I did not hear the others join in..At least not while I was watching early today.

I can't believe anyone would willingly think he has anything useful to say that doesn't benefit Tweety. Fuck that guy.

Why was General Flynn fired and why did Jeff Sessions recuse himself? And why did Jared meet with that Russian banker?

A little premature to say there was no collusion, in my opinion.

Even his nominee for FBI director does!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Donald Trump's new FBI director pick has Russian ties of his own
Kenneth F. McCallion, Opinion contributor Published 5:00 a.m. ET June 8, 2017

On paper, Christopher Wray appears to be an excellent choice to serve as the next FBI director. He has "impeccable" academic credentials (Yale law school) and has had a decades-long distinguished career as a federal prosecutor and high-level official in the Department of Justice. As the criminal defense lawyer for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie during the “Bridgegate” investigation, he did raise some eyebrows when it was learned that one of Christie’s “missing” cellphones mysteriously ended up in Wray’s possession, but this is unlikely to derail Wray’s confirmation.

The most troubling issue that Wray may face is the fact that his law firm — King & Spalding — represents Rosneft and Gazprom, two of Russia’s largest state-controlled oil companies.

Rosneft was prominently mentioned in the now infamous 35-page dossier prepared by former British MI6 agent Christopher Steele. The dossier claims that the CEO of Rosneft, Igor Sechin, offered candidate Donald Trump, through Trump’s campaign manager Carter Page, a 19% stake in the company in exchange for lifting U.S. sanctions on Russia. The dossier claims that the offer was made in July while Page was in Moscow.

Rosneft is also the company that had a $500 billion oil drilling joint-venture with Exxon in 2012, when Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was Exxon’s CEO. However, the deal was nixed by President Obama in 2014, when he imposed the sanctions that crippled Russia’s ability to do business with U.S. companies. The lifting of sanctions by the Trump administration would enable Exxon to renew its joint venture agreement with Rosneft, and the law firm of King & Spalding could end up in the middle of the contract negotiations between those two companies.

More: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/06/08/trump-new-fbi-director-chris-wray-russian-ties-rosneft-gazprom-column/102603214/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Does Dolt45 know anyone who DOES NOT have ties to Russia?

isn't the only one who's a little confused and addle-brained today. "Your time is expired" , Tweety.

"colleague" or some such easy word.

In this case, he is cravenly trying to stand out in the journo crowd. He knows what the consensus is.

things were made clear:

1. Trump is a liar
2. No special counsel was necessary for Clinton because she did nothing criminal
3. A special counsel was needed for Russian interference, and their is no fuzziness about it, Russia interfered in the 2016 election
4. Trump told Comey in private to let the Flynn election go
5. Trump fired Comey because of the Russian investigation

More to follow

You'll get excellent info from them.

and he consistently interrupts his guests just as they're getting to the heart of an issue. I'm so exasperated with him that I just stopped watching him a few months ago. But Chris Hayes, Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O'Donnell and Joy Ried always have a great deal of informative analysis that's well worth watching. MSNBC's evening line up helps to keep me sane. Thank God for these journalists!

Trump has been completely vindicated, today proves without a shadow of a doubt that there was no collusion, and we should all just breathe a huge sigh of relief and look forward to advancing Trump's tremendously terrific very special agenda.

Fuck that.

There was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian hackers. Nothing

He's a fucking religious NUT case, and he is too fucking scared to EVER confront ANY religious conservative like Michelle Bachmann when it comes to her public statements versus her actions.

He's is FUCKING worthless, and he NEVER shuts the FUCK up. . . .

... then you might as well be a Fox News viewer.

I don't agree with Matthews. I think his assertion is premature, and I don't think he's as smart as he thinks he is. So Trump told Comey to go after "satellites." HELLO... SETTING UP A FALL GUY, MAYBE? It doesn't mean that collusion is done with. So I think Matthews is being unimaginative and premature. But am I going to give up the entire network because one guy is a shitwit? I'm not giving up a chance to see Rachel or Lawrence O'Donnell, for one. And I still think that MSNBC is going to be as close as it gets to real news.

So, no.

Ruskies to get himself elected presented today or previously. None today, and none before. Hence, Trump was not under investigation.

We may not like the truth, but that's it at this point.

Now, Trump may have obstructed justice, which is our best chance to get him. But, there is a way to go on that.

Because Comey didn't announce anything classified?

What do you suppose all those contacts were between Trump people and Russians during the campaign? Just coincidental timing? And EVERYONE'S in contact with Russians but Trump?? Everyone's running the show but Trump? That's now how he operates. He's been in bed with Russian oligarchs and mob figures for years - and there's NOTHING he wouldn't do for money and power!!

