DOJ Initial Russia Hearings

[commando]

As someone enjoying the back and forth, I would just add this.

I have no problem with investigating things from either party that truly warrant it. But at a certain point, Congressional investigators become too partisan and blow their credibility.

It's hard as someone who leans left to hop on board with a Congressional investigation of much of anything led by the same clowns that gave us SEVEN committees on Benghazi. Nunes bowed out like a servile puppy dog when it was discovered he was trying to protect his guy in the House investigation. Their credibility is completely spent, and at a certain point they're just manufacturing controversy.

I wish we could trust Congressional inquiries and get them back to a serious, non-partisan nature.

Graham telling the Intel community to hurry up is rich. They're the only serious investigation we've got.

A House committee formed to investigate the 2012 attacks on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans had 46 staffers and eight interns.

The Senate Intelligence Committee’s years-long study of the CIA’s “enhanced” interrogation techniques during President George W. Bush’s administration had 20 staff members, according to the panel’s official report.

A special commission separate from Congress that reviewed the intelligence that wrongly concluded former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction ahead of the 2003 invasion of Iraq involved 88 staffers.

A special Senate committee’s 1970s investigation into Watergate-era surveillance practices tapped 133 staffers.

A joint House-Senate probe of the 1980s Iran-Contra affair during Ronald Reagan’s presidency involving secret sales of arms to Iran to try to win the release of American hostages, with proceeds going to Nicaraguan rebels, had 181 staffers.

This Senate investigation? 7 staffers.

but they are the best staffers ever

 

[Danny Bateman]

but they are the best staffers ever

The biglyiest.

 

[knapplc]

Comparing a foreign power conspiring to put a puppet in the Oval Office to the Clinton emails and Benghazi witch hunts is absurd. These are not remotely the same thing, not even the same planet.

If you want to say Democrats protect their own just like Republicans, everyone's on board with that. But let's not pretend an attack on an embassy and use of a private email server, which Trump is currently doing, is the same as an existential threat to American democracy.

 

[RedDenver]

Comparing a foreign power conspiring to put a puppet in the Oval Office to the Clinton emails and Benghazi witch hunts is absurd. These are not remotely the same thing, not even the same planet.

If you want to say Democrats protect their own just like Republicans, everyone's on board with that. But let's not pretend an attack on an embassy and use of a private email server, which Trump is currently doing, is the same as an existential threat to American democracy.

Let's also not get too high and mighty about election interference though. The US has interfered in 81 elections in other countries, including interfering in Russia's 1996 election.

 

[mrandyk]

Comparing a foreign power conspiring to put a puppet in the Oval Office to the Clinton emails and Benghazi witch hunts is absurd. These are not remotely the same thing, not even the same planet.

If you want to say Democrats protect their own just like Republicans, everyone's on board with that. But let's not pretend an attack on an embassy and use of a private email server, which Trump is currently doing, is the same as an existential threat to American democracy.

Let's also not get too high and mighty about election interference though. The US has interfered in 81 elections in other countries, including interfering in Russia's 1996 election.

Not really relevant. I'm not going to argue that we don't deserve to have attacks on our democracy, but that's not the issue at hand.

 

[Mierin]

Comparing a foreign power conspiring to put a puppet in the Oval Office to the Clinton emails and Benghazi witch hunts is absurd. These are not remotely the same thing, not even the same planet.

If you want to say Democrats protect their own just like Republicans, everyone's on board with that. But let's not pretend an attack on an embassy and use of a private email server, which Trump is currently doing, is the same as an existential threat to American democracy.

Let's also not get too high and mighty about election interference though. The US has interfered in 81 elections in other countries, including interfering in Russia's 1996 election.

Not really relevant. I'm not going to argue that we don't deserve to have attacks on our democracy, but that's not the issue at hand.

My thoughts exactly. Nobody is getting "high and mighty." Nobody is arguing that we haven't done it.

Nor should we give much of a crap as it pertains to interference in our elections. Interfering in every election or no elections occuring in other countries has no bearing on what we should allow to happen here.

 

[RedDenver]

Comparing a foreign power conspiring to put a puppet in the Oval Office to the Clinton emails and Benghazi witch hunts is absurd. These are not remotely the same thing, not even the same planet.

If you want to say Democrats protect their own just like Republicans, everyone's on board with that. But let's not pretend an attack on an embassy and use of a private email server, which Trump is currently doing, is the same as an existential threat to American democracy.

Let's also not get too high and mighty about election interference though. The US has interfered in 81 elections in other countries, including interfering in Russia's 1996 election.

Not really relevant. I'm not going to argue that we don't deserve to have attacks on our democracy, but that's not the issue at hand.

If we're going to compare election interference to embassy attacks and private email server use/mishandling classified material, then doesn't context matter?

