ChrisMaverick dotcom

An Honest Question for Trump Supporters

TrumpPutinHillaryMatrixSo given the way I write and the opinions and such that I express, I don’t really expect a lot of Trump supporters to read my little blog here. That’s totally my fault. I know what I’m doing. I do have some conservative/republican readers, but they’re pretty much all of the type who are not supporting Trump. Again, given who I am and what I say, that’s certainly to be expected. There’s the occasional person who wanders through and argues with me in the comments, like that Mike Land guy from a couple weeks ago, but I know they aren’t actually normally following me. They just wander in when I happen to say something that goes viral enough to get their attention from a friend of a friend or something.

I do actually follow some Trump followers online and on TV. I like knowing what people think. I honestly feel that I can’t have an informed opinion of my own unless I give attention to those who disagree with me. Sure I might make fun of you, but that’s just because I am a belligerent and arrogant asshole. That doesn’t mean that I’m not listening or that I don’t want to hear what you have to say; I totally do.

So I’ve been wandering around social media, the blogosphere, even FoxNews today trying to find ANYONE defending Trump’s plea for Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s email today. And I can’t. See, normally, even for the ideas that I think are ridiculous I can find someone giving the opposite side so that I can at least see where they’re coming from, even if I may personally think they’re idiots (and I’m sure they think the same about me). But this time. Nothing! Nada! Zip! Not even on the Youtube feed of the whole press conference on a specifically right wing forum where the vast majority of the comments are in support of Trump, no one is saying “yeah, Russia! Release those hacked emails!” NO ONE! The closest I was able to come was an interview on FoxNews’s The Kelly File where Trump’s campaign chair, Paul Manafort, says that Trump didn’t ask Russia to hack Hillary Clinton or anyone else. Of course he did… like literally… in almost those exact words:

“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think that you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.” And when questioned about it by reporters he said that he had no qualms about what he just said and he hopes the Russians (or China) has them because he wants to see them.

So that means he does want this, but not even his campaign manager officially supports him on this one. As far as I can tell there’s not a single person on earth who likes what he said today.

But that can’t be. He has fans. There are people who think that he’s perfect. And I want to know why. So I’m asking every who reads this to find me a Trump supporter. Send me your friends, your neighbors, your crazy drunken uncles! Or send me your diehard Bernie supporters. The Bernie or Busters who believe that Hillary Clinton is the most corrupt politician of all time. Send me anyone who wants to see this. I don’t care who! I promise I’ll even try to be nice. Because I’m just really super curious on one specific thing in this situation. First, lets be clear where we are… the current front runner for the presidency of the United States of America just said that he hopes that another country was successful in an international espionage attempt against the former Secretary of State and managed to secure classified information so that they could leak it to the press.

Yes. I think that’s batshit crazy. But I want to set that aside for a moment. I don’t care about the morality of it at all right now. I don’t care about the political function of it at all right now. I really, really don’t. I want to understand the logic. Someone needs to explain this to me. So here it is:

Lets say you believe Hillary Clinton is an evil self-righteous hellspawn who put the country at risk by holding classified information on a private server and is guilty of treason and should therefore be in federal prison for life… For the purposes of this conversation, I’m totally going to give you that and take it as a given that she’s guilty and has a cache of 33,000 highly sensitive classified documents on a hard drive in her basement.

So if you believe that… WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU ASKING THE RUSSIANS TO GO GET IT?!?!?!?!

Seriously. I really want to know the thinking on this one. Please someone give me an argument here or find someone who can.

om

154 comments for “An Honest Question for Trump Supporters

  1. July 27, 2016 at 7:32 pm

    21 minutes and it’s awful quiet here….

  2. July 27, 2016 at 7:35 pm

    A little bit of research in comment sections on articles, and I found this defense, which sadly doesn’t really answer your question: “Trump’s point is that Putin had the emails, before Hillary deleted them. Hillary server was unprotected, and probably every country in the world has the emails.”

    1. July 27, 2016 at 7:36 pm

      Except the U.S.?

    2. July 27, 2016 at 7:38 pm

      Sure. And I’ll even grant that… but if that’s the case, why would you want them released? Doesn’t that make it worse?

      I mean, worst case scenario China and Russia have them and are planning to attack us based on whatever she said in them.

