There has always been Russian espionage, and Russian spies have always been investigated and, when caught, prosecuted. (See: Alger Hiss, Klaus Fuchs, the Rosenbergs).
What's concerning is when the President of the United States himself seems to be speaking and acting out against his own government's counterintelligence investigations and in favor of his own country's geopolitical adversaries.
When government counterintelligence investigations, instead of catching real spies and protecting real sensitive systems (which, judging by recent hacks of government data, are in extremely sorry state of affairs) waste time, money and effort to pursue idiotic "collusion" story, buy insane "dossiers" most likely assembled by geopolitical adversaries to try and troll the opposite side into doing self harm, and play political partisan games - I think it's time to speak up about it. And if it takes Trump to speak up about it - well, so be it. It'd be nicer if more people spoke up more strongly about this sad state of affairs - because the Russian espionage and Russian threat exists, but the political games now make mockery of it and try to turn Russia into partisan issue that excludes any rational discussion and any counteraction that is not rooted into tactical partisan gamesmanship - but if Trump is what we've got than it'd be Trump.
Reality: Don Trump Jr. met with Russian agents in Trump Tower to negotiate receiving hacking assistance.
A few days later, Trump Sr. delivered his famous "Russia if you're listening ... [deliver what was discussed in that meeting] ... you'll be rewarded" line.
Not to mention that Trump had to fire one of his campaign managers for receiving illegal payments while working for the campaign of Russian-aligned Ukrainian president Yanukovych.
> Bullshit: Don Trump Jr. met with Russian agents in Trump Tower to negotiate receiving hacking assistance.
Reality: Don Trump Jr. met with Russian agent, who inexplicably got entry visa she shouldn't be getting by direct involvement of Obama State Department, and who falsely promised to provide him some dirt on Clinton, in Trump Tower, and the agent in fact attempted to lobby him to remove Magnitsky Act sanctions. As soon as the ruse became apparent, Trump Jr. left.
FTFY.
The information that Veselnitskaya pretended to have is the same information Mueller is talking about now - about foreign financing of US electoral campaign, which everybody agrees now would be a crime, and certainly something one would want to hear about. But there was no information, it was a lie.
Note that by all reports DNC hacking happened as early as 2015. Podesta emails were hacked in March 2016. Trump Jr. met Veselnitskaya on June 9, 2016, when all the hacking was already done. Unless Russians also mastered time travel, they couldn't really negotiate anything, as everything has already happened.
> Russia if you're listening ... [deliver what was discussed in that meeting] ... you'll be rewarded" line.
Fascinating. The full line is:
'Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,' Trump said. 'I think you'll be rewarded mightily by our press!'
You dropped the "by our press" part, because it didn't fit your narrative, and hoped I wouldn't notice? Or you genuinely didn't know what the full quote was?
And of course 30000 emails are the ones Clinton unlawfully concealed and then deleted from her records, which were supposed to be preserved, not the ones that were stolen from DNC or Podesta - which by then weren't published yet and Trump had no idea about.
Not to mention this was obviously a sarcastic joke.
But if that is what your "collusion" is, this is what mightiest security apparatus on a planet is busying itself for two years now - I think Trump is criticizing them way, way to mildly to reveal all the depth of the idiocy of this.
Just in case any bystanders were wondering about the reality here:
On Jun 3, 2016, at 10:36 AM, Rob Goldstone wrote:
> Good morning
> Emin just called and asked me to contact you with something very interesting.
> The Crown prosecutor of Russia met with his father Aras this morning and in their
meeting offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and
information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would
be very useful to your father.
> This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia
and its government's support for Mr. Trump - helped along by Aras and Emin.
> What do you think is the best way to handle this information and would you be
able to speak to Emin about it directly?
> I can also send this info to your father via Rhona, but it is ultra sensitive so wanted to send to you first.
> Best
> Rob Goldstone
On Jun 3, 2016, at 10:53, Donald Trump Jr. wrote:
> Thanks Rob I appreciate that. I am on the road at the moment but perhaps
I just speak to Emin first. Seems we have some time and if it's what you
say I love it especially later in the summer. Could we do a call first
thing next week when I am back?
