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Trump Admits Son Solicited Illegal Help from Russia

We should learn not to take Donald Trump’s words seriously. Not one word from his mouth has any reliability or mooring in fact.

But his latest admission (repeating something he said last year) that his son met with Russians offering dirt on Hillary Clinton reinforces the case that he’s been lying to us regularly:

While Trump and his legal team insist there was nothing illegal and “no collusion,” Trump’s apparent-tweeted admission on Sunday was, it turns out, also nothing new. It’s the very talking point the president and his aides settled on more than a year ago, after their initial claim that the meeting was just about adoptions didn’t hold up [Tamara Keith and Emma Bowman, “Trump (Again) Admits His Son Met with Russian Lawyer to Get Dirt on Clinton,” NPR, 2018.08.06].

Yeah, that adoption story was about as convincing as Maria Butina’s story that she was just a gun-loving graduate student.

But never mind what Donald Trump says; pay attention to what Donald Trump, Jr., did, soliciting information of value for a federal campaign from a foreign national… or, in other words, asking for an illegal contribution:

What is new from the president’s comments Sunday is his declaration that the meeting is “totally legal.” It may not be so cut and dry. Federal campaign finance law states it is illegal for a foreign national to “directly or indirectly, make a contribution or a donation of money or other thing of value.”

“Hard to see how there is not a serious case here of solicitation. Trump Jr. appears to have knowledge of the foreign source and is asking to see it,” Rick Hasen, a campaign finance law expert wrote on his blog last year. “Such information can be considered a ‘thing of value’ for purposes of the campaign finance law” [Keith and Bowman, 2018.08.06].

Impeachment odds for Trump on PredictIt.org have held steady in the upper 30%s all summer.

20 Comments

  1. jimmy james

    Trump tweet….”Fake News reporting, a complete fabrication, that I am concerned about the meeting my wonderful son, Donald, had in Trump Tower. This was a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics – and it went nowhere. I did not know about it!”

    Wow, there is a lot to unpack there! Trump went from “there were no meetings with Russians” to “the meeting was about adoptions” to the “sure we kinda colluded but it’s all good” defense.

    And reporting those inventions of his would be…. “fake news”, of course.

  2. jimmy james

    “a complete fabrication”

  3. Jason

    The New York Times breathlessly reports: “President Admits Focus of Trump Tower Meeting Was Getting Dirt on Clinton.” But in portraying this “admission” as news, the Times is playing fast and loose with the English language. In the process, it is dishing out fake news.

    What Trump acknowledged was that “this was a meeting to get information on an opponent.” In other words, the purpose of holding the meeting, from the Trump team’s perspective, was to get negative information about Hillary Clinton. The focus of the meeting was on what the participants actually talked about. Thus, the focus and the purpose might be two different things. In this instance, they appear to have been different.

    It isn’t news that the purpose of the meeting with the Russian lawyer was to get negative information about Clinton. This has been the president’s position all along. More than a year ago, he tweeted: “Most politicians would have gone to a meeting like the one Don jr attended in order to get info on an opponent. That’s politics!” (Emphasis added) This is almost identical in relevant part to today’s tweet which states in full:

    Fake News reporting, a complete fabrication, that I am concerned about the meeting my wonderful son, Donald, had in Trump Tower. This was a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics – and it went nowhere. I did not know about it!

    Thus, the Times’ suggestion that there’s something new here is, in a real sense, fake news. It’s manufactured.

    https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/08/fake-news-from-the-new-york-times.php

    The non-profit Coolidge Reagan Foundation on Thursday filed a Federal Election Complaint against Hillary Clinton’s campaign, the Democratic National Committee, their law firm Perkins Coie, and Christopher Steele, the ex-British spy that authored the “pee dossier,” for violating campaign finance laws.
    The non-profit charged that those parties hid payments made to and received by Fusion GPS, the firm that hired Steele to produce the dossier, in violation of finance laws.

    Democrats have accused the Trump administration of colluding with foreigners, when in reality it was the Democrats who colluded with foreigners, the non-profit charged.

    https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/07/19/non-profit-files-fec-complaint-against-clinton-campaign-dnc-over-dossier/

  4. jerry

    Comrade Jason, carrying the buckets of crap for Comrade trump. The dude tossed his anchor baby kid, under the bus, just like he did the ag producers and America herself. Comrade trump sold us all out to Russia folks, he just admitted it. trump is a traitor and anyone that can still stomach the support for him, is just as guilty with this admission. Wake up, change your country before Russia does.

  5. Rorschach

    When Donald Trump says anything it is just as likely to be a lie as it is to be true. He has no regard for the truth and will say whatever he believes at that moment to be in his own best interests regardless of the truth or falsity of it. We know that Trump is of bad character and will readily cheat anybody he deals with – not just those who do business with him, work for him or vote for him – but also his 3 wives – which really says it all. It is never a surprise when Trump changes his story. The real surprise is that anybody out there still believes anything he says. It is also a surprise that anybody would still want to do business with him, work for him, vote for him, or be married to him. They should know they are going to be thrown under the bus at some point. The only question is when.