      Why do we want to make them available to… I dunno… Botswana?

    3. July 27, 2016 at 8:07 pm

      Ok, so Jeff Rand (who I don’t know) is making this point a couple comments down. So you guys are welcome to consolidate there.

  3. July 27, 2016 at 7:36 pm

    Well first thing an off line server I’d kinda hard to hack, from a tech

  4. July 27, 2016 at 7:44 pm

    Thus one is easy Mav, because I still remember asking you who this Chris guy was that everyone was referring too was… I willing to be an idiot then to you as now, you’re cool! It does several thing, exposes weakened in our computer systems that supports increased military spending and lack of the current administration in keeping us on the forefront of technology.

    1. July 28, 2016 at 3:28 am

      The current administration has nothing to do with us not being in the forefront of technology in defense, this is a decades long problem stemming from incompetent leadership in the military coupled with a contracting process that is *at best* unresponsive and a lack of tech skills in both leadership and civilians/military in the DoD. I work with people who don’t fucking understand how YouTube works. my senior leadership doesn’t understand what Twitter does. Online collaboration tools? We’ve got share point. If we’re lucky. It’s really a matter of incompetence, ignorance and bureaucratic inertia…this didn’t happen in 8 years…its been decades.

    2. July 28, 2016 at 7:12 am

      Well to be frank, I’m not much into the commercial applications when it comes to military. We are still advancing nuclear reactor technologies even though a nuclear power plant hasn’t been built in decades. Also our unmanned vehicles and telepresence tech is quite powerful. The whole hippie approach of being entertained and hand holding while doing your job in the military doesn’t click with me

  5. July 27, 2016 at 7:44 pm

    Trump believes that the emails were taken months in the past. Hillary said all 30k were personal under oath and destroyed then totally prior to the fbi investigation. Unfortunately, Russia is the only check and balance of that destruction of evidence.

    1. July 27, 2016 at 7:53 pm

      Hi Jeff,

      Ok fine. Like I said, I’ll give you that. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say, for the purposes of this conversation that she’s totally guilty and we know that. And I’ll give you that Putin hacked the emails before she deleted them. There’s no evidence of this. There’s no evidence at all that the Russians (or anyone else) hacked Hillary’s server. We know someone hacked the DNC server. That’s a different thing. That’s like saying that because I’m a member of AAA, if someone hacked their server they must have information from chrismaverick.com.

      But I’m going to ignore that for this conversation. I’m saying. Fine, lets assume it was Putin and lets assume he hacked both the DNC server AND Hillary’s personal one. So he has the emails and he knows 33,000 separate and distinct classified US secrets. We are now at risk from Russia and it’s Hillary’s fault and she SHOULD be in jail. This is the absolute worst case scenario, right?

      However. In order to put her in jail, you’re saying that we need to have Putin release the 33,000 secrets to the world. So now Russia still knows, but so does North Korea, Iraq, the Taliban, ISIS and the crazy bum in the alley who just happens to have a discarded iPhone and is stilling wifi from the building next door.

      Yes, we have evidence. But what good is it if prosecuting her means activating the very thing that you’re afraid might have happened and multiplying it 1000x?

    2. July 27, 2016 at 7:59 pm

      See that’s the point, Hillary said its 30k emails about “yoga” and “Chelsea s wedding”, which is why she professionally destroyed them beyond recovery prior to turning the server over to the fbi. Most people would just turn everything over to the fbi to avoid obstruction charges, plus if they were personal, it adds noise. Also, most people wouldn’t use professional deletion services for that, so something is odd, and trump is sensing he’s on a no lose situation

    3. July 27, 2016 at 8:05 pm

      Right. I’m not arguing that part. I’m saying I’m willing to grant you that she was completely lying. That they weren’t personal emails and that they were totally 33,000 schematics to US embassy secret tunnels and launch codes to nuclear submarines. I’m willing to grant you 100% worse case scenario.

      The point is that trying to catch her by making those secrets publicly available is clearly illogical. I mean, right now, the absolute worse case scenario is that Vladimir Putin has access to US secrets. That sucks. And sure, she should be punished. But how is it logical to release those secrets to the rest of the world just to catch her?

