I don't believe this one bit.
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Trumps Son Met With Russian Lawyer After Being Promised Damaging Info on Clinton
- Thread starter Perfect Blue
- Start date
I don't believe this one bit.
So it's this:
secret or illegal cooperation or conspiracy, especially in order to cheat or deceive others.
Isn't that arguably what Lil Trump confirmed yesterday via twitter?
KoopaTheCasual
Junior Member
Again, why do people give a shit about the "pee tape"?
It would be one thing if it was video of Donald Trump getting peed on, but it's just him watching strippers pee on a bed, because he hates Obama that much.
If anything that footage would rile up his diehard "i hate Obama" base even more.
People need to stop elevating the importance of this alleged document.
It would be one thing if it was video of Donald Trump getting peed on, but it's just him watching strippers pee on a bed, because he hates Obama that much.
If anything that footage would rile up his diehard "i hate Obama" base even more.
People need to stop elevating the importance of this alleged document.
Netherscourge
Banned
What's funny is the mere fact that Trump Jr. agreed to meet at all is the crime here.
It doesn't matter if he actually made a deal or not.
He's trying to downplay it by saying they had nothing, but he said the pretext for the whole meeting was politically-damaging evidence against Hillary and the DNC. He actually admitted that was the purpose of the meeting and why he went. He went there for the sole purpose of getting dirt from Russians on Hillary and the DNC.
If this was an FBI sting operation, they probably would have arrested him as soon as he walked into the room. I don't think Junior understands that he incriminated himself by making those remarks.
It doesn't matter if he actually made a deal or not.
He's trying to downplay it by saying they had nothing, but he said the pretext for the whole meeting was politically-damaging evidence against Hillary and the DNC. He actually admitted that was the purpose of the meeting and why he went. He went there for the sole purpose of getting dirt from Russians on Hillary and the DNC.
If this was an FBI sting operation, they probably would have arrested him as soon as he walked into the room. I don't think Junior understands that he incriminated himself by making those remarks.
How About No
Member
Because it's so fucking ridiculous that if it were true it would mean a lot of the other things would likely be true as well
NullPointer
Member
There's far more to that document than the pee tape.
And its a real document with primary and secondary sources considered to be credible by our intelligence community.
BrutishMrFish
Member
Because the most salacious thing in the dossier being confirmed would give instant credibility in the eyes of the public to everything that's less interesting.
TheCochese
Banned
This.
Bam Bam Baklava
Member
"I had no internet" really means I had to take like 3 days to get a decent story made up.
Fenderputty
Banned
Ehhhh .... if this is true, why wasn't the son more prepared to answer questions so he could get his story straight. The reactions to this leak don't seem very coordinated to me so why should I assume the leak itself was?
Pretty much.
BoogieWoogie
Banned
If this were true, it wouldn't even be "likely", it would mean everything in that dossier is the truth.
KoopaTheCasual
Junior Member
Like what?
Seriously, if the end goal 'importance' of this tape is to help substantiate the rest of the dossier, why aren't we saying "boom, Ukraine agreement!" instead of "boom, piss tape!"
It seems like the "it would mean a lot of the other things would likely be true as well" defense of rallying behind the piss tape is an afterthought that doesn't make sense when viewed under scrutiny.
I honestly feel most of the people saying "haha, piss tape!" don't understand that the tape isn't about Donald getting peed on, and is far less embarrassing in nature.
Edit: Seriously, the Dossier is already being actively corroborated by our IC. It's not like the piss tape is going to materialize and the Dossier will somehow go from inert to vital. It's already a key part of the narrative, and massive lead for the investigation.
Yes. It's fairly obvious NYT put out the first story to get a response before they dropped the second. The response just happened to play directly into NYT's hand.
It would be the last straw for a lot of Republicans I know. Yes, call me crazy, but a whole lot of folks are sexually repressed and completely offended by the idea of any and all sexual acts outside of the realm of god-lovin heterosexual marriage. Of course, a lot of them will still engage in these things because they're hypocrits, but don't underestimate the conservative outrage towards sex. "Grab em by the pussy" was just "joking", but I'm willing to bet actual footage of Trump engaging in something scandalous would turn many away.
