4 days after the election, before the Trump/Russia story had gained momentum, Kremlin mouthpiece Konstantin Rykov bragged about how Russia worked with Robert Mercer's Cambridge Analytica to help fix things for Trump.
Thing of it is, though, the Russians have never made more than cursory denials of their involvement. Gene Lyons pointed out that if they thought they were going to get away with it they would have covered their tracks a lot better. As it is, it's thunderously obvious that the Russians worked on many different levels to tilt the election towards Trump. It's equally obvious that the motive for doing so was to diminish confidence in the office of the Presidency and that the best way forward now that their guy is in office is to give half the country reason to doubt he's legitimate, same as they would have done had Clinton won. I'm not even sure what losing outcome is possible here for Russia. Trump could call a press conference, confess to everything and cooperate 100% in transitioning power to a new administration (there's a sticky wicket) and we'd still have Nazis marching in Charlottesville and a #MAGA mass insisting the liberal conspiracy was sapping their precious bodily fluids.
They're playing like a right-wing International Department. Their losing outcome is the mirror of what it's was; the idealists notice Russia isn't really all that interested in right-wing nationalism for everyone.I'm not even sure what losing outcome is possible here for Russia.
is live and broadcasting Trump-related news from the Russian sources on Twitter in real time. So. There's a ton of damning evidence everywhere, some (unless I'm misreading) even linking Trump's campaign to Putin's government through third persons. I guess they can't charge Trump with any of it because the case is not yet built? I can see how something like this would require more than hearsay. From what I know, the Watergate scandal was brought into the light when the burglars were caught; here's not something as easily identifiable, so the immaterial evidence must be solid. Any news on the Mueller front? It seems to be going rather slowly -- not that I'd know much about how the process is supposed to go.a Russian language, pro-Trump website with a Russian domain, www.Trump2016.ru
Mueller is a special counsel appointed to continue a previously-extant FBI investigation into Trump's dealings with Russia. Unlike prior independent counsel/special counsel appointments, there's no limit to Mueller's scope. It's basically "look for wrongdoing." Ken Starr was appointed to investigate Whitewater, a minor land deal the Clintons had lost money on 20 years previously. People were already in jail. Nothing was active. And still, three years later we got taped depositions about whether or not Clinton had banged an intern. The investigation was still going three years after that. Watergate was a small, independent arm of Nixon's re-election campaign and whether the President was or was not aware of their illegal actions. The Washington Post had Howard Hunt's name in the Watergate burglars' address books three days after the break-in; it was six months before a special prosecutor was appointed, three more until hearings began, and another year before Nixon resigned. The Trump investigation, by contrast, appears to qualify as a "vast conspiracy" and we're barely six months in. The argument at hand is whether or not a corrupt real estate developer with ties to organized crime coordinated with an adversarial foreign power to disrupt the electoral process and install himself as a blackmailable puppet. From within that rather... open solution set the Mueller team has to come up with a definitive conclusion. There are no "mights" or "could haves". It's "there is evidence of" and "the record indicates that." It's gonna be a while.
Is the lengthiness of the process dependent on solidity of the evidence? you have to make sure you're getting all the right guys, no matter the hearsay?
I'm no expert, and this country hasn't done a whole lot of this. I think this is the fourth time since Watergate 40 years ago. I just know that the prevailing conventional wisdom is that even if Mueller weren't a methodical perfectionist with a great attention for detail we'd still be in for a wait.
As far as I know Mueller is looking into all of this and more but not releasing any information. For obvious reasons. I really think they're going to nail the fucking clown. But US politics is nothing if not consistent in that it always finds a way to disappoint me