    4. July 27, 2016 at 8:12 pm

      Because that would be checkmate. The real secrets for the government are on a network that is air gapped from the real internet. If a truly crazy secret was leaked, it’s not trumps fault, it’s gross and maybe criminal mishandling by Hillary to scan or retype them on an internet facing server. Trump can go “what me worry” since the Russians stole it due to Clintons mishandling. Since this isn’t the fifties with real secrets like h bombs and stealth technology, there is not going to be much problems for usa (see the wiki leaks of all of Clintons diplomatic cables for instance). Basically, trump is buying a lottery ticket, say one sentence and maybe win the election.

    5. July 27, 2016 at 8:38 pm

      Ok. Two issues.

      First: yes… I’ll grant you that the government has top secret files on secure networks. That’s what the entire case is about. Did she take files from the governments secure servers to her personal one.

      Second there’s the issue of checkmating her. Throwing her in jail for her crimes. You keep arguing that this is about showing the world she committed the crimes. You don’t need to. I agree with you. I don’t really believe all 33,000 emails are separate and distinct secrets. But I am totally on board with believing that some of them were. So I’m ok with saying all 33,000 were.

      But when you tie the issues together, that’s where the problem is.

      There are only two possibilities. Either she took stuff from the government’s super secret dark net or she didn’t. If she didn’t then she’s committed no crime. It doesn’t matter what was in the emails. Say she talks about the ways that the Clinton foundation is misappropriating funds. Say she admits to a sexual affair. Say she just has a 1000 message chain back and forth with Kim Jong Un about how stupid looking the president’s ears are. None of those things are illegal. (Fund misappropriation actually is, but it isn’t in violation of the classified documents law that this case is about so the warrant is irrelevant there) If she did them and admits to them in the email then it doesn’t matter. Those things aren’t classified and they belong on her private server and not the government dark net. And in making that announcement trump just became an accessory after the fact to wiretapping. So that would be bad.

      But like I said. I’m willing to grant you the opposite. I’m willing to say she did break the law and take secrets off the government dark net to her private server. Something inexcusable and potentially deadly to uncountable millions in this country.

      Now you have the prospective commander in chief calling for that secret information that we want to protect being made public. Again… I’m saying she was 100% in the wrong. But in order to prove it you’re calling for the thing that she did to suddenly become 1000x worse. The fact that it was in her and Obama’s watch would no longer be relevant. Yes you caught her. Yes she’d lose the election. But now President Trump would be inheriting a world where the secrets that she mishandled were now public knowledge. In the absolute best case scenario here he is now president of the most vulnerable version of the United States that has ever existed.

    6. July 27, 2016 at 9:23 pm

      The 30,000 missing emails would not have to have “secrets off the government dark net” (whatever that means) to create potential criminal exposure for her. They would not even have to be classified. They would just need to relate to State Department business rather than to yoga lessons and plans for Chelsea’s wedding. Presumably the majority of the deleted emails were indeed personal. But it seems highly unlikely that her private team drew a clean line between official business and personal business, and if they did, it was probably a somewhat self-serving line. Which is exactly the point – Having commingled all of her email on a single unsecure server, it was not right for her to delete 30,000 emails prior to complying with the statutory requirement that all official emails be archived on government servers and maintained for posterity.

      So bottom line, there is no reason to think that the emails she deleted were particularly sensitive or noteworthy from a national security standpoint. But that does not mean the deletion was legal. And the only way to prove the illegality would be for someone who has the emails to release them, because she deleted them in such a thorough way that even the FBI could not retrieve them. Also, this means that Trump was not asking the Russians to “hack” her existing email, because the 30,000 so called “personal” emails are already long gone. He was saying that if they are sitting on those they should release them so that the American people (and maybe the FBI) can evaluate whether the front-runner for President obstructed justice and destroyed public records in potential violation of multiple federal statutes.

    7. July 27, 2016 at 9:25 pm

      FYI, I personally do not care too much about this email stuff – It all seems a bit overblown. But you threw out a challenge, and I figured I would try to offer a qualified defense of the notion that if the Russians have the deleted emails they should release them, or at least turn them over to U.S. law enforcement.

    8. July 27, 2016 at 9:45 pm

      Abram:

      Hi there. Yes I did. And I certainly do appreciate you answering.