BoogieWoogie
Banned
Dude hired numerous strippers to come to his hotel room and piss on his bed because an "enemy" that made fun of him for two minutes at a dinner had slept there once. Pretty embarrassing/insane for anyone let alone the FUCKING PRESIDENT.
BrutishMrFish
Member
Because it's the most scandalous. This isn't hard.
Paying prostitutes to piss on the bed our first black president slept in is incredibly embarrassing for its pettiness alone and fits Trump like a glove. Most of the people here know what the tape is about, you just don't get why they still care.
You can believe it because he is that thinned skinned and has shown he never lets it go, just vindictive to insanity.
KoopaTheCasual
Junior Member
I think you guys are seriously overestimating the Republican Party's sense of decency/the public's attention span.
I can already visualize Ted Cruz' defense of "why are we digging into this man's past and private life? where is the crime in that?! blah blah blah"
Edit: I do think it would be yet another puzzle piece to move the needle, but the idea that the Trump dynasty will crumble due to a piss tape is silly. Best shot we got is either Mueller dropping that fire/bringing state level charges against people like Kushner to flip them, or Democrats taking back the House in 2018 and immediately moving to impeachment.
Bam Bam Baklava
Member
More scandalous than working with a foreign adversary to subvert your own nation's democracy?
Beer Monkey
Member
So the meeting started talking about trying to buy oppo from our enemy but once it changed to orphans Don Jr. was like fuck this I'm out.
This isn't helping.
TheCochese
Banned
Anoregon
The flight plan I just filed with the agency list me, my men, Dr. Pavel here. But only one of you!
So the meeting started talking about trying to buy oppo from our enemy but once it changed to orphans Don Jr. was like fuck this I'm out.
This isn't helping.
"who the fuck cares about adopting kids, if you can't sell me damaging campaign material I'm out"
Z_Y
Member
If you can't see the importance of a video of Donald Trump sitting in a hotel room watching hookers piss all over a bed then I doubt any of us here are going to be able to convince you otherwise.
So the meeting started talking about trying to buy oppo from our enemy but once it changed to orphans Don Jr. was like fuck this I'm out.
This isn't helping.
The source of that statement is this guy
I would be very hesitant in believing it. Its like its worded specifically to avoid charges like the Logan Act.
hendersonhank
Member
Here's what he said: "We do not get our opposition research from spies, we do not collaborate with Russian spies, unless we want to be accused of treason....If this story is true, wed have one of them if not both of them in custody by now, and wed be asking them a lot of questions, he said. This is unacceptable. This borders on treason, if it is not itself treason.
I'd like Mr Painter to address whether this also applies to the opposition research conducted by Steele, some of which being information obtained by sources who are literal Russian spies.
Who says this lawyer that talked to Trump Jr is a Russian spy?
Same as above.
The quid pro quo seems to be what is needed here. No one has claimed that talk of quid pro quo was brought up before the meeting, or that any such was promised.
Campaigns do opposition research. No campaign in the world is going to flatly turn down an offer of information because of -the nationality of the person offering it.
Abstrusity
Member
Treason and sedition are so abstract. The average American can't even decide what they want to eat for dinner, do you think they can possibly understand treason and sedition? But you know what they can understand? Piss. Everyone pees. Mostly only the very young, the alcoholics, and the very old piss in beds. Mostly the depraved pay for people to piss in a bed for them.
And it's also very, very easy to be judgmental about strange sexual desires because America is sexually repressed in the extreme.
It will erode his base, most importantly.
And it doesn't even matter if he did it to debase the bed Obama slept in or he did it to get his rocks off or he bathed in it because that's the only way to get many layers of spray tan off. No matter what, people will see it as disgusting. Sickening. Sinful.
And in that gap, we pump the facts in.
And then we give every single one of the people involved in this the needle or life in prison. Either's fine. I don't want to see Donald Trump Jr. on Fox News in ten years like he was G. Gordon Liddy or Oliver North.
