Helsinki Summit

Clodhopper · Post by **Clodhopper** » Sun Jul 15, 2018 1:49 pm

Too important not to have a thread of its own.

Now my understanding is that not only are 12 Russians indicted but US intelligence services are currently warning that the Russians intend to interfere in the mid terms.

If Trump goes in and complains seriously about these matters and the Novichok use and the Crimea and Ukraine I'll be reassured. If he disappears off and has a buddy chat he's at best a fool and at worst a traitor.

The only question in my mind in that case is, does he know he's a tool of Putin's or not?

Perhaps this is also a good place to explain my current understanding of the situation regarding removing Trump from office.:

Basically, it's near impossible, requiring a vote with a 2/3rds majority in the Senate (just a majority in Congress) so unless clear undeniable treachery can be proven (which I doubt) few will breach party lines and his core vote will be unaffected. Particularly those who follow Trump as God's prophet (see kids in cages). Even if impeached he might just shrug and ignore it and not resign. As far as I'm aware there is no way legally to actually remove him if he chooses not to go.

Please tell me if that's not the case. I am not an expert in the US constitution.

Post by **LarsMac** » Sun Jul 15, 2018 3:51 pm

Clodhopper;1519978 wrote: Too important not to have a thread of its own.

Now my understanding is that not only are 12 Russians indicted but US intelligence services are currently warning that the Russians intend to interfere in the mid terms.

If Trump goes in and complains seriously about these matters and the Novichok use and the Crimea and Ukraine I'll be reassured. If he disappears off and has a buddy chat he's at best a fool and at worst a traitor.

The only question in my mind in that case is, does he know he's a tool of Putin's or not?

Perhaps this is also a good place to explain my current understanding of the situation regarding removing Trump from office.:

Basically, it's near impossible, requiring a vote with a 2/3rds majority in the Senate (just a majority in Congress) so unless clear undeniable treachery can be proven (which I doubt) few will breach party lines and his core vote will be unaffected. Particularly those who follow Trump as God's prophet (see kids in cages). Even if impeached he might just shrug and ignore it and not resign. As far as I'm aware there is no way legally to actually remove him if he chooses not to go.

Please tell me if that's not the case. I am not an expert in the US constitution.

Well, you have a better grasp, it seems, than many of my countrymen.

Bruv · Post by **Bruv** » Mon Jul 16, 2018 9:42 am

And even if it were possible, his fanatical support base will say it's a conspiracy..............and they are the armed second amendment knobs.

Clodhopper · Post by **Clodhopper** » Mon Jul 16, 2018 10:20 am

Well, I watched the coverage of the Helsinki summit and it was more in line with my fears than my hopes. I now think that Trump is a willing tool of Putin's.

He sold out his own Intelligence services, the Ukraine, Georgia, NATO and the American people. Just in the press conference.

J.Brennan, ex director of the CIA said what Trump did in the press conference rose to and exceeded the level of high crimes and misdemeanors. I'm not sure what that is but it sounds serious.

tude dog · Post by **tude dog** » Mon Jul 16, 2018 12:56 pm

Bruv;1519990 wrote: And even if it were possible, his fanatical support base will say it's a conspiracy..............and they are the armed second amendment knobs.

Alarmist perhaps?

Every time I hear impeachment I hear the stupid talk.

There has been two impeachments, Impeachmen of Andrew Johnson a savage attack against the presidency for partisan agenda.

Fortunately, saved by one vote he was not convicted.

Then there was Impeachment of Bill Clinton who escaped conviction by partisan vote.

I clearly remember watching the whole Clinton thing was did the crimes he was accused of rising to the level of "High Crimes and Misdemeanors"?

By partisan vote, the Senate did not convict and remove him from office. As much as I hated Bill Clinton, I 'll just be satisfied with that.

Bill Clinton was Fined, Disbarred Over the Monica Lewinsky Scandal

gmc · Post by **gmc** » Mon Jul 16, 2018 1:58 pm

How come you don't mention Richard Nixon who resigned to try and avoid impeachment and was pardoned by Gerald ford otherwise he would most definitely have been found guilty.

tude dog · Post by **tude dog** » Mon Jul 16, 2018 4:16 pm

gmc;1519994 wrote: How come you don't mention Richard Nixon who resigned

Because he wasn't impeached.

gmc;1519994 wrote: and was pardoned by Gerald ford

A controversial decision.

gmc;1519994 wrote: otherwise he would most definitely have been found guilty.

Guilty of what?

Interesting the pardon did not specify a crime but was a general pardon, far as I know was never before done.

Clodhopper · Post by **Clodhopper** » Tue Jul 17, 2018 3:14 am

...just wondering whether Trump would be behaving the way he is if the US had locked Nixon up and thrown away the key....

