perfection has been reached.

*Something something* fruit of the poisonous tree.

Just seeing who he appointed was enough to justify an investigation.

Manafort had known Russian connections that were a SIGNIFICANT risk, and Flynn was already dead to rights on illegally acting as an unregistered foreign agent. Those are just the easiest to point out.

Maybe, but that's not the argument with which the FBI justifed its investigation into the Trump campaign in front of the FISA court - they predicated it on the info from the Steele dossier, which was coming from a partisan source and which has since been discredited on most points. This is what got the ball rolling in terms of spying on Trump and his associates. Once the FBI investigated Trump world, they were (unsurprisingly) able to dig up some dirt (although they ultimately fell short of being able to establish collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia). Hence, this seems - at least to me, for whatever that's worth - like a textbook example of a case in which the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine applies.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Oct 19 2022 10:11pm

Manafort was hired on the advice of Kushner and others to be a "professional" face of the campaign. At the time he was considered a long-time political operative. Following increased scrutiny of his Ukrainian lobbying work, he was fired.

https://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/paul-manafort-resigns-from-trump-campaign-227197?_amp=true

Flynn was lobbying on behalf of Turkey, a NATO member. His offense in that regard was a FARA violation, the typical punishment for which is a fine. It boggles the mind that anyone could think that's a good reason to suspect the President of colluding with Russia. It's a complete non-sequitor.