If you haven't figured out that much by now, you haven't paid too much attention!

before election? Better yet, evidence they were colluding to elect Trump.

I would love to have to eat crow dung on this, but no one has produced evidence of collusion in election. I do not doubt Russia, Germany, Canada, big corporations, little corporations, the Vatican, Israel, gun manufacturers, and lots of others contacted Trump's people. I'm sure they contacted Clinton's too. But none of that will take Trump down, especially with GOPers in control unless you show evidence of collusion.

Have to conclude, since they all said the same/similar things, that they were mostly BS too.

KNOWN.

a mirage?

Sam

was deemed "almost entirely wrong" - under oath - by the Director of the FBI.

requests for them to define exactly what isn't true. They stand by their story

Comey said that he surveyed the IC extensively, and found that "The challenge...not picking on reporters writing about classified information, is that people talking about it often don't know what they are talking about".

You are correct that no evidence has been presented to the public, but that is like looking at a drug conspiracy where everyone is wiretapped and cooperating witnesses are doing controlled buys and saying "there is no evidence of a drug conspiracy". You don't really know until the guys in the black ski masks show up with the warrant.

But prayers haven't done a lot for me.

with the Russian ambassador to discuss sanctions (while not officially in government, mind you), and lied about it not only in his clearance documents, but directly to two FBI agents.

So that is not likely evidence of collusion in the election.


I'd be willing to bet every incoming Admin contacts other countries before the Inauguration. Technically, they shouldn't, but that would be kind of stupid. I'd bet my rear Obama's Admin contacted Russia before taking office.

I don't for a minute think Trump's intentions were as pure as Obama's, but we'll need more than speculation to take Trump down.

So you understand that investigations are still going on, and all the data is not in, including the fact that Comey would not discuss some things publicly.

What came out of today's session was the following:

1. Trump is a liar
2. No special counsel was necessary for Clinton because she did nothing criminal
3. A special counsel was needed for Russian interference, and their is no fuzziness about it, Russia interfered in the 2016 election
4. Trump told Comey in private to let the Flynn election go
5. Trump fired Comey because of the Russian investigation

The purpose of today's session had nothing to do with whether their was collusion with Russia or not. Comey outlined clearly in a letter the night before what he was willing to discuss

As I said, and you essentially said, "it has yet to be determined"

You don't know the whole truth,
but the Special Prosecutor will.

waking up checking the news every few hours just knowing that any minute they were going to handcuff bush and cheney. In the end, nothing. Unless they get Trump on obstruction or GOPers convince him this is a "distraction" that is hurting the party, I think at best we'll see a few aides and family fired for trying to enrich themselves while supposedly representing our country. But, I hope I'm wrong and it's much deeper than that.

As Comey pointed out, Trump was not under investigation specifically, but his campaign was. And by proxy, it's reasonable to extend that suspicion to Trump himself as he is at the head of the campaign. It's no different than bringing down a mafia boss. You work your way up from the bottom of the orginization, and eventually you're likely to find a link to the head of that group. Also, at one point in the questioning it was clarified that what he said was accurate as to the time Donald Trump asked him. Anything past that point is unknown to the public. Many questions considering the state of the Russia investigation were only answerable during the closed session.

"BURR: I’d like to call this hearing to order...

"In your opinion, did potential Russian efforts to establish links with individuals in the Trump orbit rise to the level we could define as collusion? Or was it a counterintelligence concern?"

Burr to Comey during hearing.

Chris Matthews,, human weathervane, swings wildly in the slightest breeze. Again.

Lack of public slam-dunk does not equal falling apart, Tweety.

What he knows and what we know couldn't be further apart. The only thing we have to cling onto are Louise Mensch blogs and Claude Taylor tweets. Not exactly a meal but more like a rice cake.

Correct word is drivel.

Same with debates. Invariably he butchers the takeaway in the early hours and then jump shifts a day later after he's sampled consensus opinion, or opinions who he respects.

I have an immediate impression. But then I like to think about what was said, re-read the testimony and as I did tonight, listen to others who also heard the testimony. Sometimes it helps to hear an expert in law to explain what constitutes collusion or obstruction of justice. There may be many explanations of what was said and what it means.

I heard many voices joining the chorus tonight of what exactly transpired today. After hearing their explanations, I feel fairly certain that tRump is under investigation. The fact that Comey was not able to discuss some of the details in open session means there is more to tell. Members of the committee heard more this afternoon and eventually so will we.

If trump's campaign is being investigated, that means tRump falls under that investigation, too. He is still the top of that chain, so how could he not be a subject? As I heard tonight, they will go after the smaller fish and work their way up. As they move through the ranks, theoretically, the lower level people could rat out the higher level people, maybe hoping for leniency.

