Gagging for it (SCO Thread v. 29) Update Mueller Report Released

[MicroBrew]

Former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steel was responding to Scarborough's below comment:

Scarborough:
“Paul Manafort was more than a useful idiot for (Vladimir) Putin and the Russians,” Scarborough said. “I want to be careful with the word because I’m sure whatever word I choose will be freighted with legal significance, but he’s an agent for them.”


“Technically was not, I know, but certainly was a promoter of Putin and Russia’s interests actively,” he added.

Steele:
What he brought into the campaign, and the fact that he had connections that reached a lot further than we thought in terms of the relationships in Russia, as well as the influence on the campaign,” Steele said. “We saw it play out, Joe.”

“I remember being on the show back when the RNC changed its platform to sort of reflect this sort of Russian influence,” Steele added. “This is all part of a strategy, as indicated in the reporting to get friendly players inside government, to carry the water on behalf of Russia — and one of the key operatives of that was Paul Manafort.”

-

https://www.salon.com/2018/07/03/morning-joe-says-paul-manafort-is-as-russian-agent_partner/


*Mod Edit*
This OP from a thread merged on the topic that was necro'd. The original OP for this version of the mega-thread is not far below. Here is a direct link:
https://forums.sherdog.com/posts/149491233/

Just between two sources that are known he was about $40MM in debt. And those are just the ones known.

So his entire asset base of abut $42MM confiscated would have been had to be liquified to pay off his debts and him to walk away homeless.

Manafort Joined Trump as Ukraine Work Slowed, Cash Woes Rose

Manafort's financial troubles raise new questions about why he offered to work as an unpaid volunteer to the Trump campaign

Immediately below that is @Quipling's running index:

Previous Threads

Spoiler

1. Don Jr. Confirms Trump Tower "adoption" meeting w/ kushner, Manafort
2. Gowdy Excoriates Trump
3. Trump Fixates on Leakers
4. Cover of Time
5. "Nothing Illegal"
7. "Nothingburger"
8. Royale With Cheese
9. First Charges
10. One Guilty Plea, Two Indictments
11. This is it Megathread
12. From Mueller with Love
13. Bob Mueller's Thirteen Russian Burgers
14. Conspiracy is a Gates-way Drug
15. Nunberg, not Nothingburger
16. Urine Trouble
17. Tamper Tantrum
18. The investigation just GRU
19. Mid-air Collusion
20. Just a Cohencidence
21. Pecker Problems
22. Patton the Back
23. Manafort Pleas, Thank You
24. Ferris Mueller's Election Off
25. Use it in a Sentence
26. Flynn Cohen to Prison
27. Perjuring the Swamp
28. Get me Roger Stone

Current big news:

• According to an anonymous source, the Mueller Report may be submitted by March 2019
• Roger Stone and his attorneys are no longer allowed to publicly discuss their case except to assert his innocence and ask for money. This is because the court issued an extensive gag order after Stone tweeted a picture of the judge next to a crosshair symbol.
• The Manhattan District Attorney is prepared to bring state criminal charges if Trump pardons Manafort.

Mod note from previous thread: Please post in here with regards to the subject at hand. Any general chat can go in the WR Lounge thread.

Spoiler

Just to be clear, going forward, these type of posts also count of derailing:
1. Talking about how the thread is derailed/ how mods should handle a situation (report and continue on topic discussions)
2. Joking about posters who are reply banned from the thread
3. Posts with only flaming that do not have any other information about the topic
4. A reply to any of the above

Stop doing these. This isn't some game of getting each other reply bans and infractions. Just stay on topic, report when needed. We have the WR OT for posts like the ones above but they have no place in a normal thread.

Major events so far:

• Manafort, Trump's campaign manager and transition committee member has been indicted arising from misconduct reaching into 2017 related to payments received through 2014 from the pro-russia faction of Ukraine's pre-war government. Manafort pleaded guilty, agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors, and then lied to them.
• Roger Stone has been charged with Obstruction, Lying to Investigators, and Witness Tampering. This is in connection with an investigation into his contacts with WikiLeaks and the dissemination of info from the DNC and Clinton hacks. He is now subject to a gag order.
  
