The Russia Hoax - Not

drummerboy said:

sure. attack the man instead of what he says. how easy for you. requires no thinking on your part.

and this, from someone (you) who cites Turley, who has been wrong about everything for the past 5 years, at least.

also, the fact that you apparently think that Durham is acting in good faith and not as a political hit man shows exactly how desperate you are. The Sussman case was ridiculous from the beginning. And after 3 years, all Durham's got is a bogus lying to the FBI charge? It's such a joke, but you've bought into it.

This is not a good look for you.

You just dismissed what I wrote by calling Turly the "worst legal hack on the planet."   So now it's not OK to attack the writer?  What has Turley been wrong about?   Anyone who believes Trump was Putin's puppet or that Russia was deeply involved with out elections is the most benighted of all the hacks and quacks on the planet.  That is absolute bottom feeding. It's all out there exposed now and Sussman's lucky day in court does not change that. 


nan said:

drummerboy said:

Also, how exactly does the defendant in a case manage to stack the jury in his favor?

That's about the stupidest thing I've heard this week.

Actually that is a good question.  I think there is more to know.  But, even if the guy got "not guilty" it does not prove anything about Trump related to Russia.  It just means the guy who made crap up got away with it. No one was ever able to verify anything he came up with--it was just fodder for Rachel Maddow to earn her high emotional fanfare 30K a day.

Of course the Sussman verdict has nothing to do with proving anything about Trump/Russia. No one says it does.

What it does tell us is that the Durham investigation's entire premise is full of poop. He is trying to prove that the Russia investigations were politically motivated, AND HE HAS FAILED. Stupendously.

And Maddow has nothing to do with any of this, as much as you guys love to bash her.


nan said:

drummerboy said:

sure. attack the man instead of what he says. how easy for you. requires no thinking on your part.

and this, from someone (you) who cites Turley, who has been wrong about everything for the past 5 years, at least.

also, the fact that you apparently think that Durham is acting in good faith and not as a political hit man shows exactly how desperate you are. The Sussman case was ridiculous from the beginning. And after 3 years, all Durham's got is a bogus lying to the FBI charge? It's such a joke, but you've bought into it.

This is not a good look for you.

You just dismissed what I wrote by calling Turly the "worst legal hack on the planet."   So now it's not OK to attack the writer?  What has Turley been wrong about?   Anyone who believes Trump was Putin's puppet or that Russia was deeply involved with out elections is the most benighted of all the hacks and quacks on the planet.  That is absolute bottom feeding. It's all out there exposed now and Sussman's lucky day in court does not change that. 

I'm attacking him because I have read what he has written over the last few years, not because of his association with any organization. You see the difference, right? Maybe not.

What has he been wrong about? He continually defends Trump. Doesn't that say anything to you?



nan, you like videos. have you seen this one?


can't believe that paul retweeted this Mate tweet. Everything Mate says here is wrong.


drummerboy said:

Of course the Sussman verdict has nothing to do with proving anything about Trump/Russia. No one says it does.

What it does tell us is that the Durham investigation's entire premise is full of poop. He is trying to prove that the Russia investigations were politically motivated, AND HE HAS FAILED. Stupendously.

And Maddow has nothing to do with any of this, as much as you guys love to bash her.

They were politically motivated and Robbie Mook admitted that Hillary signed off on publicizing the scandal and they wanted it done in October to help her campaign. 

Given how flimsy Susman's case was, I'm surprised he got off, but it was for a narrow charge--when he went to the FBI he said he was there as a concerned citizen, not on behalf of the Clinton campaign.  The dots still all point in that direction.  He must have had a good legal team.  

Here, Aaron Mate lays out the whole case, but before the verdict.  

;t=85s

drummerboy said:

can't believe that paul retweeted this Mate tweet. Everything Mate says here is wrong.