      But there’s the technical thing. First off, I actually DON’T believe in the level of conspiracy theory that Jeff was advocating. There certainly are private USGovt servers (that’s the whole point) but how secure or insecure they are is immaterial to the question (as you rightly pointed out). I just didn’t want the argument to be about that so I ceded that point to Jeff.

      But the key is really the second part of your point. There are only two possibilities. Either all of the email was innocuous and personal or some of it was sensitive and secure. I actually agree with you that PROBABLY most of it was innocuous but there was some secure stuff mixed in.

      But that’s the point. Either it was or it wasn’t. It’s actually NOT illegal for her to discuss the government or other governments or anything public about affairs of state on a non-secure server. Hell, we’re doing it right now. Being secretary of state (or even president) doesn’t remove that right for you. In fact, when Obama was elected, he specifically made it a point to keep his personal Blackberry in addition to the mandated WindowsMobile secure phone he was provided for official use. It was a big news story because in 2008 people actually still cared about Blackberry.

      The only way Hillary did anything illegal is if any of the 33,000 emails she released were sensitive. If she emails Chelsea and says “Hi hon, hope your yoga class went well. Can’t get together to talk about the bridal party tonight because I’m going to the G8 summit. Love You!” That’s perfectly legal.

      If she emails Chelsea and says “Hi Hon, just so you know, I’m totally cheating on your father with both the president and the vice president. Just to get back at him for the whole Monica thing. Barry and Joe railed me like a pair of chinese finger cuffs in the oval office yesterday! Love you bye!” That’s also not illegal.

      If she emails Chelsea and says “Hi hon, just so you know Barack and I decided to secretly supply ISIS with a dirty bomb to take out Israel because it turns out there totally is a secret zionist government that is trying to take out the world. But keep it on the down low because national security depends on us not making this public yet” then she did something illegal.

      Anything that would be illegal that’s on her server is illegal because by definition it must be on a private server in the interest of national security. That’s the only reason any of it matters.

      So by asking Putin to turn it over to the New York Times, you are necessarily compromising security even further.

      That’s my point. By definition anything problematic that they could turn over SHOULDN’T be turned over. Unless it was only problematic to Hillary the citizen as opposed to Hillary the secretary of state. Then he is advocating the release of private information for an american citizen that was obtained illegally.

      Forgetting who she is for a moment:

      Basically, at it’s most innocent Donald Trump just did the equivalent of saying “hey, whoever has those hacked phone nude selfies of Jennifer Lawrence? Please turn those over to the New York Times because the people want to see that!

      OR at the most dangerous he did the equivalent of saying “Hey, whoever stole the nuclear launch codes from that the president wrote on a napkin at McDonalds, please turn those over to the New York Times, because the people want to see that”

      OR (as you are suggesting), it’s somewhere inbetween. But there is nowhere on that spectrum that isn’t problematic. Except for the fact that it’s Hillary Clinton.

    9. July 27, 2016 at 10:08 pm

      Thanks for your reply. I believe we have a different understanding of the applicable laws. You are correct that with respect to the emails she turned over to the government, the illegality would only arise if they were classified and if she was grossly negligent in handling them. Hence the whole Comey press conference, yada yada etc.

      But the deletion of the emails potentially implicates an entirely different set of statutory provisions. Under FOIA and at least a couple of other federal statutes, federal appointees at the cabinet level cannot just delete their work-related emails or burn work-related documents. These are public records that belong to all of us, not just to the office or agency in question. Hillary avoided some problems in this area by handing over lots of emails to the government, thus fully satisfying the preservation requirement. Except for – She and her team deleted 30,000 emails before turning over the rest. She says they were all purely personal, and if that is true, she was allowed to delete them. But if they touched on her work or on official business in any way, then it was a violation of multiple federal statutes and regulations to delete them rather than preserve them. Criminal liability would of course turn on state of mind – was deletion intentional, reckless, intended to interfere with investigation, etc. But these statutes have non-criminal provisions as well. Point being, it is quite possible (and I would even say likely) that amongst the 30,000 emails there is a tidy little cluster of work-related emails that are not classified or sensitive, but that she was nonetheless legally obligated to preserve because they in some way relate to or touch upon official business. Of course, because they deleted all of them, we will never know for sure. Unless some third party that hacked them prior to the mass deletion were to release them. But that would never happen . . . right?