A couple of impressions so far (this is SO big I'm not taking it all in):

1) The complete contrast with the way he has behaved abroad with everyone else. He was meek, submissive, his body language was hunched in. Compare that with May, or NATO or even Kim.

2) Can we really believe that Trump thought having Russian intel agents helping with the indictment of the 12 who hacked the election is a "great" idea?. I think this is partly because I remember the UK DID co-operate on a case with Russian authorities (I think it was the Litvinenko poisoning case) and key evidence went missing and the stone walling got worse. It's why a similar offer in the Skripal case was just laughed at. Does the US really not know this?

Oh, and another while I think of it - the reaction of the American journalists on CNN: Their ghast won't stop flabbering for some time to come. Fox appears to be trying to ignore it at present.

Clodhopper · Post by **Clodhopper** » Tue Jul 17, 2018 2:11 pm

Putin giving Trump a ball to play with now looks rather different...Putin's Poodle. And look at Trump's reaction...

Forget American Presidents for a moment. This is starting to look to me like the biggest public humiliation of a world leader I can ever remember seeing. Or have heard about since they actually carved the loser up in public, literally*.

He certainly does it bigly.

* I suspect there must be cases - oh - finding Saddam Hussein. It's up there with that, at the least. Worse since trump is still a controlled asset. Saddam was at least his own man.

edit: Whatever Putin has on Trump I don't think it is collusion. Trump clings to that denial like a drowning man to a straw. However it now looks as if there is a large BUT sticking onto the end of it. My first guess would be money laundering going much further than suspected. But there might be some truth to some of the more, er, colourful stories.

...and after keeping our 92 year old Queen standing waiting for 10 mins, frankly, fukkim.

AnneBoleyn · Post by **AnneBoleyn** » Tue Jul 17, 2018 2:42 pm

He already wormed his way out of it:

"â€œI thought it would be obvious but I would like to clarify just in case it wasnâ€™t: In a key sentence ... I said the word â€˜wouldâ€™ instead of â€˜wouldnâ€™tâ€™,â€.............. He clarified: â€œThe sentence should have been â€˜I donâ€™t see any reason why... it wouldnâ€™t be Russiaâ€™â€. He said it was an issue with the transcript and he used â€œsort of a double negativeâ€."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-accept ... 10293.html

Will anyone buy his obvious BS? You bet your sweet bippy they will!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hypnotic.

Bruv · Post by **Bruv** » Tue Jul 17, 2018 2:49 pm

He can always blame his speech writer, or the typist.

Clodhopper · Post by **Clodhopper** » Tue Jul 17, 2018 2:54 pm

Bruv: That reminds me: Where's this translator? Who else other than Putin do we KNOW was in that meeting with Trump? Putin speaks English if he wants.

Maybe there were 2 translators, one American one Russian, there but with THIS President I would like to be sure that was the case.

Anne: Sadly I'm sure you are right and his "correction" aka lie will be enough for his core vote. I do wonder though - aren't these people traditionally anti-Russian full stop end of story? That's going to hurt after a while.

edit: another thing. This isn't the first time Trump as President has "blown his mouth off" and revealed intel to the Russians. Wasn't there a case where the ally involved had to mount a rescue operation and get people out? However, I've heard a couple of stories that US allies have stopped sharing sensitive information with the US because of the risk Trump poses.

Only someone with the mental capacity of a deranged goldfish could believe the excuse.

magentaflame · Post by **magentaflame** » Sat Jul 21, 2018 12:16 pm

when i ever hear "I thought it was obvious" that's a person saying ..." everyone of you are the idiots because it was obvious."

tude dog · Post by **tude dog** » Sat Jul 21, 2018 12:41 pm

I love this guy, George Will and his writing.

This sad, embarrassing wreck of a man

Americaâ€™s child president had a play date with a KGB alumnus, who surely enjoyed providing day care. It was a useful, because illuminating, event: Now we shall see how many Republicans retain a capacity for embarrassment.

Precision is not part of Trumpâ€™s repertoire: He speaks English as though it is a second language that he learned from someone who learned English last week. So, it is usually difficult to sift meanings from Trumpâ€™s word salads. But in Helsinki he was, for him, crystal clear about feeling no allegiance to the intelligence institutions that work at his direction and under leaders he chose.

Americans elected a president who â€” this is a safe surmise â€” knew that he had more to fear from making his tax returns public than from keeping them secret. The most innocent inference is that for decades he has depended on an American weakness, susceptibility to the tacky charisma of wealth, which would evaporate when his tax returns revealed that he has always lied about his wealth, too. A more ominous explanation might be that his redundantly demonstrated incompetence as a businessman tumbled him into unsavory financial dependencies on Russians. A still more sinister explanation might be that the Russians have something else, something worse, to keep him compliant.