What's wrong?  Sussman hired Fusion GPS-CrowdStrike and they admitted under oath that they really had no idea who hacked the DNC, never mind saying it was the Russians.  In public, they said it was the Russians. 


nan said:

drummerboy said:

can't believe that paul retweeted this Mate tweet. Everything Mate says here is wrong.

What's wrong?  Sussman hired Fusion GPS-CrowdStrike and they admitted under oath that they really had no idea who hacked the DNC, never mind saying it was the Russians.  In public, they said it was the Russians. 

because all of this nonsense happened AFTER THE RUSSIA INVESTIGATION STARTED.


P.S.  Mate is a bald faced liar.


it's remarkable that given Durham's charter - which was to prove that the Russia investigation had no factual basis and was politically motivated - that the only criminal charge, or really anything of substance, was a trivial charge of lying to the FBI by an essential non-entity. Which he couldn't even prove. 

what's more remarkable is that the Russia-Gate-hoax people don't have the wherewithal to acknowledge how spectacularly Durham has failed. They just keep on spinning.

Durham may go down in history as the worst, most inept special counsel in history.

Garland may be smarter than I thought. Maybe he let Durham go on and do his thing because he know what a laughable sh!tshow he would produce.


the Russia-gate hoax people now have no choice but to align themselves with the abominable lying sack of crap that is Bill Barr. But they already aligned themselves years ago when they believed Barr's whitewash of the Mueller report. At least they're consistent.


drummerboy said:

P.S.  Mate is a bald faced liar.

About what? 


drummerboy said:

it's remarkable that given Durham's charter - which was to prove that the Russia investigation had no factual basis and was politically motivated - that the only criminal charge, or really anything of substance, was a trivial charge of lying to the FBI by an essential non-entity. Which he couldn't even prove. 

what's more remarkable is that the Russia-Gate-hoax people don't have the wherewithal to acknowledge how spectacularly Durham has failed. They just keep on spinning.

Durham may go down in history as the worst, most inept special counsel in history.

Garland may be smarter than I thought. Maybe he let Durham go on and do his thing because he know what a laughable sh!tshow he would produce.

The “failure” of Durham does not make Russiagate true.  It helped reveal some aspects of the corruption. 


The failure of Durham proves that the Russia investigations were not politically driven, which was a basic claim of the people claiming it was a hoax . Like Mate.

Durham has revealed absolutely nothing about corruption. Nothing.

Trivial mistakes or oversights are not corruption.


nan said:

drummerboy said:

P.S.  Mate is a bald faced liar.

About what? 

That tweet I posted, for one.


drummerboy said:

The failure of Durham proves that the Russia investigations were not politically driven, which was a basic claim of the people claiming it was a hoax .

Durham has revealed absolutely nothing about corruption. Nothing.

It revealed that Hillary signed off. Super political. Also, they made crap up. It’s only not political if you are doing damage control. 


nan said:

They were politically motivated and Robbie Mook admitted that Hillary signed off on publicizing the scandal and they wanted it done in October to help her campaign. 

Given how flimsy Susman's case was, I'm surprised he got off, but it was for a narrow charge--when he went to the FBI he said he was there as a concerned citizen, not on behalf of the Clinton campaign.  The dots still all point in that direction.  He must have had a good legal team.  

Here, Aaron Mate lays out the whole case, but before the verdict.  


It was a criminal case, and the "narrow charge" was the only thing they could find to make a Federal case out of it (literally).

All of the extra "stuff", such as what did Hillary do and when did she do it, wasn't part of the case.  The video confuses what the actual case was, with the swirl of innuendo that Durham put into the papers he filed in the case.

But it did its job, to the extent people like Aaron Mate run with it.


here's a good deep dive into the Sussman trial. really clears up the issues.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/thoughts-michael-sussmann-verdict

Beware though! The author works for Brookings so therefore he is yada yada blah blah blah and not a single one of his words or extremely cogent and well-informed arguments can possible be true!


drummerboy said:

here's a good deep dive into the Sussman trial. really clears up the issues.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/thoughts-michael-sussmann-verdict

Beware though! The author works for Brookings so therefore he is yada yada blah blah blah and not a single one of his words or extremely cogent and well-informed arguments can possible be true!