    10. July 27, 2016 at 11:14 pm

      Right. We don’t disagree there. That’s why I said the entire spectrum.

      Let me do a slightly better than innocuous case.

      Say there are 32,999 emails to Chelsea about yoga and there is 1 that says “David Blair, I’ll be in London next week. Can we sit down and discuss strategies for debating a possible troop surge before the UN meeting next month?”

      By rule, that email 100% should have been sent from her work account. By rule she was in the wrong for deleting it rather than turning it over. It was innocuous but should have been part of the archives.

      And if Trump had said “WIKILEAKS I implore you. Turn over your database to the FBI so that they can look over those emails and see if Hillary had anything in there that shouldn’t have been” then we wouldn’t be having this conversation. But he didn’t. He said “RUSSIA, turn over your database to THE AMERICAN PRESS so they can publish whatever they find.”

      The key here is the four allcaps words in the previous paragraph. He didn’t call for an investigation of possible wrongdoing by the authorities. He called for the publication of the whole package.

      The reason it matters is let’s say there are 32,998 yoga emails, the one email to Blair and one that says “Ariel Sharon, the president says yes. We are going embed a CIA spy in Egypt. We need your help getting him across the border. His name is Robert Paulson and he’ll be meeting up with an Egyptian asset named Ammon Osirus. I’ll send you more details from my work account in the morning.” Again, she 100% in the wrong for doing this, but now we have just compromised the security of a US agent, a foreign asset, an ongoing intelligence operation, and the national security of both our country and that of one of our closest allies all with a single short email. Even assuming Putin already had that message, we’ve now given it to Egypt… The very thing we don’t want and the reason she isn’t supposed to be using her personal server in the first place.”

      Are there any messages like that in the theoretical 33,000? Maybe and maybe not. Are they important? Maybe and maybe not. But the future president of the United States should not be calling on a foreign country to assist the New York Times, the National Enquirer or Gawker to be making that decision.

      And in the best case scenario, assuming she is 100% innocent, the future president should not be calling for a foreign country to be turning over a private citizen’s discussions of yoga, wedding plans and baby names with her daughter to the New York Times, National Enquirer or Gawker.

      Literally anything in between there and total disregard for national security, he made the wrong call.

      Even if she literally sent an email that says “Barack, Hahahahah those fools… They don’t know that I masterminded the Benghazi attack myself! Suckers!!!! MUHAHAHA!!!!! Now everyone will be on our side when we try to raise a coalition to take over the world! Death to Israel! Hail Hydra!!!!” It was the wrong call. In fact, if that happened, in the interest of national security, that’s the very thing you want to NOT get into the press… Even if it was the administration you are trying to beat. Because once it does you’ve now weakened national security on the geopolitical stage for when you do take over.

    11. July 28, 2016 at 3:06 am

      I am basically in agreement with your analysis in the comment above.

    12. July 28, 2016 at 3:38 am

      Ok, I didn’t read all of your post .mav, but just because it related to work does not mean she can’t delete the email. Lots of emails do not get archived or stored and get deleted off government servers. FOIA doesn’t require federal employees or officials to preserve every email ever.

    13. July 28, 2016 at 4:16 am

      So my reading of this argument is that Trump doesn’t believe the emails are highly sensitive. But she swore they were not work related, and therefore their release could put her in jail for perjury/obstruction if they’re even casually work related. So your granting the worst-case scenario is not what is being asked for my the pro-Trump camp– their best-case scenario is non-sensitive, work-related emails that show Clinton lied released to the press.

      I should note that the reason almost anything gets classified is due to protecting sources and capabilities, not the information itself. Presumably the administration has taken steps to protect them from exposure should the emails leak by now if your assumptions were true.

    14. July 28, 2016 at 9:04 am

      Brenadine: Well, I wasn’t really trying to get into a discussion about the specifics of the FOIA. Obviously that gets really complex and technical and I was trying to shut it down and redirect to the main point. Which is, I’m willing to accept on faith that we know for sure that Hillary Clinton violated statute somewhere between disregarding the FOIA and high treason and that the proof is in said emails. Now what?

