[notahacker]

The report consists of nearly 400 pages of evidence supporting three of the central "Russiagate" claims - that Russian agents sought to help Trump, that multiple Trump campaign staff had meetings with Russian operatives, and that Trump himself personally encouraged his campaign staff to take steps to obtain and disseminate Hillary's unlawfully obtained emails as part of his campaign messaging. You will forgive me for not serialising this in an offtopic HN subthread. Though I will leave you with the observation that the words "the Office’s investigation uncovered evidence of numerous links (i.e., contacts) between Trump Campaign officials and individuals having or claiming to have ties to the Russian government" appear on the same page as one of the statements you quoted. This is not the summary Mueller would have made if he had concluded that the insinuation of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government operatives was "propaganda", as opposed to something which definitely happened albeit not provably in a manner which violated relevant conspiracy law.

Of course he didnt conclude that Russia "hacked the election" because that was not an actual literal claim under investigation (if you're interested in whether unsubstantiated and in many cases provably false claims of vote-manipulation by foreign countries are being used for propaganda purposes, there's campaigns on behalf of another defeated Presidential election candidate you might want to look at...). There is one actual claim of "Russiagate" which is tendentious: that Hillary would have won the election in the absence of any Trump campaign contact with Russian operatives. You could even call that propaganda, if you wish, though its more of the optimistic, conjectural framing of political failure than the just make stuff up variety. But that one's well outside the scope of Mueller.

[throwawaylinux]

So there is all this evidence that Trump's campaign colluded with Russia to interfere with the election, you're absolutely sure it exists, but you can't actually point to it. Same as this Korean wall.

The Mueller report concluded that there was no evidence of collusion (conspiracy), bu that doesn't mean anything because it's like how you can't see the wall from South Korea.

[notahacker]

yawns

I'm absolutely sure my previous post contains a direct quote summarising the state of the evidence from Mueller himself "the Office’s investigation uncovered evidence of numerous links (i.e., contacts) between Trump Campaign officials and individuals having or claiming to have ties to the Russian government" was how Mueller opened his summary. Not "we couldn't find any evidence of any of the alleged meetings actually happening" or "actually conclusive proof exists that these individuals were in a different country at the time". Or perhaps your argument is that they definitely met but there was no evidence the Russians did anything to help the Trump campaign, but Mueller said they were "sweeping and systematic" and prosecuted individuals for their role in it.

I mean, if you've read, say, page 85 in which senior Trump officials set up meetings with people who have emailed them offering "very high level and sensitive information" as "part of Russia and its government's support to Trump", it's kind of difficult to argue that Mueller's statement that proving that they were "knowing" and "wilful" in violating laws in court might be difficult means there's no evidence of any form of collusion between Russian agents offering hacked material and the Trump campaign.

By the same token the Comey investigation into Hillary Clinton found "no pervasive evidence of systematic, deliberate mishandling of information", but only someone arguing in bad faith would suggest this proved that reports of email servers were just North Korean style propaganda inventions.

[throwawaylinux]

There's no evidence Trump colluded with Russia to interfere with the election. Just say what the evidence is if you have any. Mueller did not, as the report explicitly states. That is why you can't point to anything from the report except vague snippets of things that are not evidence that Trump colluded with Russia to interfere with the election.

[notahacker]

yawns

Two can play at the gish gallop game. Please point me to the line in the Mueller report which 'explicitly states' that 'there is no evidence Trump colluded with Russia to interfere with the election.'

If this section of the report is any less imaginary than the great Korean wall I assume you would have pointed to that, and not vague snippets referring to insufficient evidence to support specific criminal charges, following Mueller's actual statements on collusion and evidence which were that "we applied the framework of conspiracy law, not the concept of collusion" and "A statement that the investigation did not establish particular facts does not mean there was no evidence of those facts".

Perhaps you wish to argue that the Trump campaign meeting with Russian agents for the primary purpose of receiving documents about Hillary Clinton as part of what Mueller established to be an organised Russian campaign to support his election using unlawfully obtained material does not meet your personal thresholds for "collusion" between the two campaigns. Understanding of the applicability of what Mueller calls "the commonly discussed term collusion" to the established fact of the Trump campaign taking that meeting is a matter of opinion rather than fact, after all. The Mueller report did, however, establish that the meeting was not invented by propagandists but definitely took place.

[throwawaylinux]

So you can't point to any evidence, despite insisting and "knowing" it exists. The fact that the Mueller report states they found no evidence the Just like this invisible Korean wall.

[notahacker]

Yes, your failure to find the page where "the Mueller report states they found no evidence" as requested is very much like the failure to find the Korean wall.

I think we're going round in circles now, but I understand that if your claim that Russiagate was just propaganda rests on claiming that Mueller stated there was no evidence of any collusion, it's particularly hard to refute direct quotes from Mueller that he didn't assess whether they fit the "concept of collusion" and him not establishing stuff didn't mean there was no evidence for it. But perhaps he contradicted himself by stating that they found no evidence of any collusion in invisible ink only you can read?

It seems entirely reasonable for millions of people to continue to believe that the Mueller-established facts of Russian hacking, Trump campaign enthusiasm about using the hacked material and Trump campaign meetings with declared Russian operatives for the stated purpose of receiving sensitive information point towards collusion between the campaigns if the only argument you are able to make against this conjecture is a claim that Mueller made a statement he did not make.

Wishing you and whatever your non-throwaway account is better faith lines of argument (preferably on different subjects) in the New Year.