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Notes -
Robert Mueller dies at 81
If you're like me and you barely paid attention to the Mueller Report while it was happening and don't remember anything, the article is a decent summary. I was under the impression that Russia did stuff, Trump didn't actively participate but didn't put up a protest either, and some of his team got busted for lying to investigators (Trump's lawyers were worried about him also getting involved in perjury but successfully managed to get him to "not recall" everything).
Anyways I still don't see what the big deal was, other than lying to investigators. They didn't do any hacking themselves or ask anyone to do it. Knowing about it in advance, or using it as part of campaign strategy, isn't a crime either.
I don't think there would be much direct collusion between the Trump campaign (at least, not multiple high level staffers) to begin with just because there's not too much need for it. It's simple to just stay working in parallel with the same goal in mind than risk communicating too much. That being said, I take it by default that there was Russian influence in the 2016 election, but I also assume there was foreign influence of basically any kind. Point to any modern middle income or above country and they're most likely engaged in a bunch of spycraft, cyber warfare, bot networks, etc. The US does it to other countries too!
The Mueller report is mostly meaningful to me in just how much obstruction there was from the Trump 1 admin. That's the suspicious part to me, trying to hide Russian operations suggests there might have been something deeper that was left undiscovered. Similar to how the continued attempts to slow walk and hide the Epstein files continues to suggest something deeper. I'm a big fan of privacy from government and don't buy the "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" argument for mass surveillance, but that's on individual rights and personal privacy. It is in fact suspicious when done with the government itself.
But realistically it doesn't even change anything. We already know that Trump is extremely friendly towards Putin and Russia! We don't need any proof of campaign coordination to know how much they get along, he's pretty blatant in this!
Speaking of Trump's reaction btw, incredible how much material This You is getting from it. also boy there is an old Kirk tweet for everything at this point.
I got the impression that the Trump "obstruction" was very similar to a "resisting arrest" charge by cops accompanied with no other crimes.
Basically go hard on accusing someone of a crime, when they protest their innocence as just about anyone will do, slam them with your body or investigation powers and now the cop has a guaranteed crime even if the original accusation was bogus.
He was friendly far below the "friendliness" that the Obama and Biden administrations had with Ukraine. Which amounted to million dollar bribes to Biden's son.
I very much felt like the Democrats were expecting their own level of corruption to be uncovered by the investigation, but instead it was a bunch of nothing. Like the jealous partner that insists you are totally cheating when it's then that has been unfaithful.
Russia is an enemy nation that hates the US, the west, and democracy. They have been our opposition for decades and decades.
Ukraine while definitely not perfect is an ally of the west, a democracy, and have not been our enemy for decades and decades.
Can you not tell a difference here?
The "not perfect" is doing a lot of lifting in that statement.
Prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine Russia seemed no worse than any of America's Gulf state "allies". Ukraine would probably get dumped in the same general category but much less bad within that category.
America has been friendly and "allies" with plenty of shit tier governments around the world.
I've been putting "allies" in quotes because an ally that you aren't willing to let have nuclear weapons is more accurately a protectorate territory.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union there has not been an ideological reason for Russia and America to hate each other.
Back in 2016 Trump had no reason to do saber rattling crap with Russia. He was instead picking a trade war fight with China. And you'd probably want Russia on your side if you start a trade war fight with China, since Russia can negate the main leverage over China: Fuel.
The general point is that back in pre 2016 taking bribes from Ukraine would not have been ok simply because "they aren't Russia". I would consider Great Britain to be one of America's best allies, and I don't think Hunter Biden's relationship with them would have been ok.
Meanwhile the lukewarm stance of Trump 1 administration of "we are not going to label you as enemies" was treated as being equivalent to treason.
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