General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSeth Abramson. It IS Collusion
Link to tweet
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1109827137555582977.html
1/ For instance, he could say he was unable to or uninterested in charging Manafort with conspiracy after Manafort wouldn't cooperate with tge SCO but got more than 7 years in prison anyway. That's very different from saying that Manafort didn't actively collude with the Kremlin.
2/ When I wrote my first book on this subject, I deliberately stuck with the term "collusion." To say collusion simply means "conspiracy" is not only wrongit does enormous damage to our understanding of what actually happened here and why it's the biggest scandal in our history.
3/ I've seen non-attorney journalists foolishly boast that they're smarter than most for having figured out that "collusion" is the wrong term to use herethat we should opt for "conspiracy." But when you use the narrowest and hardest-to-prove term for misconduct, you excuse it.
4/ The result of so many people not understanding the difference between conspiracy and collusion and the *greater* utility of the *latter* term is we have all these Trumper morons on Twitter saying Mueller found no collusion when what they *mean* is he'll *charge* no conspiracy.
5/ Collusion can occur without criminal conduct. Collusion can occur within criminal conduct not charged as conspiracy. Collusion can be assigned to a campaign, not justas crimes areone person. Journalists must say Mueller is likely to find collusion, but not charge conspiracy.
6/ I'll admit that I'm angryand have been for some timeat those journalists who've thought so little about the norms we're trying to protect here that they've accepted the Trumper line that everything is *okay* so long as Mueller didn't find 90%+ proof of a criminal conspiracy.
7/ When Trump had a secret face-to-face conversation with Putin, then hours later crafted a false statement for America to read about a meeting with Kremlin agents in his hometo keep hiding what he's always hidden, the scope of his relationship with the Kremlinthat's collusion.
8/ When Trump held a national security meeting in his hotel in March 2016 and a member of his tiny NatSec team said he was a Kremlin intermediary trying to set upbackchannela secret Trump-Russia summit on foreign policy with the Kremlin and Trump promoted him, that's collusion.
9/ When Trumpknowing perfectly well that his campaign was engaged in a backchannel conversation with the Kremlin over its support for himpublicly asked for the Kremlin's help in hacking his opponents, and in under 24 hours the hackers acceded to his wishes, that was collusion.
10/ When Trump directly ordered his NatSec team to make a change to the RNC platform to benefit the Kremlin at a time his campaign was reaching out to Kremlin agents to get them to give him stolen Clinton emailsthereby performing on his half of a quid pro quothat was collusion.
11/ When Trump "found out"assuming he hadn't known all alonghis NSA had been secretly negotiating American foreign policy with the Kremlin for months, including during the campaign, and not only didn't fire him but tried to deep-six feds' prosecution of him, that was collusion.
12/ When Trump was secretly negotiating a multibillion dollar tower deal with Kremlin agents during the 2016 campaign while telling America that he had no business relationship whatsoever with any Russians, that was collusion of the most outrageously obvious and treacherous sort.
13/ When Trump disclosed classified Israeli intel in the Oval Office at a meeting with top Kremlin agents that he'd forbidden any Americans from attending or even photographingand bragged to them about ending investigation into secret US-Russian coordinationthat was collusion.
14/ When Trump secretly crafted a plan to drop all sanctions on the Kremlin even as his presidential campaign aides were having countless secret meetings with Russian nationals about sanctions policya plan that, when revealed, *terrified* the State Departmentthat was collusion.
15/ Proof that I could go on and on in this vein ad nauseum is that I've written two booksabout 1000 pageson Trump's collusion. Never let journalists tell you that there shouldn't be a *word* for all this until it's "conspiracy" beyond a reasonable doubt. It's *collusion*. /end
True Blue American
(17,992 posts)Have a good day!
ginnyinWI
(17,276 posts)tblue37
(65,490 posts)Eventually, maybe not in my lifetime, it will be revealed as Treason, too.
shockey80
(4,379 posts)ananda
(28,879 posts)nt
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,047 posts)rusty fender
(3,428 posts)like a big pizza pie, thats collusion
Sorry, not sorry, couldnt resist
Pepsidog
(6,254 posts)could understand.
DallasNE
(7,403 posts)Is whether Trump's power of the pardon influenced his work. For instance, he may have concluded that indictments of certain people would only result in a pardon being issued. He could conclude that as long as Trump is in power it does no good to indict those close to Trump. Following the money trail will be particularly interesting because that is not just money laundering but also foreign contributions to various organizations and candidates.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)boston bean
(36,223 posts)Hortensis
(58,785 posts)We're all addicted to new events every day and the idea of going and reading something healthy and improving in The Smithsonian instead can seem downright alien. This kind of fix is not me, though.
Here's a sort of fun article in New York Magazine about who to follow on Twitter depending on what floats your boat, understanding that the government does not require consumer warnings on this kind of medicine. Abramson made this very broad and varied list, showing that 600,000 followers is not nothing. Glen Greenwald's on it also (!), showing that working as an operative for Russia with 1 million somethings is not nothing either.
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/03/twitters-mueller-watchers-who-you-should-be-following.html
Roland99
(53,342 posts)Hortensis
(58,785 posts)untruths we pay attention to as readily as truth, even when we initially doubt or flat-out know it's not true. Every day we see in others what this does to them.
Possibly at some point vetting my sources before buying their books has cost me exposure to an outlier, unrecognized genius, but that's not this guy. Frankly, I'd think better of him if he was just the "unrecognized" part and hadn't turned what many thoughtful people believe are serious intellectual and character flaws into such a profitable thing.
Here's what Amazon has in place of the typical multiple glowing distinguished peer reviews for important, respected works:
That's it. Less than zilch. I just went and read the entire review, and even the paid hacks at Kirkus don't suggest anyone should read it. Just before that last is:
Speaking of, that just reminded me of Glenn Beck's temporary reaction to Trump's election, when he spoke of his regret and professing to not realize just how destructive an effect his poisonous nonsense was having on the nation. That passed quickly of course and he was right back to it from the other side of the conspiracist spectrum from Abramson. Not that I'm any more exposed to fame and fortune than I am to Abramson's book, but I can readily imagine they're hugely addictive.
That's as far as my peers down these rabbit holes ever go.
Have a nice evening.
Roland99
(53,342 posts)Hortensis
(58,785 posts)to varying degrees, and filling the void that's upsetting us with what we believe is information is an anxiolytic. Even if the "info" itself is scary, believing we know what we need to understand and make decisions provides the effect we need. Powerful drug. Of course, the more ongoing information conforms to what we want to believe, rather than causing renewed anxiety by contradicting, the more effective it is and we come back for more.
To me, that's why the Mueller conclusion to this point fails so badly to be what we need. We NEED truth powerful enough that it can break through to more people on the right, as happened at the end of the Watergate investigation. Instead, they'll take this as powerful reassurance that their information sources are the right ones, that he and they are the good people. That blessed certainty they crave recovered.
Oh, well. The battle continues. Have a nice day.
INdemo
(6,994 posts)to suggest that Trump was in fact was in collusion with Russia...Could he have held back because it would have sent our country into a political crisis? But what the hell we are in a crisis now...
Also by doing so Mueller, a Republican, could have used the final nail in the coffin of whats left of the Republican Party to destroy it,his party?
Mueller a special counsel but he is still a Republican.
Buckeyeblue
(5,502 posts)And other prosecutors are going to be taking that up....