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Comment by jdoliner | Hacker News Reader

> It's not; the issue is that a US Presidential campaign actively collaborated in an influence operation by a hostile foreign power directed against the US

That's a bold claim given that this indictment is exclusively of Russian agents and the special counsel has explicitly stated that said President is not a target of the probe [0]. When you say "active collaboration" what does that actually mean? And could you present some evidence of it?

[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-19/rosenstei...

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There was a meeting with a foreign ambassador offering to collaborate which was met with enthusiasm by trumps people who we are to believe knew nothing about this even though he was in the same building a few floors above.

He then went on TV and called for the Russians to hack Hillary.

According to the indictment, Russia kicked off a set of hacking attempts a few hours after Trump made that request. The timing creates an appearance of cooperation that is not ideal.

Republicans have argued that Trump was joking. The fact that Russia appears to have promptly complied with Trump's request complicates the situation.

Yes, only Russian agents are indicted this time, but someone who might be Roger Stone makes a brief appearance (#44) in the document, too, probably to be targeted in future legal action.

The american person in #44 is indeed likely to be Roger Stone. Here's what Mr. Stone wrote on March 10, 2017[1] regarding his contact with Guccifer 2.0:

> All contact I had with the entity known as Gufficer 2 came after I had written an article that was published on August 5th 2016 by Breitbart News and vetted by their lead investigative reporter Lee Stranahan. That article came after the DNC and DCCC material had been released and identified the role of a hacker going by the moniker Guccifer 2 based on our own sources.

> Therefore, any such “collaboration” would’ve also involved a time machine – something that I think Putin has not perfected yet.

> On August 14- some ten days- later I noted on my twitter feed that Guccifer 2.0 who had been suspended by Twitter had been reinstated. I did so because I abhor censorship. Then I did in fact have a short and innocuous Direct Message exchange with Guccifer 2.0. It was so perfunctory, brief and banal I had forgotten it. Not exactly 007 stuff even if Guccifer 2.0 was working for the Russkies.

These statements seem consistent with the information in the indictment.

[1] https://stonecoldtruth.com/roger-stone-the-smoking-gun-aims-...

In addition to Stone, there's also the Congressional candidate mentioned at Paragraph 43.

> That's a bold claim given that this indictment is exclusively of Russian agents

This is not the only indictment by the special counsel office, and the statement of the offense in one of the guilty pleas in a prior indictment is directly about active collusion efforts.

And I'm discussing what is at issue in the scandal, not merely what is covered by indictments that have already been issued.

> the special counsel has explicitly stated that said President is not a target of the probe

People read too much into that, because they tend to think that “target” is a broader term than it is, particularly, that it includes what is actually termed a “subject” rather than a “target”. That's notable because the special counsel has also explicitly said Trump is a subject of the investigation.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/04/trump-t...

You've answered neither of my questions though, just given me reasons that this doesn't disprove your "active collaboration" claim. I don't think any of this does disprove it, but you claim that he "actively collaborated" with Russia in this hack. I'm just wondering what, specifically, he did to "actively collaborate" and what the evidence of this is.

> but you claim that he "actively collaborated" with Russia

No, I don't. The campaign is not a “he”, and I said that the collaboration by the campaign (and the potential that, if that is the case, the President is effectively a foreign agent) is the issue, that is, the subject of concern/debate, not that it's a fact (though at least one member of the campaign has already admitted to actively seeking to collaborate with Russia, and implicated other campaign officials, in his guilty plea to charges laid by the special counsel.)

Not sure why this is being downvoted. It is abundantly clear that the special counsel is being extremely conservative with their indictments and claims so as to not create the opportunity for opponents to dispute the claims.

The issue of target vs subject is a technical one by the special counsel and is intentionally twisted by the conservative media. It's like in any other legal trial: a verdict of "not guilty" is not an affirmation that the defendant is innocent, but rather that the prosecution couldn't prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the defendant was guilty.

