Why do you think Trump gave Russian reporters access but not American reporters?

[CageTheBengal]

Thoughts?

Quote:WASHINGTON — President Trump’s abrupt dismissal of the F.B.I. director roiled Washington on Wednesday and deepened the sense of crisis swirling around the White House. Republican leaders came to the president’s defense, and Mr. Trump lashed out at Democrats and other critics, calling them hypocrites.

On Capitol Hill, at least a half-dozen Republicans broke with their leadership to express concern or dismay about the firing of James B. Comey, who was four years into a decade-long appointment as the bureau’s director. Still, they stopped well short of joining Democrats’ call for a special prosecutor to lead the continuing investigation of Russian contacts with Mr. Trump’s aides.

At the White House, Mr. Trump shrugged off accusations of presidential interference in a counterintelligence investigation. He hosted a surreal and awkwardly timed meeting in the Oval Office with Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, and Sergey I. Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States. Mr. Kislyak’s private meetings with Mr. Trump’s aides are a key part of the sprawling investigation.

White House officials denied American reporters permission to witness the Oval Office meeting or take photographs, but Russian state news outlets published images taken by their official photographer of a beaming Mr. Trump shaking hands with the envoys. The pictures quickly spread on Twitter.

Stunned by the sudden loss of their leader, agents at the F.B.I. struggled throughout the day to absorb the meaning of Mr. Comey’s dismissal, which the White House announced Tuesday evening. Veteran agents and other F.B.I. employees described a dark mood throughout the bureau, where morale was already low from months of being pummeled over dueling investigations surrounding the 2016 presidential election.

Mr. Trump is weighing going to the F.B.I. headquarters in Washington on Friday as a show of his commitment to the bureau, an official said, though he is not expected to discuss the Russia investigation.

The president and his allies expressed no regrets over Mr. Comey’s removal, insisting that F.B.I. agents had been clamoring for it. Mr. Trump’s decision, they said, was unrelated to Mr. Comey’s oversight of the investigation into Russian meddling and possible connections to Trump advisers.

In an email to F.B.I. agents on Wednesday, Mr. Comey said he would not dwell on the reasons for his firing or how it was carried out.

“I have long believed that a president can fire an F.B.I. director for any reason, or for no reason at all,” he wrote in the email, which a law enforcement official read to The New York Times on the condition of anonymity.
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“I have said to you before that, in times of turbulence, the American people should see the F.B.I. as a rock of competence, honesty and independence,” Mr. Comey wrote. He added, “It is very hard to leave a group of people who are committed only to doing the right thing.”

Top Justice Department officials were hurrying to install an interim director to run the F.B.I. while a permanent replacement for Mr. Comey is chosen. Among those under consideration for the temporary role were several career law enforcement officials, including Andrew G. McCabe, who was named acting director upon Mr. Comey’s firing.

White House officials refused to comment on reports that, days before he was fired, Mr. Comey had asked the Justice Department for a significant increase in resources for the Russia investigation. Democrats cited the news of Mr. Comey’s request as added reason to be suspicious about the president’s motive for firing him.

“Was this really about something else?” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, asked in remarks on the Senate floor.

“Nothing less is at stake than the American people’s faith in our criminal justice system and the integrity of the executive branch of our government,” he said.

The outrage over Mr. Comey’s firing was a political turnabout for many Democrats, who had previously expressed anger and frustration at his handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server when she was secretary of state. It was that investigation that Mr. Trump cited as the reason for dismissing Mr. Comey.


After President Trump fired James B. Comey, politicians on both sides of the aisle changed their attitudes toward the ousted F.B.I. director. By SHANE O’NEILL and MARK SCHEFFLER on Publish Date May 10, 2017. Photo by Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times. Watch in Times Video »

Days before last fall’s election, Mr. Comey announced that the F.B.I. was examining newly found emails potentially related to the investigation. “I do not have confidence in him any longer,” Mr. Schumer said at the time.

“I am asking that he step down,” Representative Steve Cohen, Democrat of Tennessee, said.

Many Democrats, including Mrs. Clinton, have since placed much of the blame for her loss on Mr. Comey’s actions.

