NYTimes: Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence

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Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence

WASHINGTON — Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials.

Waiting to see if this is independently corroborated. Would be massive shitstorm if this pans out

Great, more fake news

@FireEmblem_Man: hahahaha

Lock em up! We need multi investigations setup. Weve done caught 2 so far and got removed from office, its time to catch them all.

The ties to Russia need to be investigated. If this was Hillary, we would have "Lock her up" chants. Come on Republicans, just because it is your party member, doesn't mean you can't investigate him. If this was Hillary, the investigation would be well under way.

You haven't caught anybody, NEET. Don't take credit for something you had no part in.

Hmm, it´s funny that if this had been Canada , France or the UK no one would bat an eyelid.

But with that said , it needs to be out in the open and as long as nothing illegal has been done, then this is a storm in a glass of water.

@plageus900: We take all the credit. We rektd them Papa Putin Puppets. Enjoy the show, much more to come in episode 2.

Would you agree that people who suck at life get rekt every morning when they wake up?

The first line should give you all pause:

Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials.

Credit

If you aren't more concerned with how or who leaked these things, but spouted off about being tired of hearing all about Hillary's email scandal and focused instead on blaming the Russians, then you are a hypocrite. We continue:

American law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercepted the communications around the same time they were discovering evidence that Russia was trying to disrupt the presidential election by hacking into the Democratic National Committee, three of the officials said. The intelligence agencies then sought to learn whether the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians on the hacking or other efforts to influence the election.

So the intelligence community is actively working to undermine the commander in chief by sharing information, obtained potentially without legal merit, with major news outlets like the New York Times? And the NYT felt comfortable publishing that? Which makes it nearly impossible to use in court against the administration? So what's the reason for leaking the information if it isn't to undermine the administration?

Again, does this give you pause or are you not yet thinking critically? Moving on:

The officials interviewed in recent weeks said that, so far, they had seen no evidence of such cooperation.

There's your real headline if you had to print it at all. The NYT is fake news.

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Bonus content:

But the intercepts alarmed American intelligence and law enforcement agencies, in part because of the amount of contact that was occurring while Mr. Trump was speaking glowingly about the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin.

"Trump said nice things about Putin, so obviously any contact with Russia is most certainly evidence that Trump is a puppet of the Kremlin." Give me a break.

Wake up, people.

all hail president pence

You bring up a good point. When these contacts were made, who was in office at the time? While Flynn may have violated The Logan Act, it is not treason. Still, how did newspapers find out such happened? They just do not necessarily make up stuff out of thin air (though some try to right NBC?). If someone has broken the law, do not take it to the papers, take it to the proper authorities so any possible court case can use such evidence. If Flynn were to be brought up on charges and taken to court, a good attorney will get such evidence thrown out.

Clinton had a private email server and was rightly investigated. No evidence of wrong-doing. This is potential collaboration with an enemy of the United States. That's the difference. The Republicans have done little to nothing about this.

The president is not above the law and if there is evidence of wrongdoing from his office, he should be investigated for it. It's called "common sense." You're picking and choosing quotes to fit your narrative.

Trump supporters are in denial. If this happened in a foreign country or to a Democratic president, everyone would know what the real deal is instead of living in a fantasy world.

*high five*.

And Elijah Cummings stated that the investigation into Clinton was abusive and political when it came to Bengahzi. It appears that the leaks about Flynn are political too, yet Cummings is calling for an investigation of everything but the leaks. Go figure.

I'm curious if he'd even be allowed to take the seat of President if Trump's campaign itself actually colluded with the Russians to mettle in our elections. I guess that would make Paul Ryan President... damn that's scary.

You can compare Flynn to Benghazi after Flynn has had 8 investigations with 0 evidence found of wrongdoing. Until then, there's nothing in common with Benghazi lol.

Russia is now a close ally of the USA. Don't know why so much fuss.

Ask those who died there if they want evidence of wrongdoing. People stated that requests were sent for more help, yet none came. People can deny such requests were made, but at the end of the day, we know that people died and that blame was placed where it didn't belong. As of yet, there is no direct evidence of wrongdoing with Flynn. What will you say when no evidence of wrongdoing is found in Flynn's case? I have stated time and again, I do not care what party one belongs to, if you break the law or do not follow agency rules while working for a federal agency, you should be charged and answer to a court of law. Let a judge or jury determine guilt or lack thereof. Agencies such as the Justice Department work for the President. They may not necessarily want to find wrongdoing against others in said administration. That goes for both parties.

@musicalmac: "So the intelligence community is actively working to undermine the commander in chief by sharing information, obtained potentially without legal merit, with major news outlets like the New York Times?" Trump called them Nazis a few weeks ago and has been constantly attacking the intelligence community, he is the one who is undermining the people trying to protect the country and on whom we rely to stop terror attacks which he is stoking with his rhetoric.

Hilary's emails - we had how many years of congressional hearings, senate investigations and FBI investigations into Benghazi and her emails? At the very least one of Trump's closest advisors lied to the VP and to the American public and was in contact with our chief rival but now we're supposed to go "OK nothing to see here"? Come on that's hypocrisy at its finest.