Which confirms the first half of what I said - Trump Jr. was promised some dirt on Clinton, and not just dirt like "she said a bad word in private conversation", but dirt like "she committed actual federal crime and we have proof". The second part - that it all was a lie and trick to get Trump in the room to lobby against Magnitsky Act - has been confirmed by multiple sources present in the meeting and by otherwise knowledge of Veselnitskaya's activities. Of course, no mention of any hacking whatsoever or any actual information that ever existed.
Every* US intelligence agency has agreed with the attribution of the DNC hack to known teams within Russian intelligence.
There are no "sources present in the meeting" who are not themselves the subject of the investigation. Their claims as to what transpired are simply not trustworthy.
*With the exception the NSA, which declined to say anything.
> Every* US intelligence agency has agreed with the attribution of the DNC hack to known teams within Russian intelligence.
This topic is extensively discussed in other threads, but what it has to do with the meeting in question?
> There are no "sources present in the meeting" who are not themselves the subject of the investigation.
Depends on what you call "subject". If you mean that they spoke to that person, that probably is not true for all Russian participants and Goldstone. If you mean those who Muller team would like to talk to, that's probably all of them, which is not surprising - it's the best way to catch somebody on a lie or omission (which is a federal crime, for which they already indicted two people - instant win). If you mean those Muller would especially love to indict in something, that's probably true for Kushner, Manafort and Trump Jr. If you mean somebody Muller can actually get something on - that's only Manafort, and for things having nothing to do with Trump and that happened when Trump didn't even know Manafort existed.
But basically you are implying nothing people present at the meeting say about what happened there is to be believed. But we're still talking about it, so presumably we should believe people that actually hasn't been there to tell us what happened there, and disbelieve people that actually been there when they say that's not what happened. All this without any actual evidence. Doesn't seem like a good idea.
Depends on what you mean by "OK". Is it the conduct I would recommend for everybody as highest example of human virtue? Not sure. Is it conduct commonly happening in the midst of political campaign? Most certainly yes, and much worse. In this case, Veselnitskaya told them "Hillary campaign just committed a federal crime, and I have proof. Want to see it?" Of course they did. The mistake was to believe anything Russians say about anything and sending a figure as big as Trump Jr. without several layers of further verification. That definitely was a screw-up, a rookie mistake. For which they paid dearly.
Walter Mondale: Democrats actually contacted the KGB and sought help to defeat Reagan in 1984. The organizer of it was Ted Kennedy.
Barack Obama: famously promised to Medvedev to be more flexible after the election, in exchange for Russian not pressing on the missile defense issue when it could hurt Obama's position.
Hillary Clinton: accepted money donations from foreign politicians with US interests many times. The fact that Clinton Foundation and Clinton Campaign were big buddies is an open secret by now. Though of course that happened not only connected to elections, so attributing it specifically to elections would probably be very limiting to the scope.
I would also bring Steele dossier here, but the involvement of specifically foreign government here is unproven - while I'd give more than even chance that many of the allegations there were created by Russian intelligence sources, it may also be a regular "our man in Havana" type affair, so it's not entirely sure.
But I don't see why it specifically must be the government. If it's OK to accept dirt on your opponent (let's limit ourselves to dirt that is true and exclude fraud for now), then why is it not OK to accept it from a foreigner? It doesn't become less true because foreigner touched it. And if it's ok to accept it from a random foreigner, why it's not OK to accept it from a foreigner which is paid by foreign government?
What seems to be less OK is to solicit it in an explicit quid-pro-quo arrangement, either monetary or otherwise. Of which, in Trump's case, there's no indication (though the first example is a classic specimen).
While the investigation is not complete, already one Trump campaign member has plead guilty with his specific statement of the offense attached to the plea being all about collusion with the Russians.
Collusion is no longer in dispute, only the details and extent.
What's concerning is when the President of the United States himself seems to be speaking and acting out against his own government's counterintelligence investigations and in favor of his own country's geopolitical adversaries.