Rest assured, if any of this sounds unethical or wrong, they would do so much worse. And I'm okay with going low. Going high is a privilege to those in power.
The GOP can't move against Trump because his base will defend anything he does as president because they like him as a person. If something comes out that ruins that, everything else falls apart. His pussy grab tape nearly did it, but it was him bragging about regular sexual assault, which is unfortunately rather common and way too many people have a lot of experience excusing. A rich man's perversion, even if the hookers aren't peeing on him, will break the illusion for many. Plus the media will spend months rubbing everyone's faces in it.
It's also really easy to explain blackmail to the public versus a dozen layers of who is working for whom that ultimately ends up somewhere illegal if you can prove both ends knew about the other.*
*The shocking thing about this admin is everyone is so incompetent that we're a fair way towards proving something that should be very difficult.
Sho_Nuff82
Member
Again, it's hilarious that
- Goldstone, Agalarov, and Veselnitskaya's names never came out of Junior's mouth in the Saturday or Sunday statements
- The White House/Priebus, despite presumably knowing everything that Junior knows, threw out a bullshit story about Michael Steele organizing the meeting to see if anyone would bite Sunday morning.
- Kushner and Manafort have thus far denied requests to go on record about the contents of the meeting, and only disclosed the existence of the meeting retroactively
The Russian lawyer's official statement:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/09/us/politics/trump-russia-kushner-manafort.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0
Everything about this stinks.
From the same NYT story, she directly represents several Russian state clients:
And as I mentioned on the last page, Steele was so disturbed by what he had found, that he he turned his information over to the FBI, first last summer, and then again in the fall via John McCain (who passed it along to Comey). The FBI briefed Obama and Trump on the dossier because they believed it could be potentially compromising to the office, the document got leaked, and Buzzfeed dumped it on the web.
- Goldstone, Agalarov, and Veselnitskaya's names never came out of Junior's mouth in the Saturday or Sunday statements
- The White House/Priebus, despite presumably knowing everything that Junior knows, threw out a bullshit story about Michael Steele organizing the meeting to see if anyone would bite Sunday morning.
- Kushner and Manafort have thus far denied requests to go on record about the contents of the meeting, and only disclosed the existence of the meeting retroactively
The Russian lawyer's official statement:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/09/us/politics/trump-russia-kushner-manafort.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0
Everything about this stinks.
From the same NYT story, she directly represents several Russian state clients:
And as I mentioned on the last page, Steele was so disturbed by what he had found, that he he turned his information over to the FBI, first last summer, and then again in the fall via John McCain (who passed it along to Comey). The FBI briefed Obama and Trump on the dossier because they believed it could be potentially compromising to the office, the document got leaked, and Buzzfeed dumped it on the web.
Dude, we've been over the differences -- Steele hired by firm hired by Republican donor vs. Trump campaign directly involved -- in a previous thread already.
Also, Romney's chief strategist:
https://twitter.com/stuartpstevens/status/884257849085394944
Beer Monkey
Member
They could have done a lot better. It's still fucking incriminating.
They better hope there are no "tapes".
You seem confused. Its illegal for American Presidential campaigns to receive materials from foreigners to assist them. It doesn't matter if they are spies or whatever.
Steele's dossier work was not in regards to a campaign. Its not "oppo" research.
Edit: I may have misread you about Steele. Its important to remember he completed the dossier basically for free and turned it over to the IC.
Half of which have all been killed since November.
Because who could possibly remember which one left. They look identical.
KoopaTheCasual
Junior Member
I just don't believe this. The "grab em by the pussy" debacle fundamental broke my understanding in the limits people have for their 'idols'. Bragging about sexual assault (which is a crime), is far worse than having a weird kink, imo. So I don't believe it would have an effect greater than that.
Again, I think everyone is putting waaay too much stock in this tape. I honestly feel the only way his public would turn on him, is if there were tapes leaked of him listing each PAC/demographic that supports him, and why they're stupid, and how he lied to them. That would be the only way (outside of individually naming and shaming each supporter) to get through the metric shit-ton of dissonance these people experience.
