Who do you believe?

[CJD]

(10-03-2019, 06:23 AM)BakertheBeast Wrote: Oh, I didn't realize that Russia came to them first, that makes a difference. When you think about it, if someone came to you with dirt on your opponent why not take it. Why did Russia offer to help Trump? What did they want out of it?  Btw, what did the so called dirt consist of?
Bottom line is they shouldn't of accepted any "help" from a foreign gov., especially one like Russia.

I'm reading a summary of the first part of the report now. It says "senior representatives of the Trump Campaign met in Trump Tower with a Russian attorney expecting to receive derogatory information about Hillary Clinton from the Russian government." I'm not sure exactly what derogatory information means, but it goes on to say "The Report provides no evidence that more significant information was exchanged during the meeting." They also muse:

Quote:Why did the Russians not offer more at the meeting? Former intelligence officials have assessed that the publicly reported facts (which are now included in the Mueller Report) are characteristic of Russian intelligence tradecraft, that the Russians would want to dangle the prospect of more valuable information and would observe whether the campaign reported them to federal authorities or instead welcomed the offer and wanted more. (Another former intelligence official assessed that the meeting was a Russian intelligence operation not designed to collude, but rather designed to sow political turmoil upon its discovery.)

https://www.justsecurity.org/63838/guide-to-the-mueller-reports-findings-on-collusion/

As for what they wanted out of it, the article mentions:

Quote:At the June 9 meeting, the Russian delegation raised the issue of overturning the Magnitsky Act, a statute that imposes financial sanctions on Russian officials. In response, Trump Jr. “suggested that the issue could be revisited when and if candidate Trump was elected.”

So that's likely what they wanted. I guess you could call it a quid pro quo...



So in terms of being approached and not seeking it out, this seems to have been the case for the Trump Tower Meeting. There was evidence that Donald Trump Jr. was the one who coordinated it and told his father that it was a meeting to obtain dirt on Hillary, but there's no proof that Trump Sr. knew it involved Russia at the time that it was scheduled.

But the back channel to Russia, the advance knowledge of Wikileaks releases, the sharing of internal polling data, the "Russia if you're listening..." moment, the Moscow Trump Tower deal, and the Flynn connection to Russia were all a bit more proactive, so I'm not sure if those would fall under that same umbrella.