• Michael Cohen, Trump's attorney, has pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations, which he claims to have committed at Trump's direction to influence the election. Cohen cooperated with federal prosecutors and received a 3-year sentence.
• Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Org. CFO, has agreed to immunity in exchange for cooperating with federal prosecutors
• Rick Gates has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and conspiring (with Manafort) to commiting tax fraud, failing to register as a foreign agent, and lying to the FBI
• George Papadopolous pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators in 2017 about activities occuring 2016-17. Admits to meeting with various Russian officials regarding setting up meetings and "dirt" on Hillary while acting on behalf of the Trump campaign, something he previously denied. Papadopoulos is now accusing Mifsud of being a deep state plant on Twitter.
• Mike Flynn, Trump's National Security Advisor, has also pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about several meetings that he had with the Russian ambassador. Flynn was allegedly involved in other business involving Turkey, but has not yet been charged with respect to that behavior.
• 13 Russian indictment for activity starting in 2014 and continuing through 2017. A US citizen pleaded guilty for agreeing to help them. There is also a separate 12 count indictment targeting GRU officers
• An attorney linked to Manafort, Gates, and a Russian oligarch has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI
• Yohai, Manafort's former son-in-law has agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department
• Daniels's lawsuit has somehow, insanely, gotten linked up to the Mueller investigation thanks to alleged wrongdoing and influence-peddling by Michael Cohen. Who has pleaded guilty and offered to fully cooperate.
• Twelve Russian intelligence officers have been indicted for conspiracy against the United States and aggravated identity theft
• Bruce Ohr, of dossier fame, has been working to obtain information from Russian oligarchs since 2014.
• Documents relating to Manafort's guilty plea implicate Tony Podesta. Tony Podesta is the brother of Clinton's campaign advisor, John Podesta. His former firm, which is now cooperating with the probe, worked for Manafort in Ukraine.

Dumb talking points:

Spoiler

Stone wasn't charged with Collusion!
Correct. He was charged for obstructing the investigation, lying under oath, and witness tampering.

Why hasn't anybody been charged with "collusion"?
Collusion is a catch-all term. It's not the name of a specific crime.

So where is the Collusion?
The Mueller investigation is about any links between "the Russian Government and individuals associated with the campaign of Donald Trump". Stone is an individual associated with the campaign of Donald Trump. The link investigated there revolves around the information stolen by Russian state actors and distributed through WikiLeaks. For other links, read above.

Where are the thousands of Indictments?
What thousands? There are forty or so listed here, but nobody has claimed thousands.

Stone says he didn't do it!
So do a lot of other defendants who turn out to be guilty.

These are "process crimes", so they don't really count.
First, there isn't a judge in this country who believes that things like obstruction and witness tampering aren't serious crimes. The distinction between "process" crimes and other felonies is meaningless. Second, a significant amount of charged conduct goes well beyond "process." Third, there is definitely a great deal of uncharged or sealed conduct that goes beyond "process"-as shown by the failed redaction in Manafort's recent filing.

CNN was there an hour before Stone was arrested!
Who gives a shit? Why does that matter?

 

[Jorge Luis Borges]

“Technically was not, I know"

So Manafort was an agent, but the person claiming that he was an agent admits he was not an agent?

Manafort is a sleazy guy and I'm willing to believe lots of bad things about him, but this is shit tier journalism.

 

[MicroBrew]

So Manafort was an agent, but the person claiming that he was an agent admits he was not an agent?

Manafort is a sleazy guy and I'm willing to believe lots of bad things about him, but this is shit tier journalism.

Scarborough said "Agent for them" in the sense that he was working for the interests of Russia, not "Agent" as in a covert spy.

Joe also qualified his statement with this :“Technically was not, I know, but certainly was a promoter of Putin and Russia’s interests actively,” he added.

 

[Fedorable]

 

[bushman505]

Lol this is it!!!!

 

[bobgeese]

Flipped.

 

[Jorge Luis Borges]

Scarborough said "Agent for them" in the sense that he was working for the interests of Russia, not "Agent" as in a covert spy.

Joe also qualified his statement with this :“Technically was not, I know, but certainly was a promoter of Putin and Russia’s interests actively,” he added.

Right, so the idea that collusion was evident, which you claim in your thread title, is explicitly denied by the article. He's claiming that Manafort thought we'd be smarter to be closer to the Russians (I disagree fwiw), not that Manafort was colluding with the Russians.

 

[Mark Hunts FIST]

This Russia story is so dead.
5 replies in 2 hours

Your friends have deserted you, brother

 

[MicroBrew]

Right, so the idea that collusion was evident, which you claim in your thread title, is explicitly denied by the article. He's claiming that Manafort thought we'd be smarter to be closer to the Russians (I disagree fwiw), not that Manafort was colluding with the Russians.

The collusion = pushing Russian interests, which he did for years alongside the Russian Konstantin Kilimnik.

 

[MicroBrew]

Related news:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/rebuke-t...g-russia-attacked-2016-election-210143332.html

In rebuke to Trump, key Senate panel endorses finding that Russia attacked 2016 election

WASHINGTON — The Senate Intelligence Committee, rejecting doubts conveyed by President Trump as recently as last week, has become the latest body to officially conclude that the Russian government conducted a wide-ranging campaign — including cyberattacks — to influence the 2016 presidential election.


