No Perry Mason
Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, on Friday announced new charges against 12 Russian intelligence officers accused of hacking the Democratic National Committee, the Clinton presidential campaign and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The announcement came just a few days before President Trump is expected to meet with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in Helsinki, Finland.
The 11-count indictment includes charges of conspiracy by the Russian intelligence officials against the United States, money laundering and attempts to break into state boards of elections and other government agencies.
The indictment is part of the special counsel’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential campaign.
Trumpniks on Twitter are jumping up and down shouting that none of this has been connected to Trump.
The thing about that is, even if no connection to Trump is ever found, that won’t change the fact that he’s Russia’s chosen candidate, and that’s not for altruistic reasons. Given the closeness of the election it seems likely that without the Russian fixes he would have lost. That’s still important even if his nasty little fingers were not in it.
American intelligence officials and lawmakers are concerned that the Russians are also trying to meddle in the upcoming midterm congressional elections in November. Mr. Trump said on Friday that he planned to tell Mr. Putin when he meets with him to stay out of those elections.
“I know you’ll ask will we be talking about meddling?” Mr. Trump told reporters. “And I will absolutely bring that up. I don’t think you’ll have any, ‘Gee, I did it, I did it, you got me.’ There won’t be a Perry Mason here, I don’t think, but you never know what happens, right? But I will absolutely firmly ask the question. And hopefully we’ll have a very good relationship with Russia.”
Oh, whew, that’s a relief.
Mueller has requested 100 additional blank subpoenas, on top of the 150 he requested over a month ago. The largest ever mob prosecution had 8 special prosecutors assigned. Mueller has 18 and has requested additional staff.
Any deplorable victory lap is premature.
I had to look up Perry Mason… Why would anyone make such a reference?
I’m up for any democratically legitimate way of getting rid of Trump, and the sooner the better.
But there’s a gigantic difference between him working the Russians and them independently trying to tip the scales in his balance.
Putin hated Clinton, so it’s a given he was going to work against her. If we let him do that effectively, then shame on us. I disagree this makes any candidate who ran against Clinton illegitimate. Including our orange dotard.
Trump’s weird deference to Russia and some peripheral ties make people think there’s more to the story. If there was collusion, that’s huge, and he needs to go.
I haven’t read the indictments, but the fact that the big item has been they attacked Hillary’s servers after he said they should find her emails makes me think at this point there’s no collusion revealed by Mueller in these indictments. That was a dumb snide comment on his part, but it’s implausible to suggest that’s how he was colluding with them, openly in public speeches. If that gave them the idea to dig in her stuff (which isn’t even clear), it still doesn’t mean much.
There may very well be collusion, and experts have said for a long time that would come out in the final indictments. Maybe Mueller’s heading there. Time will tell. But today it looks like he just rounded up some bad guys, which is great, but there’s no clear connection to Trump yet.
That’s what I said.
Skeletor @3,
Probably a good idea for you to read the indictment before accusing Mueller of making a “dumb snide comment.” If you had, then you would know that the indictment says nothing about Trump’s public comments. It merely mentions that on July 27, 2016, the defendants began their attacks on email accounts used by Clinton’s personal office. (Attacks on official campaign servers began months previously.) Various commenters have noted the connection between that July 27 date and Trump’s comments, but the indictment doesn’t. And the indictment mentions lots of dates, so this didn’t get special treatment.
“Objection: your honor!” ;-)
Screechy, I think Skeletor’s mention of a ‘dumb, snide comment’ was referring to Trump’s suggestion that Russia look at Clinton’s e-mails, so making the point that a dumb, snide comment by Trump was not evidence of collusion.