On Wednesday, in a series of visceral posts on Twitter, Mr. Trump seized on those earlier comments to highlight Mr. Comey’s “scandals.” He also suggested that Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, be investigated, moments after Mr. Blumenthal appeared on television to condemn the president’s action.
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“Watching Senator Richard Blumenthal speak of Comey is a joke,” Mr. Trump wrote. “‘Richie’ devised one of the greatest military frauds in U.S. history.”

For years, “as a pol in Connecticut, Blumenthal would talk of his great bravery and conquests in Vietnam — except he was never there,” Mr. Trump added. When “caught, he cried like a baby and begged for forgiveness … and now he is judge & jury. He should be the one who is investigated for his acts.”

The president was referring to a 2010 article in The Times that said Mr. Blumenthal had presented himself as a Vietnam veteran during his first Senate campaign, when he had actually served in the Marine Reserves at home and never gone to war. The story did not say that Mr. Blumenthal had boasted of bravery or conquests.

Republican leaders echoed Mr. Trump’s Twitter attacks on Democrats throughout the day. At one point, the president wrote that his adversaries were pretending to be aggrieved by Mr. Comey’s firing.

“Phony hypocrites!” Mr. Trump wrote, signaling the growing frustration inside the White House about the backlash.

Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky — who, as majority leader, wields vast power over the focus of the Senate — defended the decision. Many other top Republicans agreed.

Senator Richard M. Burr, Republican of North Carolina and chairman of the Intelligence Committee, stopped short of directly criticizing the president. But his committee announced that it had issued its first subpoena to demand records from Michael T. Flynn, Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, in connection with his emails, phone calls, meetings and financial dealings with Russians. It was an aggressive new tack for what had been a slow-moving inquiry.

The maelstrom is sure to sap the Senate’s time and energy, detracting from a Republican agenda that includes a budget, health care, a tax overhaul and infrastructure.

“Today, we’ll no doubt hear calls for a new investigation,” Mr. McConnell said on the Senate floor as most Democrats looked on. He predicted that such a move could “only serve to impede the current work being done.”


In the House, the Republican chairman of the Oversight and Reform Committee asked the Justice Department’s inspector general to review Mr. Comey’s firing. The chairman, Representative Jason Chaffetz of Utah, said the review would be included in an internal Justice Department inquiry into the F.B.I.’s disclosure of its investigation of Mrs. Clinton’s emails before the election.

Despite their concerns about Mr. Comey’s actions last year, Democrats said his dismissal evoked the days of President Richard M. Nixon, who ordered the firing of the special prosecutor looking into the Watergate case. They called for the appointment of a special counsel to lead the Russia inquiry.

Democrats exerted as much pressure as they could on their Republican colleagues on Wednesday, using procedural moves available to the minority to block or delay hearings on Russia, cybersecurity, presidential nominees and several other matters.

When Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, asked for unanimous consent to permit a scheduled meeting of the Special Committee on Aging, Mr. Schumer objected. Ms. Collins, clearly angry, said: “This makes no sense whatsoever. This is an example of the dysfunction of the Senate.”

For months, Republican lawmakers have been left to defend, sometimes haltingly, presidential behavior they often strain to understand or support. But even some of Mr. Trump’s most vocal defenders questioned the timing of the firing.

“It surely would have been simpler and cleaner to do so in January,” said Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, who defended Mr. Comey’s removal nonetheless.

White House officials said that Mr. Trump had been considering firing Mr. Comey since the day he was elected president.

But though Mr. Trump had lost confidence in Mr. Comey, the Justice Department’s recommendation to fire him was not ordered by the president, a White House spokeswoman, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said.

Ms. Sanders said that Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, had acted on his own when he recommended to Mr. Trump during a meeting on Monday that Mr. Comey be dismissed. At that meeting, the president directed Mr. Rosenstein to put the recommendation into writing, Ms. Sanders said.

After meeting with the Russian officials, Mr. Trump said he had fired Mr. Comey because “he wasn’t doing a good job.”

“Very simply — he was not doing a good job,” he said.

Asked whether the furor over the firing had affected his meeting with Mr. Lavrov, Mr. Trump said, “Not at all.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/10/us/politics/trump-comey-firing.html?hp

[GMDino]

(05-11-2017, 11:15 AM)CageTheBengal Wrote: Thoughts?


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/10/us/politics/trump-comey-firing.html?hp

Two things come immediately to mind:

1) The Administration wasn't told the photographer was also with TASS.  So they just trusted whatever they were told.