An unclassified seven-page report, released by the committee Tuesday with full bipartisan support, was based on an extensive, year-and-a-half-long investigation into the U.S. intelligence community’s January 2017 assessment that the Kremlin carried out its campaign in part for the purpose of promoting Trump’s candidacy and discrediting Hillary Clinton.


The committee’s conclusion: The assessment, which had been ordered by President Obama, is a “sound intelligence product” that was prepared by analysts who “were under no politically motivated pressure to reach any conclusions” and was based on a “range of all-source reporting,” albeit much of it still classified.

 

[Jorge Luis Borges]

The collusion = pushing Russian interests, which he did for years alongside the Russian Konstantin Kilimnik.

Pushing Russian interests is not collusion. Pushing Russian interests as an agent of Russia would be though. And the story explicitly tells us that it didn't happen.

 

[LangfordBarrow]

So Manafort was an agent, but the person claiming that he was an agent admits he was not an agent?

Manafort is a sleazy guy and I'm willing to believe lots of bad things about him, but this is shit tier journalism.

Are you willing to believe that Manafort had high level Russian government contacts while working in Ukraine for the candidate they backed? This interview is useless but the fact remains that it's all very suspicious.

 

[Jorge Luis Borges]

Are you willing to believe that Manafort had high level Russian government contacts while working in Ukraine for the candidate they backed? This interview is useless but the fact remains that it's all very suspicious.

Yes, I am willing to believe it. I think I mentioned that in my first post, Manafort is a suspicious guy. I have no interest in defending him. I'm just pointing out that the article explicitly refutes the thread title.

 

[LangfordBarrow]

Right, so the idea that collusion was evident, which you claim in your thread title, is explicitly denied by the article. He's claiming that Manafort thought we'd be smarter to be closer to the Russians (I disagree fwiw), not that Manafort was colluding with the Russians.

He almost certainly was colluding with Russians if not their government directly. Russians were his employers in Ukraine and he was heavily in debt to them. That the collusion went all the way up the line to Trump Sr. himself remains to be seen but that meeting at the Tower with Manafort, Kushner and Junior is enough justification for an investigation.

 

[Brodels]

Someone's been watching too much Homeland

 

[Fedorable]

Lol this is it!!!!

 

[NC252]

He almost certainly was colluding with Russians if not their government directly. Russians were his employers in Ukraine and he was heavily in debt to them. That the collusion went all the way up the line to Trump Sr. himself remains to be seen but that meeting at the Tower with Manafort, Kushner and Junior is enough justification for an investigation.

Collusion is not a crime. But if you was paid by the Kremlin that would be a crime.

 

[Cooz]

Pushing Russian interests is not collusion. Pushing Russian interests as an agent of Russia would be though. And the story explicitly tells us that it didn't happen.

I don’t think you know what the word collusion means.

 

[MayhemMonkey]

Former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steel was responding to Scarborough's below comment:

Scarborough:
“Paul Manafort was more than a useful idiot for (Vladimir) Putin and the Russians,” Scarborough said. “I want to be careful with the word because I’m sure whatever word I choose will be freighted with legal significance, but he’s an agent for them.”


“Technically was not, I know, but certainly was a promoter of Putin and Russia’s interests actively,” he added.

Steele:
What he brought into the campaign, and the fact that he had connections that reached a lot further than we thought in terms of the relationships in Russia, as well as the influence on the campaign,” Steele said. “We saw it play out, Joe.”

“I remember being on the show back when the RNC changed its platform to sort of reflect this sort of Russian influence,” Steele added. “This is all part of a strategy, as indicated in the reporting to get friendly players inside government, to carry the water on behalf of Russia — and one of the key operatives of that was Paul Manafort.”

-

https://www.salon.com/2018/07/03/morning-joe-says-paul-manafort-is-as-russian-agent_partner/

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...d-leaveeu-national-crime-agency-a8425321.html

Brexit's biggest campaign donor 'investigated by National Crime Agency over links to Russia'
Emails reportedly show Arron Banks was offered three Russian business deals

the links to Russia are becoming more obvious by the day, the Brexit campaign also had links to Russia

Both Trumps campaign and Brexit have shady dealings with Russians, it was Banks who passed on Trumps contact details to the Russians

oh and both are funded by Robert Mercer(journalist carole cadwallr is doing great work bringing most of this information to the publics attention)

anyone who thinks theres nothing to the Russia stories are just being naive

 

[MicroBrew]

Right, so the idea that collusion was evident, which you claim in your thread title, is explicitly denied by the article. He's claiming that Manafort thought we'd be smarter to be closer to the Russians (I disagree fwiw), not that Manafort was colluding with the Russians.

Manafort was shilling for the Russians, for years, and was involved with a person suspected to be a Russian operative. Since he was shilling for them, common sense would dictate that Manafort had contact with Russia and received directions/advice/guidance etc..That looks an awful lot like collusion.