      Sam: yes, I agree with you that their best case scenario is in there. To take my above example, the hope is that somewhere in the 32,998 Chelsea yoga emails there is buried my theoretical Outlook meeting request to David Cameron (I said David Blair… but it was late). That would indeed prove that she had perjured herself. The problem is that assuming she has perjured herself, and her entire competence as Sec of State is now in question, the possibility of the theoretical email to Ariel Sharon means asking for them all to be turned over to the press is reckless and dangerous.

      And I agree with you. If there was any real worry about the compromise of content of emails by a secretary of state who resigned in 2012, then any competent administration would have taken steps to insure that the the validity of any of that information had expired by 2016. Except, the entire purpose of the exercise is to prove the incompetence of the administration.

    15. July 28, 2016 at 6:16 pm

      It’s already been established that she send classified info through the her emails messages given what she did turn over. Time sensitive stuff on drone strikes. (From wsj) the govt still decided not to pursue charges.

    16. July 28, 2016 at 6:21 pm

      Actually it was more established that she was sent classified info. And the timing of when it was and wasn’t classified was in question. It gets complicated. But all of that is immaterial to the point in this thread. (More related to the other one)

    17. July 28, 2016 at 6:32 pm

      Well, how about the animal farm approach? How many people would get hammered for deleting emails at their job? Sox/financial requirements and all. All pigs are equal but some pigs are more equal than others? How is it not abuse of power…?

    18. July 28, 2016 at 6:38 pm

      That’s not the question though. That’s totally irrelevant. In some jobs you would. In some jobs you wouldn’t. But to get back on message: when I worked for Mellon Bank if I had proprietary info on my home machine they’d have been pissed. Especially if somehow PNC hacked me.

      But if your solution was to steal it from me and publish what I had to the Wall Street journal so that Wells Fargo, Chase, HSBC, Bank of America and Citigroup could see it now too, they’d be way madder at you than they were at me.

    19. July 28, 2016 at 7:11 pm

      So you are saying that he was deflecting anger away from him to the Russians?

    20. July 28, 2016 at 7:13 pm

      No. That has nothing to do with this either. He was using the hack (and a massive misunderstanding of it) to remind people of her email scandal and generate political capital.

      But that’s not what we’re talking about either. This is specifically about the logic of taking him at his word and asking a foreign power to turn over the hacked emails (if they existed) to the press.

    21. July 28, 2016 at 7:17 pm

      Like why would another power ever do that?

    22. July 28, 2016 at 7:18 pm

      They wouldn’t. That’s the whole point!!!!

      But that’s what he asked them to do. Did you watch the video at all?

    23. July 28, 2016 at 7:18 pm

      So naive, facetious or sarcastic?

    24. July 28, 2016 at 7:19 pm

      I don’t watch second hand events

    25. July 28, 2016 at 7:19 pm

      Then why have you been arguing about it? I mean, that’s the whole point of this is discussing what happened there.

    26. July 28, 2016 at 7:20 pm

      Seemed interesting… Also not very confusing, so wondering why you would be puzzled by it

  6. July 27, 2016 at 7:46 pm

    At the bar so taking this in parts… it demonstrates and revives the fear of Russia as a dominate power. Again shows loss of statue of the current administration

  7. July 27, 2016 at 7:49 pm

    And finally it points out that Hillary is a freaking luddite for managing her own email server

    1. July 27, 2016 at 7:54 pm

      ok. But weigh all of that in relation to my answer to Jeff Rand above

    2. July 27, 2016 at 8:02 pm

      Hold on… Reading

    3. July 27, 2016 at 8:11 pm

      So jeff isn’t addressing any of my points, in fact it seems like you just want to talk about stupid details that have nothing to do with the alluded points I raised about his statement. Too focused bud

    4. July 27, 2016 at 8:12 pm

      My point is no one cares about the contents of the email, she likely never had access to the level of sensitive stuff that Russia already had access too

    5. July 27, 2016 at 8:23 pm

      That’s wrong though. Everyone cares about the content of the email. Donald specifically says that he cares about the contents. That’s why he asked.

      Yes, there is a second issue about how good she is at protecting her server. But that’s not at stake. There’s no law that says she can’t own a private server. Hell… I own one. The entire question is whether she had classified information on that server. That’s the crime. It’s the only reason she’s being investigated.

