Yeah, it's a fault of mine. I've never been able to empathize with people making decisions that are based on emotion and identity. Most recently that has manifested in my lack of understanding of Trump supporters, but traditionally it has been not understanding religious faiths.

They openly admitted that they exploited Flynn's presumption of cooperation to set him up on false statements. You can be 'cordial and non-combative' and still be out to destroy someone with a deceptive agenda. The facts have been in on this case for a long time, and there really shouldn't be any controversy: The FBI abided by the technical requirements to avoid entrapment, but were clearly there to ambush Flynn because they 1) Knew he had taken a public stance 2) Knew it was a subject of national security and sensitive diplomacy that they weren't on a need-to-know about, and 3) Knew that he had lied because of the unmasked wiretaps of Kislyak.
They purposefully met with him when his guard was down because he assumed it was good faith IC cooperation, and used it to rope him into making a false statement.

I don't know why you'd refuse to acknowledge this. You can debate the moral and legal justifications for their actions in ambushing Flynn like this, but you really can't deny its a setup. If you think they set him up for a good cause, okay, then we'll have to get into whether it was justified or not. But pretending that the FBI was conducting some professional and bog standard normal interview and Flynn was the one who violated normal conduct by lying to them out of the blue- that's just wrong.
Before we look at justification, you need to really appreciate that we're talking about one intelligence agency's leadership targeting the leadership of another's, in an aggressive operation to destroy his career and send him to prison. If even the hint of such hostile operations exist in our IC, it means that instead of open good faith cooperation, we'll have suspicion, paranoia and obstruction. And our IC has been incredibly dysfunctional and plagued by failures since 9/11 that our politicians have been calling out over and over, when different departments fail to cooperate and step on each others toes. When our intelligence community turns into warring factions with agendas- people die. Terrorists slip through the cracks. Criminals don't get caught. Corruption thrives.

Since the start of this whole affair, I've pointed out two things many times: For the government to spy on an opponent presidential candidate's campaign or figures in his orbit, is such a dangerous operation and so toxic to the fabric of democracy that it should only be undertaken when you're absolutely sure, when you've already got the smoking gun. Like reaching into the Queen's knickers because you think there's a bomb. And for one agency to attack the head of another and exploit their good faith to set them up on criminal charges is something that poisons our IC cooperation and could threaten our entire national security apparatus for a decade to come. This is a theme they share in common. Those who justify their actions as being on some vague suspicion or tortured legal justification over grey area of morality and law, take an action which is wildly dangerous and should not be attempted in anything but the most extreme circumstances. Can they justify it?

And that gets us to justification

You say that Flynn shouldn't have been meddling in foreign policy before being sworn in and Obama was justified in his dramatic last-minute foreign policy swings. But Obama's spite on leaving office was just as unprecedented as Trump's efforts to grapple with him. That power struggle was not a one-sided affair, it was mutual. A new captain was elected and in the minutes before he's sworn in, the old captain steered the ship straight onto the rocks, so the new captain grabbed the helm and they tussled like children. It was a disgraceful affair and not at all a smooth transition by gracious losers and magnanimous winners. We all know Obama would not have taken these actions if Hillary had won.

This aren't actions governed by strict laws and precedent. Its not like the Logan Act is some sacred writ. Rather, every single incoming president in modern times has established diplomatic contacts with foreign nations before taking office. That's always been regarded as normal. And generally, outgoing presidents and incoming ones either agreed enough on foreign policy, or respected the wishes of the other enough not to rock the boat on the way out. So we've avoided slapfights like Obama v Trump. There were however some clear violations, like diplomatic maneuvers before being elected president, and indeed to influence the election- like Nixon negotiating with Iran to get the hostages released only after the election.

So who threw us into these unprecedented waters and initiated the struggle? If it was just Obama sanctioning Russia for election interference, the balance might tip in his favor as justified. After all, we later learned it was real- but we didn't have the proof at the time. But the fact Obama was also throwing Israel under the bus at the U.N. on the settlement votes in an absurd and dramatic 180 flip from his previous position, throws any hint of legitimacy right out the window. So lets be clear: Obama initiated this. Not Trump. Maybe we can blame Trump for the animus between the two and credit him pushing birthergate, but Obama was clearly the aggressor and the one who threw out the norms in order to take a swing at Trump. And that's all besides the myriad of domestic policies where Obama laid stink bombs, like Bear Ears, the Arctic, PP Mandate, refrigerant regulations, etc etc. I'd be a broken record if I harped on all that again.

What we had was a situation where the case both legally and morally were ambiguous. Perhaps Obama could point to some weak legal argument on some defunct law that's never been enforced since the 17th century in order to claim Flynn was in the wrong. Perhaps Trump could point to some tortured moral argument about who took the first swing in a dumb slapfight between two people who were already in each other's faces. But what matters isn't who we can judge to be more at fault- its that we can't judge any clear right or wrong for either party. And for me, that moral and legal ambiguity is the crux, because referring to above: Extreme and dangerous actions cannot be given dubious justifications. I don't care whether Obama or Trump was in the right, I just know that McCabe was in the wrong, and the FBI had gone full blown Hoover mode and we should have strongly considered simply disbanding the entire department after that shitfest.

This post was edited by LA-Leviathan on May 15 2019 08:39pm

I know you imagine us to all be memes, but most people never made a positive claim to collusion. I actually can't name a single person here that argued we could be highly confident there was collusion, conspiracy, or whatever you want to call it. Except maybe Fender? But he's basically the lefts..... you. So we can't really hold him to a high bar.

you rage pm’d me updating me on your personal life development and you typed this up? lmao pathetic..



more good effort here than all the privileged lefties on this forum (minus commie) have done in their entire life combined

well done goom

This post was edited by excellence on May 15 2019 08:42pm

I still can't understand why you post here. Like, on what level is this rewarding? Are you getting paid?

If you got a reaction from anybody I could get it. If you actually engaged in discussion, even the level of discussion somebody like Ghot engages in, I could get it, but you seem to get nothing that I can imagine somebody valuing.

lol

He has the small peen syndrome

you react frequently and it makes me laugh. life is better with laughter.

and your lack of understanding when it comes to value is laughable. well what can we expect from someone on state subsidy and groceries paid for by mommie-in-law

e: reported, btw

This post was edited by excellence on May 15 2019 08:53pm