 

[Mierin]

Comparing a foreign power conspiring to put a puppet in the Oval Office to the Clinton emails and Benghazi witch hunts is absurd. These are not remotely the same thing, not even the same planet.

If you want to say Democrats protect their own just like Republicans, everyone's on board with that. But let's not pretend an attack on an embassy and use of a private email server, which Trump is currently doing, is the same as an existential threat to American democracy.

Let's also not get too high and mighty about election interference though. The US has interfered in 81 elections in other countries, including interfering in Russia's 1996 election.

Not really relevant. I'm not going to argue that we don't deserve to have attacks on our democracy, but that's not the issue at hand.

If we're going to compare election interference to embassy attacks and private email server use/mishandling classified material, then doesn't context matter?

Forgive me if I'm wrong but I really can't think of any other possibility here...

Are you trying to say that because the U.S. has interfered in lots of foreign elections, that Russia's interference in our election isn't that big of a deal and as such is kinda like Benghazi and the Emails?

 

[knapplc]

Are you trying to say that because the U.S. has interfered in lots of foreign elections, that Russia's interference in our election isn't that big of a deal and as such is kinda like Benghazi and the Emails?

Nope. That's exactly what is being said.

And it's perhaps the stupidest fucking tangent ever on this board. And we suffered through several iterations of wifi.

 

[Danny Bateman]

Comparing a foreign power conspiring to put a puppet in the Oval Office to the Clinton emails and Benghazi witch hunts is absurd. These are not remotely the same thing, not even the same planet.

If you want to say Democrats protect their own just like Republicans, everyone's on board with that. But let's not pretend an attack on an embassy and use of a private email server, which Trump is currently doing, is the same as an existential threat to American democracy.

Let's also not get too high and mighty about election interference though. The US has interfered in 81 elections in other countries, including interfering in Russia's 1996 election.

Not really relevant. I'm not going to argue that we don't deserve to have attacks on our democracy, but that's not the issue at hand.

If we're going to compare election interference to embassy attacks and private email server use/mishandling classified material, then doesn't context matter?

Tangentially, Trump's proposed budget cuts State Dept funding by 28%. That is where embassy security funding comes from.

 

[Fru]

Comparing a foreign power conspiring to put a puppet in the Oval Office to the Clinton emails and Benghazi witch hunts is absurd. These are not remotely the same thing, not even the same planet.

If you want to say Democrats protect their own just like Republicans, everyone's on board with that. But let's not pretend an attack on an embassy and use of a private email server, which Trump is currently doing, is the same as an existential threat to American democracy.

Thank you!

 

[Fru]

Comparing a foreign power conspiring to put a puppet in the Oval Office to the Clinton emails and Benghazi witch hunts is absurd. These are not remotely the same thing, not even the same planet.

If you want to say Democrats protect their own just like Republicans, everyone's on board with that. But let's not pretend an attack on an embassy and use of a private email server, which Trump is currently doing, is the same as an existential threat to American democracy.

Let's also not get too high and mighty about election interference though. The US has interfered in 81 elections in other countries, including interfering in Russia's 1996 election.

Not really relevant. I'm not going to argue that we don't deserve to have attacks on our democracy, but that's not the issue at hand.

If we're going to compare election interference to embassy attacks and private email server use/mishandling classified material, then doesn't context matter?

Tangentially, Trump's proposed budget cuts State Dept funding by 28%. That is where embassy security funding comes from.

Shocking.

 

[BigRedBuster]

Comparing a foreign power conspiring to put a puppet in the Oval Office to the Clinton emails and Benghazi witch hunts is absurd. These are not remotely the same thing, not even the same planet.

If you want to say Democrats protect their own just like Republicans, everyone's on board with that. But let's not pretend an attack on an embassy and use of a private email server, which Trump is currently doing, is the same as an existential threat to American democracy.

The bold is all that's being said.

Every single issue that has been raised in this discussion deserved an investigation. Russia, Emails, Benghazi...etc. I have always had the feeling that...when it doubt, have an investigation. Some, like Benghazi, go whacko into la la land....But, that doesn't mean the initial investigation was inappropriate.

The point that has been made is that both parties rail against these investigations when it is against their golden boy/girl. Both parties are spineless when it comes to investigations into their own party.

 

[knapplc]

But saying "both do this" equates the situations. And that equation is dangerous when it allows people to minimize the very real existential threat we face today.

 

[BigRedBuster]

But saying "both do this" equates the situations. And that equation is dangerous when it allows people to minimize the very real existential threat we face today.

No it doesn't. You can jump to your conclusion like that if you want. But, that doesn't make pointing out that both parties protect themselves from scandal and investigation any less of a valid point.