  6. jerry

    Electric companies sound the alarm, Russian attacks on the grid.

    “After Russians successfully hacked into the United States’ electric utilities, giving them the power to trigger catastrophic blackouts throughout the country, officials are sounding the alarm and prepping punishments in case it happens again.

    According to a Sunday Wall Street Journal report, in June, a group of presidential advisers warned that the U.S. should be stockpiling resources to prevent “mass migrations” in the case of a nationwide blackout caused by foreign hackers.

    The privately-owned utility companies that run the three big electrical grids in the U.S. have reportedly said that they desperately need help from the federal government and the military to protect the technology.” Wall Street Journal (Pay wall)

    While you try to make your sump pump work to pump the crap out of your basement, only to find that Comrade trump and the South Dakota Duma party has allowed the grid to be shut down, just keep those buckets going. There will be no cavalry to come because the grid is shut down. Vote the bums out.

  7. Porter Lansing

    Let’s get to the meat of the issue and leave all your backstroking for Watertown’s disgrace, John Hinderaker. Sean Hannity has tried to float the fallacy that the dossier isn’t valid because it was paid for (all oppo research is paid for) and the payment was hidden from the FISA court. The fact is that the FISA court knew and didn’t care that is was paid for. The FISA court based it’s decision (to admit the dossier) on Christopher Steele’s stellar reputation of presenting factual and pertinent information to the court on numerous other occasions.
    ~ Put it away, Hannity. And Jason … have you ever had and original thought or is copying and pasting as far as your intellectual canoe can be paddled?

  8. marvin kammerer

    let’s not forget the redhaired lady & the nra’s connection to this.

  9. Jeff Barth

    Does conspiring with the Russians mean the same as colluding? I think so.
    If it was legit they should have reported it to the FBI.

  10. Jeff Barth

    Rorschach
    Agreed.
    You’d think that Trump was born and raised in Egypt otherwise known as The State of d’Nile.”

  11. David Newquist

    No words coming from Trump can be believed or trusted. He is the quintessential CEO.

    Corporate business has resisted the Age of Enlightenment and operates as a feudal estate. While some corporations posture as institutions that subscribe to notions of liberty, equality, and justice, the ones who actually practice accordingly are the ones that do so under the terms of collective bargaining agreements. CEOs have the power of lords of the manors, and what they decree as “truth” damned well better not be challenged or the wrath of the lord will be brought down on the challengers. It is because Trump is acting as the the head of a business that he has told the American people more than 4,000 lies during his presidency. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claims-database/?utm_term=.b2131d08c5a8)

    The people who think government should be run like a business are getting what they asked for. It is difficult to confront the fact that a huge portion of the electorate prefers serfdom. That is reflected in the thinking of those who insist that America is not a democracy but a republic in which the lord of the manor is elected to exercise feudal power over them. And these are the people who hold their fellow serfs to standards of honesty and decency, but they do not apply to the lords of the manors.

  12. Rorschach

    Good letter to the editor, Mr. Barth.

  13. Donald Pay

    The “dumb crowd” section of the Republican base believes any b.s. Don’t expect them to ever think for themselves. They are not in denial. They don’t have enough IQ points to even be in denial.

    Some Republicans who can put thoughts together fall into one of three camps: those who reject Trump’s lies, those who are willing to put up with Trump to get certain policy or personnel outcomes and those who have fallen into a cult-like belief.

    It’s that latter group that I fear. The other camps would be happy to get rid of Trump and let Pence lead. But the cult-like followers of Trump, exemplified by Hannity and Jason, are dangerous folks, more or less like the Brownshirts in Nazi Germany. Most of us have some minimal ability to question and doubt things that people say. When a person falls into a cult, the blurring of truth and falsity is part of the cultivation process that starts a person down a conveyor belt of unreality. Eventually, they lose the ability to think critically outside their new unreality and become fully a cult member. That’s where Jason is. Trump is much like Hitler and Stalin and other dictators or would-be dictators in using this technique.

  14. Porter Lansing

    Excellent, Prof. Newquist … Donald Trump always had one answer for all those he damaged in business. “Sue me!” He’s learning the hard way that government doesn’t shut up, give up or not have the money to pursue and prosecute his illegal activities.
    White House insiders say our President has three main activities. Watching FoxNews. Inventing lies to tell about the media. Worrying incessantly about Robert “The Mule” Mueller.

  15. mike from iowa

    voter in Ohio told CNN that Republicans like himself would continue to support President Donald Trump even if he conspired with Russians to win the election.

    Rick Gates admitted in court, under oath he committed crimes while in the employ of Manafort.

    Drumpf seems to know a lot about a meeting he claimed he knew nothing about.

  16. Rick

    Jason, can you see Russia from Belle Fourche?

  17. Debbo

    I agree with Donald about the scary cult members. One is my Missouri cousin. Eeeek.

  18. Debbo

    Theres a new name for the White House.

    The Kremlin Annex.

  19. jerry

    When will we admit that we are at war with Russia? Dudes and dudettes, they are hacking our electrical grid, that is called war. Why are we spending so much money on the military if we are just gonna have them in a parade?

Comments are closed.