Anyone who claims that tRump got exonerated by Comey did not hear the same testimony that I did. What he did not or could not say in open session was just as intriguing as what he did say. This is going to get really interesting when the open hearings get going after some of the information is no longer classified. Pop the corn, pull up a chair!

personally - but you are because of the group you are in, the group YOU surround yourself with, the group YOU picked."

I must have missing SOMETHING along the way. I thought that when Comey testified formerly - he said Trump was being investigated. So, that was very disappointing to me when Comey said no.

So what's the difference? They have to have some kind of evidence that you may have broke a specific law? And they ARE investigating Flynn. What law is he suspected of breaking?

Flynn was being investigated for communicating with the Russians but telling the FBI he hadn't.

"Did you or any other FBI agent ever sense that Mr Flynn attempted to deceive you...?"

Comey: "I don't want to go too far. That was the subject of the criminal inquiry".



Comey: "We briefed the congressional leadership about what Americans we had counter-intelligence investigations on...there was no other investigation of the President that we were not mentioning at that time"

Collins "...Was the president under investigation at the time of your dismissal May 9th?"

Comey: No.

know people surrounding/appointed by Trump communicated with the Russians. But...they must not know about what yet? And, they have zero evidence that Trump directed anyone to talk to the Russians about topic X. Therefore, Trump himself is not being investigated - only the people who did talk to the Russians. So basically, we are in the first quarter of the game. Until they somehow find a tape of Trump directing them for nefarious reasons - or if one of them is squeezed enough to rat him out - then he will remain "not under investigation."

Obviously, they must not have a tape nor is anyone implicating Trump, or he would be part of an investigation, right?

The problem is, Trump is conniving enough to know, not to leave any evidence. Say he told Flynn to arrange the hack. He probably was damn sure there was no record of that conversation. And, even if Flynn rats him out - he would just deny.

I STILL believe that the whole deal about Trump accusing Obama of tapping Trump Tower was a ploy that everyone got punked with. Trump was ONLY floating that to see and hear everyone jump through hoops to deny. Which everyone did. Trump knew the only time he talked about the hack or whatever Russia agreed to do to help him was in TT. Bet he slept like a baby that night.

"Campaign aides and advisers" with "repeated contacts" is now up in the air per Comey too, though we KNOW several associates like Flynn and Page and Kushner had dealings, Sessions too.

But about what and how nefarious is now not as clear thanks to Comey.

through. Not that he is a shill for public opinion. I have watched him nearly every night for many years and he definitely strikes me as a free thinker.

closed hearing after the pubic hearing today? How can he conclude there was no collaboration, when he doesn't know what was discussed in the private hearing?

own.

I saw the entire thing that you posted...and think it is out of context...MSNBC is not perfect but it is the best we have...and I will support it...I watch the evening shows and MJ...I enjoy hearing him trash Trump...oh and welcome to DU...one final question...should we listen to Fox instead?

that Trump wasn't nailed in a more harmful way. Trump dodged a bullet - but the gun is still aimed at him.

We can not afford to lose ANYONE who is primarily on our side.

They know about us - of course. Anyone that was here when we first started DU can feel the difference - then and now and election night hack. And the mission now is - denigrate any Dem voices - any media that ever looks for the truth.

Kick ass. And most of the men are really good. I like Ali Velshi a lot.

Look, there are always going to be exceptions on any given day. I will always have a soft spot (in my head?) for Chris.

To each their own.

He's a kick ass interviewer.

he's right
Comey was not expected to be a slam dunk against the pres

If anything we know that more trumps people have lied or hidden the fact of their communication with russians...

Than everyone else. Matthews has become irrelevant and he needs to get some attention.

The "there, there is Trump's continued insistence that the Russian were not involved and his refusal to say anything negative about Putin.

It really has become a hidden scandal in plain view.

I spent a few days trying to figure this one out. He is always about the political issues, not left or right, but the gamesmanship between left and right.

All his pitches are usually straight over the plate, even while representing one side, but every so often there is like this, a wild out of control pitch into the bleachers.

Upon analyzing, and knowing his family dynamics, I think I know where this ridiculous statement came from.

Chris Matthews brothers are Republican politicians, and this stupid crap sounds too much like Republican dogma, Republicans talking points. Upon further review that is exactly where it's coming from. It sounds like Chris lost his last family picnic political debate and is guilty of regurgitating his brothers talking points.

Managing expectations, Republican spokespeople kept spinning James Comey's testimony as a ever moving goalpost, and then stated vindication when it didn't reach their impossible marker.

James Comey did not vindicate Donald Trump of collusion with the Russians, he said at a certain date he wasn't yet a target and on whether or not they have information that you would point to being a possible target in the future, James Comey referred that to the classified session.

Republicans claim vindication for the President when there was none