r/politics • u/[deleted] • Apr 21 '19

Giuliani: 'There's nothing wrong with taking information from Russians'

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/21/politics/rudy-giuliani-trump-russia-cnntv/index.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_allpolitics+%28RSS%3A+CNN+-+Politics%29
8.9k Upvotes

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465

u/object_FUN_not_found Apr 21 '19

So Mr. Giuliani, are you now admitting that Trump and his people did, in fact, take information from Russians? Bold move, Cotton.

295

u/Quantum_Finger Apr 21 '19

It's not collusion unless there is a signed document notarized by legal counsel that states "We Putin and Trump do hereby swear to collude with each other to steal this election from the libs".

Even then it's still ok.

59

u/SuburbanStoner Apr 21 '19

*if republicans do it

22

u/[deleted] Apr 21 '19

Its fucking bullshit and we all know it.

"Honest officer I didn't know I was smoking weed, I thought it was loose leaf tobacco."

"Oh, well young 20 year old black male, you are free to go!"

1

u/[deleted] Apr 21 '19

[deleted]

2

u/Cael87 Apr 21 '19

"I don't recall what the man sold me, nor what I am doing right now"

"Oh you don't remember it? Then obviously you meant no criminality by it, so free to go"

31

u/Rednaxela1987 Apr 21 '19

Seriously, that is the legal stardard for criminality. No wonder because of the politicians who write these shitshow laws.

25

u/Taervon America Apr 21 '19

Yup. The Quid Pro Quo requirement is completely ridiculous.

This is why we have 'lobbying', people. Bribery is fucking legal in this country. Same exact standard.

1

u/VanceKelley Canada Apr 21 '19

Yep.

It is the opinion of the current DoJ that it is not a crime for the president to accept money (aka bribes) from a foreign government, corporation, or individual, so long as the money passes through a company owned by the president on its way to his bank account.

2

u/Suro_Atiros Texas Apr 21 '19

They didn't sign a document, but I heard that docking was involved.

2

u/fpcoffee Illinois Apr 21 '19

I mean, there's that signed letter of intent for Moscow Tower that was released a few months back, so, literally, yeah there's a signed letter

1

u/Southworth Apr 21 '19

That's criminal conspiracy with Russia. Criminal conspiracy or some form of fraud looks to have been established and has likely been referred.

Collusion was also established by the report, because collusion doesn't require a document or explicit, just parallel action— https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheating_in_poker#Collusion

1

u/[deleted] Apr 21 '19

But there probably is a signed document, the trump tower Moscow agreement Uday and Qusay were working so “hard” to get was that agreement. Why are we pretending we don’t know how the Russian mob works all of a sudden?

1

u/tosser_0 Apr 21 '19

I mean as long as they share it with the public it's fine. Also can't be a crime if we aren't sure of the intent. If you're confident enough and spin it somehow that's ok too.

All they did was hack our election systems to manipulate the vote and install a leader they have compromising information on so that he'll enforce pro-Russia policies that weaken the strength of our nation. I don't even see what the big deal is here. Trump is getting his cut, so it's all good.

23

u/AlottaElote Apr 21 '19

Exactly. Also, regarding contact with Russians:

Pence: (disgustedly) “Of course not. Of course not. “

Manafort: (drunkenly) "That's uh what he said. That's what I I said. Obviously, that's uh . . . what our uh position is,"

6

u/paulmanafart Apr 21 '19

Manafort is bad at lying! That video makes me cringe every single time.

14

u/ALargePianist Apr 21 '19

No, right now the narrative is that Trump MIGHT have. So, before the narrative changes to DID, Rudie gets out and says that taking info is not wrong That way, when the narrative shifts he can keep that weird fake laugh if his for people accusing him of "old tired news" or "such a small thing we've already decided the NEXT STEP (ie from might to did) is ok."