However, the blackmail angle, is what I think would be that "puzzle piece" that adds to the case, and is actually important.
Wolfgunblood Garopa
Member
That is far removed from any ethical standard much less legal. Un-American at the very least.
Oh shit, seriously? No thank you theennnnn.
He apparently says the N word in it. His base won't mind but even McConnell can't defend the president of the US saying the N word while Russian hookers perform some sort of golden cascade art show about Obama.
I doubt the tape will ever emerge even if it exists.
TheCochese
Banned
McConnell would do everything possible to block it coming out.
Particle Physicist
between a quark and a baryon
This is the guy that has done this: http://people.com/celebrity/donald-trump-sends-vanity-fair-editor-photos-of-his-hands/
"Why Donald Trump Has Been Sending Vanity Fair Editor Pictures of His Hands for 25 Years"
He clearly has screws loose.
I like how we went from 'absolutely no meetings or contacts with the Russians' to, 'yeah absolutely everyone involved with the campaign and administration has had secret meetings with the Russians but nothing came of it and we did nothing illegal.' Yet... Trump voters/republicans aren't batting a fucking eye.
TangoAlphaLima
Member
I remember reading this rumor as well, but I'm not sure what the source of it is.
Regardless, Trump dropping the "n word" on tape would probably lead to riots if he wasn't removed from office.
I believed you are purposefully playing dumb here and trying to muddy the waters.
Here is the difference:
- Steele:
- was paid abover board
- does not represent a foreign government
- is reporting crimes against the Americans federal government committed by an american citizens
- did not commit US federal crimes in gaining the information
Trump/Russia/whomever;
- Oppo was directed and committed by a hostile foreign government intelligence agency
- Oppo was directed and committed for free, violating campaign finance laws
- Trump campaign was used to launder the results of a crime committed on American soil
That last part is the big part. The hacking of Hillary's servers is a crime, committed by a foreign hostile government and Trump was laundering the results of a criminal act to gain an advantage in an election. Something he knew was a crime, because otherwise why are all the meetings held in secret?
In comparison, what Federal US crime did Steele commit in putting together his dossier? Talking to some double agents in Russia is not a crime here in the US, hacking an American politician's server is.
EXACTLY THIS
Sho_Nuff82
Member
Most of it's in the OP and the NY Times article, but
- Saturday, NY Times released a story about a previously undisclosed meeting between DT Jr, Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner with a Russian lawyer in Trump Tower, which was allegedly put together to gather incriminating information about Hillary weeks after Donald won the RNC nomination in June 2016
- The meeting (but not its content) was only recently, retroactively revealed by Kushner and Manafort after their respective meetings with Congress
- Trump Jr released a statement Saturday saying the meeting happened, but it was about adopting Russian babies
- WH lawyers and chief of staff claim the meeting was organized by Steele's legal group as a false flag against the Trump admin
- Sunday, NYT releases a followup article with more details about who attended and what was discussed.
- Trump Jr releases an amended statement about what was discussed, now including the detail that he originally arranged the meeting under the pretext of getting information about Clinton, and that the lawyer then switched the subject to the US removing 2012 congressional sanctions placed on Russia for murdering a lawyer (which Putin responded to by banning the adoption of Russian babies to US citizens). He has subsequently tweeted that getting opposition research is no big deal, so he doesn't see why there's a fuss.
- Trump admin maintains he never knew about the meeting
- Trump Jr maintains that he did not tell Manafort and Kushner why the meeting was being arranged
- Russian government claims they have no idea who lawyer is (despite the fact that she represents numerous government officials)
- Between Sunday and today it was revealed the meeting was arranged by (and attended by) a close Trump family friend (who was staying in Trump tower at the time according to his own social media, which he's tried to wipe in the interim), at the behest of a Russian business man/musician who is also a close personal friend of Trump (he was in the guy's music video after meeting him at the 2013 Miss Universe pageant).
- The Trump family friend has since released an official statement saying he did arrange the meeting, and for whom.