BigA wrote:I'd encourage people to actually read through the indictment.
For all the hysterics over Russia hacking the election over the last 18 months, the activity that's laid out in the indictment is surprisingly trivial in scale and scope. The indictment is written in a way to make the Russian troll effort look like a big deal, but the money involved is very small compared with what the campaigns and parties spent. They set up some fake social media accounts. Bought a couple thousand dollars worth of FB ads. Helped set up some minor rallies for Trump, did things against Rubio and Cruz as well as Clinton, and tried to help Bernie and Jill Stein. Just about all the activities they engaged in would be legal if they were undertaken by Americans, except of course for the identity theft that was necessary for them to pose as Americans.
I'm very open to believing that Trump is compromised by the Russians (is anything the Russians have on Trump more compromising than what's actually come out in the last few weeks?), is getting paid off, is trading favorable policy positions on Russia for money or whatever, etc.
Maybe Mueller will find something with Cambridge Analytica, or Deustche Bank payments, or something else.
But nothing we've seen so far gets anywhere close to that or really gets close to implicating Trump in something criminal. If anyone from the Trump campaign was actively conspiring with these Russians, we would know. Their communications would be intercepted, the case would be made, and they would have been arrested today.
Manafort and Gates are accused of shady stuff that predates their involvement with Trump. Flynn and Papadopoulos pled guilty to lying to the FBI about meetings that were probably legal. Plus, there are some interesting recent developments in the Flynn case, raising the possibility that it might be dismissed.
If all Mueller has are the Steele dossier, the Trump Tower meeting, and an obstruction case based on Trump firing Comey and stuff he spouted off to people in the White House, that's problematic for those who are counting on this to get rid of Trump.
Again, we don't know what Mueller has. Until today, I thought it was likely that they at least had something that ties Trump to shady business deals involving Russians. But looking at this indictment today, I'm starting to think that maybe they don't have anything beyond the stuff that's out there that's falling apart.
We don't know what Meuller has and this is the bottom-line, everything else is guessing, sometimes uneducated guessing. It remains to be seen what Gates, Flynn, & Papadopoulos have told prosecutors. Also, Trumps financial entanglements are a potential giant shoe waiting to drop. My guess based-upon his corrupt background and history is that he will be brought down on money laundering and or obstruction.
