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Comment by croon | Hacker News Reader

Collusion is a very specific charge.

I wouldn't call "Russiagate" in any way debunked given this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_charges_brought_in_th...

No American on that list got indicted of anything related to "Russiagate", but for unrelated procedural crimes discovered during the investigation. (You know the saying that everyone wittingly or unwittingly commits three crimes a day?) Several Russian agents were indicted for Russiagate-related things; Putin will turn his goons over to US custody any day now.

> but for unrelated procedural crimes discovered during the investigation

The "unrelated" is completely false, which invalidates your entire argument.

Name an American indicted for unrelated crimes and maybe I can fill in the connection. It's mostly covered in the wiki under each of their paragraphs though.

>It's mostly covered in the wiki under each of their paragraphs though.

You're hoping that people won't bother to read said Wiki, or get confused by the legalese.

Papadopoulos: Indicted for making a false statement to FBI.

Manafort and Gates: Indicted for not registering as foreign agents of Ukraine (which, you might have noticed, is sort of an enemy of Russia right now)

Flynn: Indicted for making a false statement to FBI. (Forced by lack of legal fees into pleading guilty, which later caused problems when the government tried to drop charges.)

Pinedo (Who? Exactly): Indicted for identity fraud.

van der Zwaan: Indicted for making false statements (and not an American, anyway).

Cohen: Indicted for making false statements.

Stone: Indicted for making false statements and witness tampering.

Then we have people like Carter Page, whose name was raked over the coals for years because a FBI lawyer intentionally altered evidence (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/09/us/politics/fbi-ig-report...) showing that far from being a Russian asset, Page had for years briefed the CIA every time he met with suspicious Russians. (Got to love how the Times describes said altering evidence as a "serious error".) You want an actual Russiagate-related indictment and guilty plea? Kevin Clinesmith, said FBI lawyer, is your man.

Papadopoulos: For lying about this: "In subsequent days Papadopoulos worked with Mifsud and Polonskaya to arrange contacts between the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Trump campaign. In late April 2016, Papadopoulos emailed an unnamed Trump campaign "Senior Policy Advisor," stating "The Russian government has an open invitation by Putin for Mr. Trump to meet him when he is ready." At about the same time, Mifsud told Papadopoulos that the Russian government had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton in the form of "thousands of emails," which Papadopoulos then shared with Alexander Downer in a London bar days later."

Manafort and Gates: If your defense is that since Ukraine is an enemy of Russia, and therefore there can't be any pro-Russian agents there, I have bridges to sell you.

Flynn: Yes, he lied about meeting Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak about setting up encrypted channels to Russia.

Cohen: Lying about business developments in Russia (money is always a nice motivator in crime).

Stone: Had contact with Russian state hackers about the DNC hacks.

Donald Jr wasn't indicted for anything, but he managed to incriminate himself all on his own volition on twitter: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/07/11/us/politics/d...

The most charitable interpretation of this whole thing is that the Trump campaign were too stupid to qualify as collusion (but I think they were fully aware), but were instead pawns: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-senate/s...

> Collusion is a very specific charge.

Yes. And Russiagate was the belief that the Trump org colluded with the Russians. Which was debunked.

Not that citing Wikipedia means anything, but from the main article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20...:

> there was insufficient evidence to bring any conspiracy or coordination charges against Trump or his associates.

It was not "debunked" in any way. We know 100% they colluded with Russian agents. They just couldn't prove criminal intent. As far as Trump's obstruction of justice, correct me if I'm misremembering, but I'm pretty sure the Mueller report basically said "He did it, but we couldn't come up with solid enough evidence that we would be confident we could indict a sitting president" and the last line saying something like "this absolutely does not absolve the president of wrongdoing". Basically if Trump was anyone other than the president, they would have charged him.

Without 100% rock-solid evidence, the legal complexity of trying to indict him (and him potentially pardoning himself) would have likely caused a constitutional crisis, and who knows what might have happened then. It wasn't worth the risk.

The key part of that, as you've noted, is sitting President.

Citizen Trump would have been vulnerable to federal charges three different ways in 2018 if he hadn't been elected President.

> We know 100% they colluded with Russian agents.

The references in this thread so far say the opposite. If you have others that prove "We know 100% they colluded with Russian agents", add them.

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