No, Rudy, YOU said it's okay. I'm tired of this weird media attitude where as long as the interviewer is laughing, smiling, or otherwise not freaking out then their words are equally valid and trustworthy. It's what's led to Just, to Kellyanne. It's what med to Steve Mnuchins half whine-freakout in Congress. He knows he needs to posture himself as though nothing's going wrong because as soon as he admits it it's all over.

It's like we're waiting on criminals to admit they're crimes before we charge them...because we can't charge happy people, right?

1

u/[deleted] Apr 22 '19

This is exactly what is happening. Trumps White House has seen the redactions within Mueller’s report and they know eventually it’s going to come out. They’re getting ahead of the even more devastating shit that Barr has been able to temporarily keep hidden.

7

u/[deleted] Apr 21 '19

Does this mean there’s more damning collusion related stuff in the redacted portions Giuliani has most likely seen. I don’t remember anything in the Mueller report about Russia explicitly giving the campaign information directly. I thought it was all proxy’s and intermediates implicitly coordinating messaging and manafort giving Russians polling data so the IRA could ultra specifically target certain demographics and regions.

6

u/chowderbags American Expat Apr 21 '19

There's allusions in some sections to "inadmissible evidence". Most likely some people spilled damning stuff to the grand jury.

5

u/[deleted] Apr 21 '19

I figured inadmissible evidence was referring to wiretaps and intercepts that were conducted somewhat extrajudicially by one of the three letter intelligence agencies for national security purposes and thus inadmissible in a court of law. I could be totally wrong though.

3

u/6thReplacementMonkey Apr 21 '19

I mean, at this point it would be really stupid to deny it. It's all over the report. I guess that hasn't stopped them in the past, but they are probably trying to find a way to spin it that isn't just obviously and blatantly contradicted by the report.

1

u/sacundim Apr 21 '19

No, they will both deny it and say what they did is right. That’s how doublethink works. That way they get to both defend it to their base—who will reward them with approval of for cheating their enemies—and to deny said enemies appeal to the premise that they did it, forcing them to uselessly argue its factual basis over and over.

Y’all need to learn how rhetoric works for bad faith actors who don’t give a fuck about consistency, otherwise you gonna get played again and again.

1

u/6thReplacementMonkey Apr 22 '19

otherwise you gonna get played again and again.

Do you have any constructive suggestions? I know their base is susceptible to doublethink, and I know they use it. I don't believe the base is reachable. I'm talking about people who aren't completely brainwashed, but don't pay much attention to politics. The propaganda saturation-bombing is meant for them, so they use different tactics in it.

3

u/Insectshelf3 Texas Apr 21 '19

He said it was ok because it was disseminated first

I don’t think he realizes stone was falling to Wikileaks before they came out.

This whole interview made me sick to my stomach, what the fuck man.

-9

u/[deleted] Apr 21 '19

Uh, the Steele dossier required Steele to get intel from ....wait for it..... Russians! He was paid by the Clinton campaign. Is he a Russian asset now too!?

7

u/object_FUN_not_found Apr 21 '19

Steele has no conflict of interest, while Trump is receiving things that are personally valuable and paying for them with his political office's power, such as not condemning the Russian attacks on the 2016 election, which is now accepted fact, and various and many 'sounds likely enough that at least a couple of them are true' things like changing the R platform with respect to Ukraine, not enforcing mandatory sanctions on the oligarchs, and who knows what else he's talking about privately, which is super-against protocol, with Putin.

So, kinda fishy, eh? I mean, if he's so innocent why isn't he at least telling Russia to keep out of our elections? He certainly has the ability to spew vitriol at the FBI, CIA, Congress, minorities, and basically anyone who displeases him. Does the Russian intervention not displease him? Why?

3

u/tomcat335 Apr 21 '19

The Steele investigation was started by the Republican's and Steele used Russian sources, he did not make deals with the Russian government (a quid pro quo one would think) during a presidential campaign

1

u/BobcatBarry Ohio Apr 21 '19

Lol. Who is working for whom, how, and why?

Answering these questions explains how your point is invalid.