You already posted an "opinion" piece from another Brookings guy. This one sounds similar and that's because anything coming out of that think tank is going to sound predictably the same.  The title is "Thoughts about the Sussman trial" but the "thoughts" are already in place before the thinking.

It starts out by setting up a black and white choice of "for or against" Trump as opposed to for or against the truth. He says this trial was a showdown between these two groups, but this trial was only on one narrow piece of the whole.  It did not have to do with the big question of Trump working with Russia.  

He lets us know he has been studying the documents seriously (studying hard appeals to his liberal audience).  He says the case was weak.  He might well be right but that does not mean the guy did not do what he was accused of--only that they did not have the evidence to convict. The evidence was on two guy who met without taking notes and the one guy has an inconsistent memory. He wants to slam the Durham investigation because it was done by the opposition and lucky for the Dems, they seem to be incompetent. 

Sussman said he was going to the FBI on his own, not as a Clinton campaign employee and I'm sure he knew that was an important thing to do and say and it looks like it saved his butt.  Does not change the fact that he was shopping around to get great press placement for this phony baloney story. Sussaman hired Fusion GPS and Crowdstrike, etc.  He knew what he was doing and I don't for a minute think he believed any of this crap that was fashioned for the Clinton campaign to go after Trump.  Of course the Brookings guy sees a more noble purpose, because, well, he's a Brookings guy and that's what he's going to do.  He also, predictably suggests that the FBI did not do a good enough investigation of the evidence because he wants you to think maybe Sussman was right to be worried and that there was something to the bogus story after all.


nan said:

He lets us know he has been studying the documents seriously (studying hard appeals to his liberal audience).  He says the case was weak.  He might well be right but that does not mean the guy did not do what he was accused of--only that they did not have the evidence to convict.

What Sussman was accused of was lying about why he was speaking to the FBI.  As the jury found (and as juror comments afterward show) there wasn't any "case" made that he had lied to the FBI.

He didn't even charge his expenses to the alleged "client". When a lawyer doesn't charge expenses like that, it's an open-and-shut case that the lawyer doesn't even think he's doing it for the client.  cheese


nan said:

He lets us know he has been studying the documents seriously (studying hard appeals to his liberal audience).

That sting is going to last.


nohero said:

nan said:

He lets us know he has been studying the documents seriously (studying hard appeals to his liberal audience).  He says the case was weak.  He might well be right but that does not mean the guy did not do what he was accused of--only that they did not have the evidence to convict.

What Sussman was accused of was lying about why he was speaking to the FBI.  As the jury found (and as juror comments afterward show) there wasn't any "case" made that he had lied to the FBI.

He didn't even charge his expenses to the alleged "client". When a lawyer doesn't charge expenses like that, it's an open-and-shut case that the lawyer doesn't even think he's doing it for the client. 
cheese

The Clinton campaign rightly distrusted the FBI and it's faulty to think that they would send this to them.


nan said:

He lets us know he has been studying the documents seriously (studying hard appeals to his liberal audience).  He says the case was weak.  He might well be right but that does not mean the guy did not do what he was accused of--only that they did not have the evidence to convict.

"studying hard" is now a bad thing?

even if he did lie - SO WHAT? That was a major point of the piece - the lie was not material to anything.

There were many analysts saying immediately after the case was revealed that the case was very weak and questioned why it was even brought. If it was so obvious so soon, you have to think that Durham knew full well how weak it was.

from the piece:

When the Sussmann case was filed, back in September, I described it as “one of the very weakest federal criminal indictments I have ever seen in more than 25 years covering federal investigations and prosecutions.”