The explanation is in doubt; what needs to be explained â€” his compliance â€” is not. Granted, Trump has a weak manâ€™s banal fascination with strong men whose disdain for him is evidently unimaginable to him. And, yes, he only perfunctorily pretends to have priorities beyond personal aggrandizement. But just as astronomers inferred, from anomalies in the orbits of the planet Uranus, the existence of Neptune before actually seeing it, Mueller might infer, and then find, still-hidden sources of the behavior of this sad, embarrassing wreck of a man.

WASHINGTON POST

Clodhopper · Post by **Clodhopper** » Mon Jul 23, 2018 5:12 am

tude: Hard to add to that.

I've been going over it and it does actually seem possible that this might ALL be Trump's total inadequacy in every way rather than the Russians having anything on him. He really could be that stupid arrogant ignorant etc. I think he is that stupid AND I suspect the Russians have something on him. I'm still amazed he can hide his tax returns like that.

He has one talent: bull****ting the stupid.

If collusion means him and some Russians sitting round a table plotting, then I doubt that there was collusion and I suspect that is what Trump is denying. It's standard legal practise isn't it? Didn't Clinton make a similar sort of denial in the Lewinsky case?

However there are many situations not as obvious as that which we might call collusion but that don't conform to that strict definition of collusion I started with. That's where I suspect Trump is on that one. I also think there is financial corruption up the wahoo by any standards you care to apply. Despite what he wants people to believe he's a truly crap businessman with an infinitely huge ego. He will do literally anything other than admit failure which is scary with someone in his position.

...and he's invited Putin to the White House. I saw the interview where the news was broken to the DNI. "That's going to be special." Now the DNI's been forced to humiliate himself in public. Doubt we've heard the last of that, one way or another.

And Mueller follows like, please God, Nemesis.

chuckle. One consequence of this is that I think the EU is looking at the situation and realising it doesn't actually need the US any more. Russia, though vast, is not the USSR and cannot sustain that sort of Warsaw Pact military, I think. The UK and France probably have enough nuclear capacity between them to act as a deterrent: I believe Russia's economy ranks just below Italy's (though this depends of course exactly how you measure it, it does give a rough idea where their economy rates) and they simply couldn't sustain a non nuclear invasion of Western Europe.

Or at least if Europe is not militarily independent it is pretty close and the current spending commitments (made before Trump came to power) should get us there. It's worth remembering that Putin was a KGB agent and uses KGB methods: poison, subversion, destabilisation. I see both Trump's election and Brexit as showing signs that Putin at least tried to influence the result. I think he had an effect in both cases, and since both results were very, very close I think it likely that actually, Putin decided the result of both our referendum and your election.

And I'd still like to be sure: can anyone tell me definitely that there was, at all times, an American translator in the room with Putin and Trump. They weren't ever left alone together.

I'll tell you something else: Trump's reading and writing age really is somewhere around 12.

Clodhopper · Post by **Clodhopper** » Sun Aug 05, 2018 2:59 am

I'd still like to be sure that Trump and Putin were NEVER alone together at the Helsinki summit. No-one seems able to confirm it and it is being gradually forgotten in the walking ****storm which is this Presidency.

CNN had a report the other night where they pointed out that it is as if the USA has two Administrations at present: The Presidency and the White House. North Korea and Russia seem to be two examples where the President is talking unicorns and roses and the White House talking deceit and interference. It's not good cop bad cop, it's action and often panicked reaction, or a schizophrenic Presidency.

I also understand that tax receipts incoming do not even remotely cover the increased borrowing Trump has done and the US is looking at huge increases in debt. Now, the US economy is absolutely huge and can therefore absorb damage pretty well but if they are having a full on trade war with China at the same time it's asking a lot. Perhaps 2019 will be interesting in this regard.

Another thing: Is the Trump marriage under strain? I gather Melania Trump has been tweeting (or something) in support of people her husband attacks. As an Eastern European she might have been shocked to see Trump advocating policies like kids in cages that the KGB might have been proud of. as well. You have to be a very particular sort of person to allow Trump to lay his sticky little hands on you at any price, but if she is a tart with a heart she's not all bad. (I am a bit concerned I'm confusing his wife and his daughter here but then so does he so I don't blame myself much)

Clodhopper · Post by **Clodhopper** » Mon Jan 14, 2019 5:40 pm

So we now have the Washington Post and the NYTimes claiming that the FBI launched an inquiry into Trump's Russian connections 3 days before the Mueller probe was authorised and the lack of knowledge there now seems to be about ANY of Trump's meeting's with Vlad "The Poisoner" Putin.

Assume for a moment that the Mueller probe comes up with irrefutable evidence that Trump is under Russian control. That it is as bad as it looks or worse. Stuff than no-one, even at Fox, could ignore or deny.

What will America do?

