Nader on Trump Rise

[JE Pettibone]

Keith writes " I’m practically certain Trump forces are working nefariously behind the scenes right now; less likely any Dem candidate is participating in such election fraud, but maybe after candidate gets selected."

Ed: Such speculation is nothing more than gossip mongering.

[Haruo]

Reasonable, informed gossip mongering. The president mongers gossip regularly on the other end of the stick. I pretty much stopped using Twitter because I got so tired of Trump's inanities there, which for some reason were force fed into my feed.

[Sandy]

Trump and his campaign personnel have already worked nefariously behind the scenes with a foreign power to use their resources to get him elected. Speculating about whether or not he might still be doing that, especially when his administration has not taken any steps to prevent it, is not gossip.

Then there's this
https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/29/politics ... index.html

https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/29/politics ... index.html

https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/26/politics ... index.html

[KeithE]

[Sandy]

Trump is "passively" accepting Russian interference in the election process? I think he is welcoming it and seeing it as his only chance at winning. The Mueller investigation includes reports that voting machine malfunctions in several parts of the country, including counties Trump won that secured razor thin margins in several states with enough electoral votes to put him over the top, may have indicated some kind of hacking or tampering. If you look through that section of the report, much of it has been redacted by Barr.

The report, and Mueller's nine minute comments on it, are pretty clear. There is plenty of evidence of Russian tampering in the 2016 election on the side of Trump. They hacked computers and stole information from the DNC and the Clinton campaign, blended it in with some fake statements of their own to make it look as bad as they could and put it up on wikileaks. They were all over social media with fake statements and attacks on Clinton. They funneled money to the Trump campaign through sanctioned banks in a money laundering scheme. They got inside campaign information and polling data from some Trump campaign officials. They attempted, and possibly succeeded, at hacking actual vote totals. There is no conclusion of "no collusion whatsoever" the conclusion is that there is "insufficient evidence" to bring an indictment under the standards imposed by the justice department. Big difference there.

But there is a mountain of evidence which proves that Trump attempted to obstruct the investigation repeatedly and that his obstruction was aimed at covering up the evidence of Russian interference. Maybe he was worried about collusion, maybe not, but he clearly did not want the Russian interference from which he benefitted to be investigated and he intervened, using the power of the presidency to attempt to cover up the evidence and affect the outcome of a legitimately launched investigation. And attempting to instruct an investigation into the interference of a foreign power in the American election borders dangerously close to treason, since by his obstruction he is effectively acting as their agent on their behalf. He was not indicted, as Mueller pointed out, not because the evidence didn't warrant it, but because the justice department rules say that a court indictment of a sitting President is unconstitutional. However, a sitting president is subject to the indictment of Congress and it is time for that body to step forward and ensure that no one is above the law, including Trump.

I agree with this Republican. If Trump is not impeached, it will have political consequences.

https://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/wat ... 0534853996

[Rvaughn]

The text of the statement made by Special Counsel Robert Mueller can be read .