voters will apparently reward you for it.
 

mAcOdIn

Member
Wouldn't the correct phrasing be something like "we can't issue conclusions until the investigation is complete" instead of actually labeling compliance with Trumps request as being "false"? I mean I think I understand what he was saying but it seems like using "false statements" in that context gives the wrong impression ("false" implies factually incorrect).
You're not wrong but the person who said that is a person not a machine and we've only been given a small slice of that conversation. So I believe someone could say that issuing any unsubstantiated claim as a certainty could be considered a falsehood by many people but also we don't know the direct request President Trump(bleh) made regarding the statement he wanted them to make. Perhaps he wanted them to say that he, personally, wasn't under investigation, or to mischaracterize the investigation in some other fashion. Lastly, the person who claimed it was "false" wasn't Coats but someone speaking for him, who could have been present, could have been absent but privy to the memo or could just be someone in the field asked to comment about the contents of the memo by the reporter, Coates himself may not have ever said he was asked to make a "false statement" for all we know.

Really though it boils down to the fact I just can not imagine a reporter letting that slide and not running with that statement as the main story if s/he felt it was authentic instead of it being a small part of the overall article which it is here unless the meaning of that statement is how I'm parsing it. I imagine there's tons of back and forth's between the sources and the journalist that aren't in the article that'd make it more clear and I figure it was left this way because it's ambiguous and also providing the followup that clarified it to the reporter makes it less sexy and damning, otherwise we'd have a front page news story from the author saying Coates says "Trump colluded with Russians."
 
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