emptywheel

Those pleas both involve Russians and dirt.

Is the guilty plea for conspiring with the Russian government to commit wrongdoing during the 2016 campaign?

Actually during and after. They didn't start paying off the debt to the Russians until after. Yes. It absolutely is. And those two cooperating witnesses have been cooperating for upwards of 6 months.

But where is it alleged or admited that there was a quid pro quo? They've been cooperating for months, yet no one has yet alleged or admitted a quid pro quod. Or point me to it if I am incorrect.

Wait. Before we go there, do you admit that 1) one plea is about the offer 2) there's a public meeting where even Don Jr says dirt was offered in meeting where sanctions discussed 3) other plea is about sanctions?

You're connecting dots with speculation, and that's fine, but my original point still stands: there have been no indictments or pleas regarding a conspiracy between the Trump camp & Russian gov.

Well, you're misstating what the record on Flynn says. The only difference of opinion is whether Don Jr believed the dirt he was getting was the emails already offered (which came a week later) or something else. You think Don Jr jumped for something else, I get that.

I think Jr jumped at the chance to get dirt on his opponent, which is perfectly legal. But it doesn't matter what I think, what matters is that what you suspect has not been alleged by Mueller in an indictment or pled guilty to by anyone.

No you're right. There are just multiple public documents that support that.

Is that how you frame the Flynn plea?

How would you describe it?

I'm not sure. Not as sold that it was the back end of a quid pro quo deal that had been executed that he was lying about.

Could it have been? Sure. But it doesn't seem likely. Russian gov wanted to hurt Clinton no matter what. They didn't need a promise from Trump to do that, they just wanted to do it.

Why wouldn’t Russia try to leverage the stolen emails with the Trump campaign wrt sanctions? If Clinton wins, sanctions remain, if emails are effective, you have a deal to ease sanctions. Seems logical. If Trump camp refuses, you decide whether to release them anyways.

Sure, that could have happened, but we have no evidence for any sort of quid pro quod agreement. I'm just saying it's not like the only reason Russia would do things or Trump would do things is because of a conspiracy. They may have done things for other reasons....

So without evidence it's silly to speculate that there was a secret conspiracy to do things that would have been rational for both sides to do for other reasons without a conspiracy.

Ok, but the Russians did attempt to contact the Trump campaign multiple times and the Trump campaign lied about those meetings. It’s not as if all the speculation is happening entirely in a vacuum?