Michael Cohen
‏Verified account @MichaelCohen212

As I said to @ABC @GStephanopoulos, “I respect our nation’s intelligence agencies who determined that Russia, had in fact, interfered or meddled in our democratic process. I repudiate Russia’s effort...and call on all Americans to do the same.”

pretty legit

Oh, that's a PERFECT example of the old saw: "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, then baffle them with bullshit.

Consider for a moment that all of this Russian interference talk and collusion talk is truly nonsense. Consider the possibility that it's a massive, Cold War-era campaign launched by our intelligence community and conveniently supported by our media and establishment politicians to undermine and weaken Trump's sovereignty to operate independently with US-Russia relations.

If this were truly the case, what a tragedy. US-Russia relations have been repeatedly ruined by internal domestic disputes within each respective country for decades now. We probably came closest to good relations in the late 80s and early 90s when Gorbachev adopted more pro-Western attitudes.

JFK received a ton of public backlash in the 1960's during the heat of the Cold War for acknowledging and honors the millions of Russians who died to help win WWII. He was the first US President to do so. Interestingly, like Trump, JFK also had huge disagreements with American intelligence as it pertained to US-Russian politics (see: Operation Northwoods).

It would be a shame if Trump is truly the first American president in decades who wants to open up US-Russian relations and negotiate with them in good faith and it's all being undermined by our own shitty domestic political turmoil. I don't know how likely that possibility is, but it's worth considering and thinking about in the context of how much the Cold War has potentially affected our country and intelligence community.

>Russia tries to interfere with and sway the outcome of our democratic elections
>but hey, who cares as long as we don't get into another war/cold war with them

while you bring up some good points, this is a dangerous attitude IMO. Do we really want Russia to help tell us who we want to lead our country & the "free" world?...

The fact remains nearly 50 % of voters wanted Trump.

This interference wasent some massive swing in the voters opinion.

It's a total failure on the democrat side.

1) clearly terrible poll turnout. I am quite certain that all this fuck Trump bullshit, he's a Nazi is made up of a large population that couldn't even get off their ass come voting day.

2) Hillary has a horrendous personality. A person with two feet and a heart beat should have beat out a clown.

This post was edited by SBD on Jul 17 2018 10:21pm

Biggest factor outside of her control was Comey making the announcement 2 weeks before the election.

Biggest factor within her control was her lack of campaigning in the blue wall. Truly a terrible strategy.

Yes to both those factors, just horrible campaigning. They must have just been so high on themselves throughout.

I can only assume self proclaimed democrats as a whole or more would have voted.

I still believe regardless of that announcement proper campaigning would have resulted in a landslide.

This post was edited by SBD on Jul 17 2018 10:26pm

I'll preface the below with this: Vladimir Putin has invaded 2 sovereign nations in the past decade. He's also interfered with Iranian and Syrian governments. The US should condemn Russia and Putin for these actions.

I just think it's dangerous to blindly trust our intelligence community when they have led us astray in the not too recent past (Iraq WMDs) and have demonstrated bias and some incompetence over the past two years (Comey with Clinton non-indictment and letter, Strzok with Russia probe, the damning OIG report on McCabe, FISA warrants granted without proper protocol, etc).

Many people certainly disagree with me on those points, and I'm always interested to learn more, but from my perspective, I've seen some fuckery with the FBI over recent years. So I think you have to take some of that into consideration, some of our Cold War history into consideration, and some of the recent massive fuck ups by American intelligence into consideration.

I think the Mueller investigation is going to give us the ultimate answer as it pertains to any cooperation or conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia. Right now, we are operating at an information deficit in a highly polarized political atmosphere, and it's tough to draw definitive conclusions. So I think it's important to have an open mind in the face of evolving information.

From what I've seen, there is more evidence for Trump campaign collusion or conspiracy with Russian officials than there was in say, 2016. We know a lot more now. But we still don't know a lot. And I think it's also important to consider historical context as well as what kind of power we feel comfortable giving our intelligence community potentially influencing both domestic and international politics without much definitive proof.

I don't really buy your argument that the supposedly non-political intelligence community isn't always acting in our best interest, seems to tinfoil-hatty for my liking. Sure war is/can be profitable, but I don't think our intelligence community wants a war with Russia lol.

I think the bold is the most important part of your post and the righties on here should take that advice. Sometimes, myself included, we can be quick to jump the gun on thinking Trump is guilty (I personally think he's guilty of something based on the fact he acts like he's guilty of something) just like the right is quick to the gun saying Trump is innocent or "no collusion".