Post by **Bryn Mawr** » Tue Jan 15, 2019 8:01 am

Clodhopper;1521907 wrote: So we now have the Washington Post and the NYTimes claiming that the FBI launched an inquiry into Trump's Russian connections 3 days before the Mueller probe was authorised and the lack of knowledge there now seems to be about ANY of Trump's meeting's with Vlad "The Poisoner" Putin.

Assume for a moment that the Mueller probe comes up with irrefutable evidence that Trump is under Russian control. That it is as bad as it looks or worse. Stuff than no-one, even at Fox, could ignore or deny.

What will America do?

It would have to be grounds for impeachment whether they like it or not.

Clodhopper · Post by **Clodhopper** » Tue Jan 15, 2019 1:12 pm

As far as I can make out impeachment is just a slap on the wrist these days. Doesn't remove the President if he doesn't want to go. As far as I know nothing legal does but then I don't know a lot about this. If both Houses say he's a traitor and he just goes nya nya no I'm not what then?

5 or 6 meetings between Putin and Trump and no record and no US witness in most cases by the sound of it. Think about that for a moment...what damage could a Russian agent with Presidential access do?

Boggling.

But in addition, how would the US react to Russia? What would they do?

AnneBoleyn · Post by **AnneBoleyn** » Tue Jan 15, 2019 3:32 pm

Clodhopper;1521921 wrote: As far as I can make out impeachment is just a slap on the wrist these days. Doesn't remove the President if he doesn't want to go. As far as I know nothing legal does but then I don't know a lot about this. If both Houses say he's a traitor and he just goes nya nya no I'm not what then?

President Clinton was impeached, but the Senate wouldn't pass on it. If it did, the President MUST leave. He would have no choice. Nixon was aware the Senate would ratify impeachment by the Congress, so he left on his own. The Republicans today control the Senate so ratification of Congress seems unlikely at this juncture, dependent on what the Mueller report reveals. If convicted by the Senate on the charges of impeachment brought by Congress happens, Trump MUST and Would Leave.

Clodhopper · Post by **Clodhopper** » Tue Jan 15, 2019 4:41 pm

Anne: Thank heavens for that. Honestly I was beginning to think that the US had made their Head of State above the rule of Law!

I asked what the US would do if it turns out the president was an asset of Putin. The silence is more telling than words likely would be.

AnneBoleyn · Post by **AnneBoleyn** » Wed Jan 16, 2019 3:37 am

Same goes. Only way to get rid of a president is impeachment and conviction.

Clodhopper · Post by **Clodhopper** » Wed Jan 16, 2019 4:43 am

Ok, so the President is successfully impeached and removed, let's say. We have the joys of President Pence...

What does the US do about Putin and his agents, interference in your elections and subversion of your institutions? Ignore the fact that the Russian President had a stooge running the US for his benefit?

AnneBoleyn · Post by **AnneBoleyn** » Wed Jan 16, 2019 5:45 am

Clodhopper;1521930 wrote:

What does the US do about Putin and his agents, interference in your elections and subversion of your institutions? Ignore the fact that the Russian President had a stooge running the US for his benefit?

What do you suggest, a declaration of war? I know you're not, just kidding. Nothing will happen and it's not like we don't do the same in other nations. To protect further elections it is up to individual countries to sharpen their own game that it does not happen and/or that the effects will be exposed and lessened.

Clodhopper · Post by **Clodhopper** » Wed Jan 16, 2019 6:43 am

Well, IF he is proved to be a Russian asset and he's been handing codes, information and details to Putin you'll need to completely reorganise your intelligence services. He's had 2 years and 6 face to face meetings plus a big red phone on his desk to pass sensitive material. Putin could get any information he wants. Any at all.

You're right, I'm not expecting a declaration of war but this was an attack on the scale of Pearl Harbor, imo. I'd be surprised if you did nothing to make people think carefully before trying it again. I hope we do something about interference in our Brexit vote but I'm concerned it's being covered up and ignored.

AnneBoleyn · Post by **AnneBoleyn** » Wed Jan 16, 2019 7:30 am

Accusations must be proven. We have to wait for the Mueller report.

Clodhopper · Post by **Clodhopper** » Fri Jan 18, 2019 4:46 am

It is now seriously alleged that Trump has suborned a witness to Congress. And we're still only fiddling round the edges here...

I wonder if his supporters have heard this yet? They'll call it fake news of course. I suppose in their minds, where he is saint Trump, agent of God, it will just confirm the size of the powers ranged against them.

Clodhopper · Post by **Clodhopper** » Sun Jan 20, 2019 3:27 pm

...and you are right about Mueller.

His intervention is fascinating but I don't know what it means. He said things about the report were not accurate but not what. I can't tell if he's redefining the probe to something less serious such as Putin felt Trump would be much better for him than Clinton and worked to that effect or not.

Trump might have hoped they were helping him: "Russia! If you're listening...!" but without ever personally contacting them in person.

Doesn't change the fact that he is active evil.