Where was the outcry from the right of the hacking of the DNC? Where was the outcry over the constant leak from wikileaks (please watch this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUtT0b0EnSw)? Where was the outcry over the FBI leaking the investigation (which showed nothing) of Hilary's emails right before the election? Where was the outrage when Trump asked the Russians to hack Hilary? This time there is something of actual national import which shows both Flynn lied and the President (who knew 3 weeks ago) had done nothing about it and now all of a sudden we're worried about stopping the flow of information.

(love ya mac :P )

So you're not even going to give this a shot to develop? Do you realize how dangerous that line of thinking is? At this rate anything that goes against trump and his administration will be automatically labeled "fake news" which means the administration will be able to spoon feed us whatever "news" they want. Yes the media is biased and has made some awful reports, but the media is needed to keep the government in check. If you label everything as fake news right away, you're just playing into their hands to control the population.

@blue_hazy_basic:

Trump has been critical of intelligence agencies, yes, but he also visited the CIA before anyone else. I'm not sure I buy the idea that Trump is undermining the ability of the CIA and intelligence communities to protect the country with tweets. I do wonder if his administration is being undermined by leaks from within the intelligence community.

And we should all love Wikileaks, shouldn't we? My point was that some people were too fixated on how wrong it was for there to be leaks and not on what was revealed in the leaks themselves (between Wikileaks emails and Project Veritas videos). If that's the case, they should be lambasting the intelligence community for these leaks and demanding the head of anyone responsible, not focusing on what is being leaked (which according to the fake NYT is... nothing significant).

To that end, what illegal action is Flynn guilty of?

Side note: Trump didn't ask Russia to hack Hillary's emails, that's taking too literally what too few took seriously, which was Trump's candidacy. And look at him now.

EDIT: Love you, too, hazy. But all that Total War is rotting your brain. ;)

"According to the Washington Post, Mr Flynn "privately discussed US sanctions against Russia with that country’s ambassador to the United States during the month before President Trump took office."

Mr Flynn himself admits in his resignation letter that the discussions took place.

That would appear to be a breach of the 1799 Logan Act, though legal analysts are split on the issue." Sauce

If we're not 100%, shouldn't we let the courts decide?

However, setting aside whether he committed treason or not, he lied to the american people and also to the VP, causing him to lie to the American people. Are you suggesting what he said and did shouldn't be investigated?

Re sidenote https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNa2B5zHfbQ again whether you wish to argue if he is being serious or not (and he doesn't appear to be joking despite later claims) he clearly begs a foreign power to attack his opponent. Its a circus not democracy.

Does this sound like democracy?

@blue_hazy_basic: Heh, first please understand I'm not your enemy. Never did I suggest he shouldn't be investigated.

Trump also never begs for a foreign power to attack Hillary. That's conflating something out of nothing.

As for the Logan act, it's my understanding that not only is it not crystal clear that Flynn's action qualifies, but that not one person in two hundred years has ever been convicted under that law.

@musicalmac: Yea I know bud :)

Disagreeing about politics is the cornerstone of democracy. **** people who can't do it civilly :D

I agree with this.

You can't see it now, but I'm high fiving you from Wisconsin. You're one of my favorites, hazy.

;) you too mac!

makes you wonder..

if miller and conway had a kid the crazy alternate universe that kid would grow up in....

Like the Flynn story and the Debriefing last month...lols.

Like WSJ story on PewDiePie?

I'm just talking about stuff Trump specifically called out the media for being fake on.

Things that were objectively true.

Donald Trump: 'The leaks are absolutely real. The news is fake'

lol jesus.

Didn't you voted for Trump?

Yes but I thought he was going to become a normal human.

Does seem somewhat damning. More than I thought, originally. I just thought the media was overblowing things because that's what they do, but this may have some real traction.

You know, I watched Bill Maher on 2/17/2017 w/Milo Yianoppolos as a guest. Maher kept bringing up how Russia's involvment with Trump's election is the biggest scandal in American History, yet he also had a guest from the CIA who wrote about bashing Wikileaks. Yet they have never mentioned ANYTHING about what Russia did to influence the election and NO proof of discussion how Russia hacked into the DNC servers or Hillary's private servers. They just kept mentioning the Russian Boogeyman and how Hillary would not have this problem and continued to bash Trump.

While there is no 100% concrete evidence yet, there are still 12 intelligence agencies saying they strongly believe so. Possibly classified info? Who knows.

Also,

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/james-comey-brief-senators-trump-russia-235145

Point is, it's worth looking into. You can't say yes or no at the moment with full confidence, but we must find out what happened either way. Thing is, people get attacked for what I just stated. We call those republican zombies.

Who cares about pew? Seriously this is about the US and ties to a foreign power that is not an ally.

We should investigate this to determine if it did actually happen. For anyone saying we shouldn't, I suggest you go **** yourselves, mostly because you're the type of person that suggested that we should investigate Clinton's email usage and her involvement in Benghazi.

Seriously, if Trump doesn't have anything to hide, then there is nothing to be worried about.

Seriously? How does that happen at his age? People don't change. He's been an ass hat his entire life.