[cm2187]

The Obama administration used its office to take down a political opponent, on the basis of improbable claims of collusion with Russia, backed by an opposition research report funded by the Clinton campaign.

Is any of this good? Of course not. Both sides have been abusing their office in a similar way. I am struggling how people can get comfortable with “when my team does it it’s justified, but how does the other team dare to do it!”.

[akiselev]

> The Obama administration used its office to take down a political opponent, on the basis of improbable claims of collusion with Russia, backed by an opposition research report funded by the Clinton campaign.

The opposition research was initialy funded by the RNC.

[ZeteticElench]

"on the basis of improbable claims of collusion with Russia"

Didn't Trump actually ask Russia to hack the democrats?

[jbjohns]

He made a very obvious joke at one of his rallies.

[jgwil2]

Right. When he does it, it's so "obviously" a joke. And yet something tells me he would have no problem accepting help from anyone, legally or otherwise, if he thought he wouldn't get caught. I submit that maybe there are some things that presidential candidates should not even joke about, because even the whiff of impropriety should be anathema to decent, serious people.

[ZeteticElench]

Just a coincidence that Russia then proceeded to do exactly what he asked for?

[lawnchair_larry]

Nope

[sagichmal]

He literally said those exact words on live television.

[lawnchair_larry]

For one thing, he literally didn’t. Prove me wrong.

Also, he figuratively didn’t.

[foota]

I'll bite: https://youtu.be/-e-Vka_HkRU?t=107

[lawnchair_larry]

Yeah, as I said.

You know this isn’t an actual sincere attempt to collude with Russia, right? People can’t seriously believe that’s what this is.

Not to mention, he was talking about Hillary’s lost emails, not hacking the democrats.

[jgwil2]

Wow. We all saw it happen.

[iso1210]

How do you reach a common ground with people who reject the evidence of their eyes and ears?

[lawnchair_larry]

I would ask you this question. Let’s start by referencing the supposed incident in question. Where did your eyes/ears see and hear this?

[ZeteticElench]

You can't.

[lawnchair_larry]

We absolutely didn’t. Show me if you know otherwise.

[jgwil2]

Please see nl's comment elsewhere in this thread.

[defen]

This is at the level of people who claim they saw Sarah Palin say "I can see Russia from my house". If it really happened, and "we all saw it", it should be trivial for you to produce a video of Trump asking Russia to hack the Democrats.

[nl]

Direct quote from Trump:

"Russia, if you are listening I hope you are able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing."

https://youtu.be/-b71f2eYdTc?t=20

From https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-asked-russia-to-...

[defen]

The emails under discussion were on Hilary Clinton's personal email server, and had been deleted. So the two questions you should ask are:

1) How would a hack, initiated after Trump's statement, find those emails - even in principle?

2) Even if we posit that such a hack was requested, how does that transmute into a request to "hack the Democrats"?