Report raises questions about whether Rep. Omar married brother[quote

[Mina]

If The Trump campaign colluded with Russia to influence the election, that would most definitely require a conspiracy.

I see you haven't read the Mueller report. I suggest you do so -- or at least read the parts dealing with the distinction between collusion and criminal conspiracy. Good luck.

BTW, the FISA court didn't err. It was lied to.

As you know, there's no evidence of that. They didn't, for example, claim that an uncorroborated rumor was a corroborated fact. They didn't deceive the FISA court about where the dossier came from. The right-wingers are just butt-hurt that the FISA court looked at that dossier evidence, together with whatever other secret evidence we haven't been allowed to see, and concluded there was probable cause.

It wasn't "opposition research".

That's exactly what it was. It was intended to be an internal campaign document to help identify potential areas of vulnerability for Trump.

 

[veritas1]

I wish I had a dollar for every time I've had to explain this to righties.

Clinton campaign hired a law firm that hired Fusion GPS that hired Steele. Steele was not an agent of a foreign government. He did not reveal his sources, so we have no evidence that any of them were agents of a foreign government. Plus, there's that pesky fact that Clinton did not use anything from Steele's field reports against Trump during the campaign. And that other pesky fact that Steele went to the FBI before reporting to Fusion GPS, the company that hired him.

Junior took a meeting with someone he was told had ties to the Kremlin, for the purpose of getting campaign help from the Russian government.

Seriously, you should be paying me for this.

Paying you for your spin? No thanks. Hillary's six degrees of separation do not excuse her ties to the phony dossier and the Russian sources used by Steele. Also, to suggest that the dossier wasn't used against Trump or the campaign because Hillary didn't talk about it, is also absurd. It was used to get FISA warrants to spy on Carter Page and the campaign. Maybe she didn't talk about its specifics because she knew it was unverified BS.

 

[veritas1]

I see you haven't read the Mueller report. I suggest you do so -- or at least read the parts dealing with the distinction between collusion and criminal conspiracy. Good luck.



As you know, there's no evidence of that. They didn't, for example, claim that an uncorroborated rumor was a corroborated fact. They didn't deceive the FISA court about where the dossier came from. The right-wingers are just butt-hurt that the FISA court looked at that dossier evidence, together with whatever other secret evidence we haven't been allowed to see, and concluded there was probable cause.



That's exactly what it was. It was intended to be an internal campaign document to help identify potential areas of vulnerability for Trump.

If the FISA court considered ANY of the dossier "evidence", then they were considering uncorroborated material. There is no evidence whatever that they were informed that Trump's opponents paid for the dossier, either. That makes it tainted right out of the gate.

 

[Mina]

If the FISA court considered ANY of the dossier "evidence", then they were considering uncorroborated material.

Yes. That's how warrants work. It's based on probable cause, not ironclad proof. Normally, right-wingers get that, and wouldn't whine so much. For example, if there was an "uncorroborated" tip telling the FBI that a particular basement was being used by ISIS to assemble a bomb they were planning to set off in Times Square, generally right-wingers would be OK with a court considering that tip, along with other available evidence, in deciding whether to allow a search of that basement. But, when it's Republican operatives suspected of a crime, the right-wingers want to invent brand new, impractically high standards about what the court is even allowed to look at when deciding on a warrant.