This was a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics — and it went nowhere
It's true that meetings to get information on opponents are common and routine, but not when the counterparty is a foreign agent. Then it's a crime.
Pause for a moment to reflect on what we now know for certain simply because Donald Trump has publicly admitted it:
1. There was in fact collusion between the campaign and the Russians (this is what he admitted today).
2. Donald Trump actively tried to cover it up.
3. Donald Trump has been continually and systematically lying about (1) and (2) for over a year.
Then on top of that there is the rather damning circumstantial evidence that Trump not only knew about the meeting, but approved it, and was gleefully anticipating the results he thought it would produce. If it can be definitively established that Trump did in fact approve the meeting (and, come on folks, can there really be any serious doubt of that?) then that would be the smoking gun. That is called conspiracy, and it is a crime. This is why Michael Cohen's testimony matters.
At this point anyone who tries to defend Donald Trump is deep in tin-foil-hat territory. All sane people know that the earth is round, humans really have walked on the moon, and O.J. did it.
And so did Trump.
It is illegal for a federal campaign to accept something of value from a foreign agent — and, according to Lawrence Noble, former general counsel for the Federal Election Commission, so is soliciting such a contribution.It doesn't matter if "it went nowhere":
Noble said of that meeting: If members of the Trump campaign “were soliciting something of value, it may well have been illegal. If they were told, ‘You go to this meeting, and Russia will give you $2,700 for the campaign,’ and you went to that? It would be illegal — even if you didn’t get it.”It begs credulity that Donald Trump does not know this. If he sincerely believes that there was nothing wrong with meeting with Russians to get dirt on Hillary, why did he try to cover it up?
Pause for a moment to reflect on what we now know for certain simply because Donald Trump has publicly admitted it:
1. There was in fact collusion between the campaign and the Russians (this is what he admitted today).
2. Donald Trump actively tried to cover it up.
3. Donald Trump has been continually and systematically lying about (1) and (2) for over a year.
Then on top of that there is the rather damning circumstantial evidence that Trump not only knew about the meeting, but approved it, and was gleefully anticipating the results he thought it would produce. If it can be definitively established that Trump did in fact approve the meeting (and, come on folks, can there really be any serious doubt of that?) then that would be the smoking gun. That is called conspiracy, and it is a crime. This is why Michael Cohen's testimony matters.
At this point anyone who tries to defend Donald Trump is deep in tin-foil-hat territory. All sane people know that the earth is round, humans really have walked on the moon, and O.J. did it.
And so did Trump.
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