Of course, he's from Brookings, so, you know.

I thought a real interesting part of the piece was the description of how so much of the case presented to the jury and absolutely nothing to with the supposed lie, but was mostly an attempt to get the Russia-hoax mythology into the record.

Indeed, a huge percentage of the many hours of testimony given in this case related to Sussmann’s alleged lie—which, remember, is the only offense charged in the indictment—in the most glancing sense. You could watch hours upon hours of testimony and completely forget that this was supposed to be a case about a lie told in a brief conversation between two men with nobody else present at a single meeting six years ago.

You can see this point in the text of the indictment itself. The document is 27 pages long. And it takes Durham until the eighteenth page before he bothers to discuss the charge that he is alleging. By the twenty-first page, he is on to other uncharged conduct.

My point here is that Durham was not merely trying to prove that Sussmann made a single false statement to Baker. He was trying to prove a much larger conspiracy that he details but does not charge. The alleged lie was merely the aspect of this supposed conspiracy that he could find a way to charge. His purpose here, in large part, was evidently to tell this larger story.



drummerboy said:

nan said:

He lets us know he has been studying the documents seriously (studying hard appeals to his liberal audience).  He says the case was weak.  He might well be right but that does not mean the guy did not do what he was accused of--only that they did not have the evidence to convict.

"studying hard" is now a bad thing?

nohero said:

What Sussman was accused of was lying about why he was speaking to the FBI.  As the jury found (and as juror comments afterward show) there wasn't any "case" made that he had lied to the FBI.

He didn't even charge his expenses to the alleged "client". When a lawyer doesn't charge expenses like that, it's an open-and-shut case that the lawyer doesn't even think he's doing it for the client. 
cheese

He did not lie to the FBI because they were working with him on his lie. They knew why he was there--they are not dummies.  It was a "wink wink" situation.   Sussman is a lawyer who knows how to cover his butt.

And he DID bill his time with the FBI to the Clinton campaign.  That was presented as evidence at the trial. (https://www.heritage.org/crime-and-justice/commentary/what-proof-does-dc-jury-need-convict-someone-who-worked-hillary)

Basically, they came up with this BS story and Robbie Mook planted it in the media and Sussman went to the FBI.  They covered all the bases.  From what I've been reading today, it was not as weak a case as those Brookings guys would have you believe with all of their "studying."


DaveSchmidt said:

That sting is going to last.

Read Thomas Frank's book, "Listen Liberal!" for more insight into this view.


drummerboy said:

The Clinton campaign rightly distrusted the FBI and it's faulty to think that they would send this to them.

I have a bridge to sell you.  Cheap. 


nan said:

nohero said:

What Sussman was accused of was lying about why he was speaking to the FBI.  As the jury found (and as juror comments afterward show) there wasn't any "case" made that he had lied to the FBI.

He didn't even charge his expenses to the alleged "client". When a lawyer doesn't charge expenses like that, it's an open-and-shut case that the lawyer doesn't even think he's doing it for the client. 
cheese

He did not lie to the FBI because they were working with him on his lie. They knew why he was there--they are not dummies.  It was a "wink wink" situation.   Sussman is a lawyer who knows how to cover his butt.

And he DID bill his time with the FBI to the Clinton campaign.  That was presented as evidence at the trial. (https://www.heritage.org/crime-and-justice/commentary/what-proof-does-dc-jury-need-convict-someone-who-worked-hillary)

Basically, they came up with this BS story and Robbie Mook planted it in the media and Sussman went to the FBI.  They covered all the bases.  From what I've been reading today, it was not as weak a case as those Brookings guys would have you believe with all of their "studying."

you're citing the heritage society?

I can't even.

And yet you complain about Brookings.

just amazing.


anyway nan, answer these simple questions:

how was the supposed lie material to anything?

why did Durham spend so much time in the indictment and during the trial on subjects that had nothing to do with the supposed lie?


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