[llcoolv]

> Paul Manafort, the chairman of Donald Trumps' 2016 campaign is currently serving a 7.5 year prison sentence relating to this investigation.

"He was convicted on five counts of tax fraud, one of the four counts of failing to disclose his foreign bank accounts, and two counts of bank fraud."

So, he was convicted of tax fraud and bureaucratic discrepencies. While factually related to the investigation, none of these charges has nothing to do with what the investigation was about.

[newacct583]

I don't know the source you're quoting, but it's pure spin. The tax fraud and reporting violation were in direct service to the need to hide his foreign payments from Russian interests. You're also forgetting his guilty pleas for failing to register as a foreign agent (Russia again) and witness tampering (which is criminal obstruction of justice!).

This is all directly related to his work for Russia and Russian interests, in exactly the same way that Al Capone's famous tax evasion conviction was the result of his operation of a criminal organization.

[llcoolv]

Apologies, the source is wikipedia's page on Paul Manafort[1]. Also the article says he was involved with Yanukovich, not with Putin, but still in the worst case this is in the equivalent to the Biden-Poroshenko tape[2].

Tax fraud rendering you guilty of all the bad things you were ever accused of is not really sound logic. Also, I am not really defending Manaford - tbh after reading more on him, this whole Ukrainian foray seems to be one of his lesser offenses. But for example in the case of Flynn/Trump where prosecutors were taped discussing how they need to "find him guilty of anything or provoke him to cross the law", there is no doubt of bias.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Manafort

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lA3oOo1oZc

[newacct583]

> Tax fraud rendering you guilty of all the bad things you were ever accused of is not really sound logic.

The contention above was that there was "literally nothing to" Russian interference in the 2016 election. Manafort's convictions for activities related to his attempts to hide his Russian influence is clear evidence to the contrary.

I don't see anyone saying this makes Manafort guilty of "all the bad things he was ever accused of". But it makes him guilty of hiding Russian influence in the 2016 election, which was the point to be demonstrated.

[llcoolv]

How could they be related to something that did not stand in court, in other words did not legally happen? This is quite the contradiction.

[mytherin]

Interesting, didn't know about that. Thanks for the info.

Then perhaps you can give me some more clarification:

* What about the Russian troll farms running fake pro-Trump social media accounts?

* What about the hacking of Clinton's email server and strategic release of those emails right before the election (even though the e-mails ended up containing nothing incriminating)?

* What about the many people lying/obstructing justice that were investigated? Why were so many people caught lying if there was nothing to hide?

Honestly curious, I'm not from the US so I don't have a horse in the race and I don't know that much about the investigation, but it seems to be quite obvious something fishy is going on there. Whether or not Trump's team was personally involved is another matter, but it seems obvious Russia meddled in the election extensively to assist Trump in winning. That alone seems quite alarming to me.

It also feels like you are defending it primarily because it happened to someone on your team, and you would not be defending it if the situation were reversed and, say, Clinton was assisted by China or something like this, even if she had no part to play in the assistance.

[llcoolv]

* What about the Russian troll farms running fake pro-Trump social media accounts?

Until there is no hard evidence, those troll farms are conspiracy theories. Besides, these days the left press is so ridiculously biased that NYT, Guardian, etc could easily qualify as troll farms.

* What about the hacking of Clinton's email server and strategic release of those emails right before the election (even though the e-mails ended up containing nothing incriminating)?

You mean the "e-mail server" (lol) which was "hosted" at her bedroom? You do realise that here of all places there is probably the highest number of people to see how ridiculous this is.

* What about the many people lying/obstructing justice that were investigated? Why were so many people caught lying if there was nothing to hide?

There is always something to hide, the question is were they guilty of what they were accused or not. Also after this appeared:

'What is our goal?' one of the notes dated January 24 2017 - the day of the interview - read. 'Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?'

I would not give too much credibility to those investigators.

1. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8271953/Unsealed-me...

[mytherin]

* Until there is no hard evidence, those troll farms are conspiracy theories.

As far as I see reading about the report, there were multiple indictments made against several Russian entities and nationals for online campaigns supporting Donald Trump [1]. They were (obviously) not prosecuted, but the evidence is there, otherwise there would be no indictments.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com.au/mueller-indicts-russians-...

* Besides, these days the left press is so ridiculously biased that NYT, Guardian, etc could easily qualify as troll farms.

This feels to me like you are not diversifying your news sources at all, and are only reading biased right-wing news and using that to feed your existing biases. The left wing media is not anymore biased than the right wing media, and there exists a scale of bias on both sides (there exists both ridiculously biased left wing media and ridiculously biased right wing media and everything in between).

I suggest you diversify where you get your news from to get a clearer picture of the world. Try to keep more of an open mind. Nothing good comes from blindly following one side or the other - both sides have plenty of good and plenty of criminals.

* You mean the "e-mail server" (lol) which was "hosted" at her bedroom? You do realise that here of all places there is probably the highest number of people to see how ridiculous this is.

Plenty of people have a private e-mail server at home for one reason or the other. This was blown up way out of proportion. Partisanship has heavily clouded your judgement here.

* There is always something to hide, the question is were they guilty of what they were accused or not. Also after this appeared:

* 'What is our goal?' one of the notes dated January 24 2017 - the day of the interview - read. 'Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?'

* I would not give too much credibility to those investigators.

This seems like a conspiracy theory to me. Weren't the investigators Republicans themselves?

[llcoolv]

On top of that if there was evidence behind all indictments, then we would not need judges, only prosecutors. It is up to the court to decide if "there is evidence" or not.

[mytherin]

Incorrect. Evidence is evidence. Anyone can judge evidence for validity. You could look up the evidence right now and judge it yourself. It only carries legal implications if a court prosecutes, but that does not mean the evidence does not exist or that a crime did not occur if a court did not prosecute.

[llcoolv]

Thanks for taking the time to critique my psyche, reading habits and personality. It would have been somewhat better if you stuck to the topic in stead of lowly as hominem, but in some cases this is too much to expect :D :D

[mytherin]

I'm not trying to win any arguments - calling it an ad hominem makes no sense. Just trying to understand your perspective and make you realise your own biases. People too often blame the other side of their biases (in your case, "left wing is biased") without being aware of their own.