Whereas most of SV embraces "move fast and break things", we should be thankful that the special counsel is not.

On the other hand these indictments will never go to trial, and the defendants will not be convicted and/or punished, so it’s a little too conservative for now.

Meetings between high level Trump campaign officials and Russia are public knowledge.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_campaign%E2%80%93Russian...

The president is a subject of the probe, which is the ambiguous position of possibly being a witness or eventually becoming a target.

As for active collaboration? The DAG Rod Rosenstein told Trump these indictments were coming and their nature. And today Trump decides not to push back on Putin/Russia for these actions, but he impugned Robert Mueller with "rigged witch hunt" claims. Again. That is giving aid and comfort to Putin/Russia by papering over, giving them cover for, attacks/crimes on the United States, its people, its institutions, and at least two candidates.

He has been doing a variation on this for two years: maybe they did it, maybe they didn't, Putin denies it so we should believe that because Putin is a good guy and we should just get along, and maybe it was China and maybe it was a 400 pound fat man in a bed.

And what he is doing is two fold: Demanding Americans believe Trump over Mueller, which is hilarious, insane, and ridiculous. But that's just what this presidency has mostly given us in spades. And then demanding that American believe Putin over Mueller and U.S. intelligence agencies!

Trump says he will "ask the question" again to Putin. The false premise is that there is even a question but that too is active collaboration with Russia by accepting that Putin has a more reliable answer to give than Trump's own intelligence service, and his own DOJ, and the special counsel.

Active collaboration is happening in broad daylight.

> On what moral grounds does Socialism justify confiscating property and sacrificing lives? We can certainly disagree about what is or is not Capitalism but this is what Socialism does and you know it.

In a federal grand jury investigation, a “subject” is very close to what is understood in the common vernacular as a “suspect” (but not a “prime suspect”) in a criminal investigation; someone whose conduct is being examined because of the distance of illegal activity, but against whom prosecutors do not have enough evidence of guilt that charges (or, socially, an attempt to indict) is imminent.

Too late to edit, but “socially” -> “specifically” and the leading quote was supposed to be:

> The president is a subject of the probe, which is the ambiguous position of possibly being a witness or eventually becoming a target.

You need to realize that just because he isn't a 'target' at this time, it does not mean he cannot become a target in the future. Right now he is considered a subject of the investigation and his behavior/actions are under scrutiny of the Mueller investigation. If Trump is elevated to target of the investigation, then that means the Mueller investigation has significant evidence that a crime was committed.

Considering how many high level people in Trump's close orbit have been indicted or investigated it would be extremely difficult for him to have not known about any of this occurring in his campaign.

Let's go through the people close to Trump who have been indicted or who have plead guilty.

Paul Manafort: Indicted for a number of financial crimes unrelated to the 2016 election. https://www.justice.gov/file/1007271/download and https://www.justice.gov/file/1038391/download

Richard Gates: As above.

George Papadopoulos: Plead guilty to lying to the FBI without an underlying crime. https://www.justice.gov/file/1007346/download

Michael Flynn: Plead guilty to lying to the FBI without an underlying crime. https://www.justice.gov/file/1015126/download

So far there is no indictment or guilty plea among Trump's associates related to the 2016 election.

> George Papadopoulos: Plead guilty to lying to the FBI without an underlying crime.

[...]

> So far there is no indictment or guilty plea among Trump's associates related to the 2016 election.

Wrong. What Papadopoulos plead guilty lying to the FBI about was specifically collaborating with Russians known to and believed by him to be connected with the Russian government while he was a foreign policy adviser to the campaign, on matters related to the campaign. See the “Statement of Offense” filed with his plea:

https://www.justice.gov/file/1007346/download

I have seen his statement of offense document. In fact I linked to it in my own post. The only crime listed in it is "18 U.S.C. §1001 (False Statements)". It's true that the contents of his lies relate to the collusion investigation, but still, there is no underlying crime charged or pleaded guilty to that relates to the 2016 election.

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