2) The Russians probably sweet talked the President.  He hates the US Press because they question him, so if the guests said the photographer would be friendlier he probably went all in.

In the end it just made him/the administration look bad/dumb.  Again.

[Au165]

The Russian media is nicer to him than the U.S.

[Matt_Crimson]

I think Trump deserves to be investigated for any possible wrong doing with Russia. However, something that really bothers me is that there seems to be more speculation about what's going on than there is actual evidence of anything going on.

[GMDino]

(05-11-2017, 11:49 AM)Matt_Crimson Wrote: I think Trump deserves to be investigated for any possible wrong doing with Russia. However, something that really bothers me is that there seems to be more speculation about what's going on than there is actual evidence of anything going on.

Which is why you have the investigation.  Plus there has been testimony that there is some evidence.  So the investigation should continue.

[oncemoreuntothejimbreech]

(05-11-2017, 11:49 AM)Matt_Crimson Wrote: I think Trump deserves to be investigated for any possible wrong doing with Russia. However, something that really bothers me is that there seems to be more speculation about what's going on than there is actual evidence of anything going on.

That's generally why there is an investigation, to uncover evidence. If you already have the evidence then there isn't much need for an investigation to uncover evidence . . . because you already have the evidence.

[Matt_Crimson]

(05-11-2017, 12:02 PM)GMDino Wrote: Which is why you have the investigation.  Plus there has been testimony that there is some evidence.  So the investigation should continue.

Which testimony are you referring to?

(05-11-2017, 12:02 PM)oncemoreuntothejimbreech Wrote: That's generally why there is an investigation, to uncover evidence. If you already have the evidence then there isn't much need for an investigation to uncover evidence . . . because you already have the evidence.

So then are you saying no evidence has been uncovered?

[CageTheBengal]

(05-11-2017, 12:23 PM)Matt_Crimson Wrote: Which testimony are you referring to?

So then are you saying no evidence has been uncovered?

Investigation comes before evidence.

[Matt_Crimson]

(05-11-2017, 01:09 PM)CageTheBengal Wrote: Investigation comes before evidence.

What led to the investigation?

[*bfine32*]

I have heard that the meetings with the Russian diplomats have gone a long way to improving relations between the US and Russia. I would think that's the bigger picture; not who got to photograph a handshake.

I've also heard we've had constructive meetings with some diplomats from N. Korea.

[CageTheBengal]

(05-11-2017, 01:20 PM)Matt_Crimson Wrote: What led to the investigation?

Suspicions.

When someone is murdered do we wait until evidence magically appears or do we let investigators investigate to find evidence against the person to blame? The first person to get investigated is the spouse whether there is evidence or not.

[Matt_Crimson]

(05-11-2017, 01:29 PM)CageTheBengal Wrote: Suspicions.

When someone is murdered do we wait until evidence magically appears or do we let investigators investigate to find evidence against the person to blame? The first person to get investigated is the spouse whether there is evidence or not.

Suspicions based on what?

I'm not asking for concrete evidence. In a lot of murder cases there is no concrete evidence of who actually committed the murder. Rather, there is circumstantial evidence that leads to the suspicions of who might have done it.

What evidence is there that links Trump to collusion with Russia that makes all of the suspicion so great. If there is no evidence, then why is the suspicion so great?

[CageTheBengal]

(05-11-2017, 01:56 PM)Matt_Crimson Wrote: Suspicions based on what?

I'm not asking for concrete evidence. In a lot of murder cases there is no concrete evidence of who actually committed the murder. Rather, there is circumstantial evidence that leads to the suspicions of who might have done it.

What evidence is there that links Trump to collusion with Russia that makes all of the suspicion so great. If there is no evidence, then why is the suspicion so great?

I guess you could start with the topic of the thread. I've read people explain the suspicions to you over and over again and it has been covered on the news over and over again. At this point you either drink Trump's kool-aid about the media being bad or you don't. That's basically what it come down to. Do you believe a spoiled punk who has been treated with kid gloves his whole life and has the mentality of a child as a result or you believe people with actual credentials?

You either understand how an investigation works or you don't but trying to play 20 questions and explaining the same thing in a different way to you is like beating my head against the wall.

[oncemoreuntothejimbreech]

(05-11-2017, 01:56 PM)Matt_Crimson Wrote: Suspicions based on what?

