Quote (IceMage @ Aug 6 2018 05:33pm)
You have the facts right, besides IMO the claim that Hillary's campaign colluded with Russians. It's not an honest characterization of what happened.
Fusion GPS did it's own work too. They specialize in basically following the paper trail in countries like Russia, although they don't have many human sources, so they asked Steele to dig around.
I feel like people treat Steele as if he's some random private investigator off the street. The guy headed the Russia desk at MI6 until 2009. MI6, besides maybe the CIA, is considered to have the best intelligence operation in Russia. That(combined with corroborating information) is why the FBI took this so seriously when they found out.
And the Clinton campaign gets to what, reap all the benefits of collusion and hide behind plausible deniability and pretending they 'didn't know'? Thats the kind of unaccountability reserved for mob bosses and CEOs of pyramid schemes.
The facts is, the Clinton campaign made secret payments to Perkins Coie designed to intentionally obfuscate the money trail to their dirty oppo operation, listing these campaign payments as 'legal services' so there would be no report to the FEC. Why would they do that unless they
wanted to keep their hands off such operations? Seems to me like standard operating procedure for the kinds of political machinations Clinton was known for, she's come a long way since '9987% profits on cattle futures'.
Nobody is ever going to be able to prove how much she knew or when, because like the accounting at the Clinton Foundation, its intentionally opaque. But I don't think it really matters. We have clear evidence of a money trail from the Clinton campaign / DNC / OFA -> Kremlin agents for the explicit purpose of soliciting opposition research on Trump to influence the election.
Collusion isnt a crime. Conspiring with the Russian government to sway an election is not 'definitely illegal'. It is however a big scandal. If we looked at it purely from a legal lens, there's just no accountability for the Steele connection, because its not illegal. But from a political scandal lens, it is far more damning than the connections of 'Trump Tower' or whatever they're on about. And when it comes to scandals, plausible deniability is no excuse, Hillary being able to distance herself for a legal quibble is not the same as being unaccountable for whatever moral/ethical transgression. Its clear enough that the money was sent down the chain, that the intel was passed all the way back up it to her campaign, and they knew to keep the money trail secret even if it meant violating the FEC's disclosure laws. That should be enough in and of itself.
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