Enjoy President Trump, Courtesy of The Kremlin

[Brian Peacock]

I know a Buddhist who cheated on their tax returns, but we all know that Buddhists are rampant fraudsters anyway.

I guess the thing is that when a person embodies certain characteristics and attitudes, and indeed maintains a claim to those things being virtues, and when someone else supports that person and, somewhat encouraged and embolden by that person, carries out acts accordingly, then yes, I guess we attribute some of the motivation for some of those kinds of behaviours to the figurehead and hold them accountable, to some degree at least.

[Tero]

I even know a Republican who didn't cheat on their taxes!

[Scot Dutchy]

He made a mistake?

[Sean Hayden]

-everyone's so full of shit, I don't know how any of us makes it...

[L'Emmerdeur]

White House lawyers wanted to boot Kushner because they thought he'd be a liability in regards to connections with Russia. Of course being one of the smartest people anywhere in the world, Il Douche knows better than the lawyers.

'Report: Trump Lawyers Wanted Kushner Out Over Russia Investigation'

Members of President Donald Trump’s legal team wanted Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, out of his White House adviser role in June, over concerns about Kushner’s dealings with Russian officials, The Wall Street Journal reports. Those lawyers were reportedly concerned that Kushner would be a liability in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump administration’s alleged ties to Russia, specifically after it was revealed that Kushner failed to mention four meetings with Russian officials on his security clearance forms. The lawyers also reportedly were worried that Kushner might speak to investigators without a lawyer present and that Kushner would be damaged when news of Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with a Kremlin-connected lawyer inevitably leaked. (The news broke the following month.) Trump’s lawyers reportedly expressed their concerns to the president in June and even had their staff draft a statement in anticipation of Kushner’s departure. But Trump remained unconvinced, reportedly arguing that Kushner had done nothing wrong.

[Forty Two]

What did Kushner do wrong?

[Scot Dutchy]

[Forty Two]

Do you have an answer?

[Scot Dutchy]

Did he do anything right except get richer at the public's expense?

[Forty Two]

I'll answer your question after you answer mine.

[L'Emmerdeur]

It's no problem at all that Russians set up rallies for Trump. Only a libtard snowflake would find it troubling that a close Putin ally with ties to Russian intelligence was helping get people revved up to vote for Trump, right? Also, right-thinking people will doubt the veracity of this report because not it's not verified by Facebook. After all, the fact that this group used the same framing and watermarks as known Russian Facebook propaganda is just circumstantial evidence.

'Exclusive: Russians Appear to Use Facebook to Push Trump Rallies in 17 U.S. Cities'

Suspected Russia propagandists on Facebook tried to organize more than a dozen pro-Trump rallies in Florida during last year’s election, The Daily Beast has learned.

The demonstrations—at least one of which was promoted online by local pro-Trump activists— brought dozens of supporters together in real life. They appear to be the first case of Russian provocateurs successfully mobilizing Americans over Facebook in direct support of Donald Trump.

[Forty Two]

It's now a problem for folks from other countries to "get people revved up" for one candidate or another? Once again, what's the illegality here?

Well, what illegality other than wiretapping Trump Tower - http://thehill.com/policy/national-secu ... man-report
-- so, if there was anything going on, I guess the Obama Administration new about it...

[JimC]

It's now a problem for folks from other countries to "get people revved up" for one candidate or another? Once again, what's the illegality here?

Well, what illegality other than wiretapping Trump Tower - http://thehill.com/policy/national-secu ... man-report
-- so, if there was anything going on, I guess the Obama Administration new about it...

Whether it is illegal or not is up to the courts.

However, whether it is politically or socially sensible to let a rival nation with very dodgy intentions influence your political processes is quite another...

[pErvinalia]

You are forgetting about her emails, Jim..

[L'Emmerdeur]

It's not like there's any hint that there was some sort of quid pro quo going on. Oh, wait --

The government wiretapped the phone of President Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, during and after the 2016 presidential campaign, CNN reported on Monday

Sources familiar with the matter told CNN that the government obtained a secret court order under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in 2014. The warrant allegedly focused on his work consulting for the government of Ukraine.

That warrant was reportedly ended in 2016, but the FBI obtained a second one soon after which lasted until early 2017, including periods when Manafort was speaking with Trump.

[source]

Before signing up with Donald Trump, former campaign manager Paul Manafort secretly worked for a Russian billionaire with a plan to “greatly benefit the Putin Government,” The Associated Press has learned. The White House attempted to brush the report aside Wednesday, but it quickly raised fresh alarms in Congress about Russian links to Trump associates.

Manafort proposed in a confidential strategy plan as early as June 2005 that he would influence politics, business dealings and news coverage inside the United States, Europe and former Soviet republics to benefit President Vladimir Putin’s government, even as U.S.-Russia relations under Republican President George W. Bush grew worse.

[source]

Donald Trump appears to have pushed for the Republicans to adopt a pro-Moscow policy over Ukraine just as his senior aides were meeting with Russia’s US Ambassador.

At the Republican National Convention last summer, the party agreed to insert language into its platform that opposed arming or providing Ukraine with weapons to take on pro-Russian rebels. At the time, Mr Trump told an interviewer he “wasn’t involved in it”.

But now, a former adviser to Mr Trump has revealed that the push to change the platform came after the direct intervention of the New York tycoon. Mr Trump had hinted as to his views on Ukraine during a speech in the spring of 2016, where the Russian Ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, was among the guests.

CNN said that a Republican advisor, JD Gordon, had said the move to push the change in the party’s policy was to make it align with Mr Trump’s personal views.

[source]

We should just dismiss this though, because I'm sure it was all perfectly legal.