I'm not asking for concrete evidence. In a lot of murder cases there is no concrete evidence of who actually committed the murder. Rather, there is circumstantial evidence that leads to the suspicions of who might have done it.

What evidence is there that links Trump to collusion with Russia that makes all of the suspicion so great. If there is no evidence, then why is the suspicion so great?

You could start with what got Michael Flynn fired.

[*michaelsean*]

(05-11-2017, 01:29 PM)CageTheBengal Wrote: Suspicions.

When someone is murdered do we wait until evidence magically appears or do we let investigators investigate to find evidence against the person to blame? The first person to get investigated is the spouse whether there is evidence or not.

That's when you know you have a crime, and are finding evidence of who committed the crime.  

[Belsnickel]

(05-11-2017, 01:28 PM)bfine32 Wrote: I have heard that the meetings with the Russian diplomats have gone a long way to improving relations between the US and Russia. I would think that's the bigger picture; not who got to photograph a handshake.

I've also heard we've had constructive meetings with some diplomats from N. Korea.

My understanding is there are concerns within the IC regarding espionage activities by the photographer because of the ease with which it would be to hide sophisticated listening devices in camera equipment.

[Matt_Crimson]

(05-11-2017, 02:18 PM)CageTheBengal Wrote: I guess you could start with the topic of the thread. I've read people explain the suspicions to you over and over again and it has been covered on the news over and over again. At this point you either drink Trump's kool-aid about the media being bad or you don't. That's basically what it come down to. Do you believe a spoiled punk who has been treated with kid gloves his whole life and has the mentality of a child as a result or you believe people with actual credentials?

You either understand how an investigation works or you don't but trying to play 20 questions and explaining the same thing in a different way to you is like beating me head against the wall.

I'm not questioning the investigation so much as I am questioning the mass hysteria surrounding the idea that Trump has colluded with the Russians.

You're questioning my ability to understand investigations when your own example you provided above doesn't even properly support your beliefs regarding investigations. Spouses arent investigated in a murder case because there is some grand suspicion that they actually did it. Spouses are investigated because they are the closest person to the victim and thus are the closest lead to investigators and must be ruled out rather than simply ignored. It's a normal process of elimination, not process of suspicion based on nothing.

If someone is murdered in a hotel, anyone who was at the hotel at the time of the murder is going to be investigated to rule them out  not because investigators are suspicious that one of them did it. 

[oncemoreuntothejimbreech]

(05-11-2017, 03:01 PM)Matt_Crimson Wrote: I'm not questioning the investigation so much as I am questioning the mass hysteria surrounding the idea that Trump has colluded with the Russians.

You're questioning my ability to understand investigations when your own example you provided above doesn't even properly support your beliefs regarding investigations. Spouses arent investigated in a murder case because there is some grand suspicion that they actually did it. Spouses are investigated because they are the closest person to the victim and thus are the closest lead to investigators and must be ruled out rather than simply ignored. It's a normal process of elimination, not process of suspicion based on nothing.

If someone is murdered in a hotel, anyone who was at the hotel at the time of the murder is going to be investigated to rule them out  not because investigators are suspicious that one of them did it. 

You questioned the investigation earlier in this thread.

(05-11-2017, 11:49 AM)Matt_Crimson Wrote: I think Trump deserves to be investigated for any possible wrong doing with Russia. However, something that really bothers me is that there seems to be more speculation about what's going on than there is actual evidence of anything going on.

Mass hysteria didn't prompt the investigation. Trump's first NSA has been fired for activity related to inappropriate dealings with Russian officials during the election. That doesn't raise a red flag for you?

[Matt_Crimson]

(05-11-2017, 03:31 PM)oncemoreuntothejimbreech Wrote: You questioned the investigation earlier in this thread.


Mass hysteria didn't prompt the investigation. Trump's first NSA has been fired for activity related to inappropriate dealings with Russian officials during the election. That doesn't raise a red flag for you?

Raise a red flag to what exactly? That Trump did.....what?

[oncemoreuntothejimbreech]

(05-11-2017, 05:11 PM)Matt_Crimson Wrote: Raise a red flag to what exactly?

About what? About inappropriate contact between Russian officials and Trump officials.

Quote:That Trump did.....what?

Isn't that the point of an investigation? To find out who did what or to clear their name of wrong doing.