      You’re also wrong about her access. She was Secretary of State. She by definition had the highest clearance there is. The entire point of the job is being the person who the president bounces top secret information off of. The only things she wouldn’t have access to are the things that only existed in his head.

    6. July 27, 2016 at 8:28 pm

      Dude normalize to the average citizen, or illegal immigrant (likely two different levels)

    7. July 27, 2016 at 8:29 pm

      Take into account pay grade and what we consider above our parade and what the average is

    8. July 27, 2016 at 8:29 pm

      Or even the mean

    9. July 27, 2016 at 8:30 pm

      You address still focused on the crime nor the impact on the electorate

    10. July 27, 2016 at 8:30 pm

      You are… Spell check with Swype

    11. July 27, 2016 at 8:33 pm

      You are an idiot if you think we give the highest level of information to people that are elected to short terms. We provide them enough information to make decisions, two different sets of information. You know this!

    12. July 27, 2016 at 8:48 pm

      I highly doubt the detail s of how to build an nuclear arsenal is at the finger tips of the commander in chief, do you?

    13. July 27, 2016 at 8:49 pm

      They may know how much it costs and may need to authorize it but no the secrets are not available to them for perusal

    14. July 27, 2016 at 8:51 pm

      So you might have time sensitive information that maybe a POW might have, but that data express about 90 days after being taken

    15. July 27, 2016 at 8:51 pm

      Expires

    16. July 27, 2016 at 8:56 pm

      Actually yes, she would have access to that information. As does the commander in chief. But no, I doubt she’s discussing the especial makeup of a bomb.

      But that’s the thing. If she is discussing how much nuclear materials cost or other non-sensitive information then she did something wrong. It is perfectly within my rights or hers to have a conversation with my friends about the fact that uranium is used in nukes. in fact, there you go. I just did it.

      Where the problems occur is if she ever said to someone “we need to move the uranium reserves from the secret base at 123 somewhere street in Tulsa to the base at 456 elsewhere street in Des Moines.” If she said that then she has put the country at risk, yes. Because now Vladimir Putin knows where in Des Moines we keep our uranium.

      But you’re asking for Putin to tell the New York Times what she said, so that now ISIS, North Korea, and Bob the self-radicalizing radical islam muslim from Iowa knows where to go to get it.

    17. July 27, 2016 at 8:58 pm

      Also… Goddammit, Dmitri, make yourself uninvisible to my blog syncer. You’re making good points that I want to be able to look up later.

      Note to self: https://www.facebook.com/chrismaverick/posts/10154462668606654?comment_id=10154462724661654&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R2%22%7D is the Facebook link to this comment thread so I can see Dmitri Schoeman’s invisible comments when I’m wondering later.

    18. July 27, 2016 at 9:02 pm

      it’s not the ingredients, it’s the engineering buds

    19. July 27, 2016 at 9:04 pm

      from http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/about members only have access to assessments not details of the intelligence

    20. July 27, 2016 at 9:07 pm

      Dmitri: I was addressing the idea that she might be talking about a theoretical SECRET store of nuclear materials. Again, if she’s talking about Savannah on her private server then there’s nothing illegal there since she hasn’t violated national security.

      Hai-Son: That’s the thing. Assuming she KNOWS how to make a bomb and discusses it on her private server then that’s a problem, fine… and by asking for that info to be released you’ve made it a bigger one.

      Assuming she DOESN’T know, which is what you’re saying, then there’s no issue and she hasn’t violated a law by having a private server and Trump is asking for Russia to release the contents of private conversations of a private citizen to the media. Your feelings about her lack of understanding of network security don’t matter. She either risked top secret info or she didn’t.

    21. July 27, 2016 at 9:07 pm

      sources of assessment, methods of assessment?

    22. July 27, 2016 at 9:07 pm

      you mean intelligence officers? s4?

    23. July 27, 2016 at 9:09 pm

      making a bomb is not the problem, it’s you making a subjective determination of what is BAD instead of the rule of law

    24. July 27, 2016 at 9:10 pm

      Again, I can care less about her breaking the law.

    25. July 27, 2016 at 9:11 pm

      YES!

    26. July 27, 2016 at 9:12 pm

      And?

    27. July 27, 2016 at 9:13 pm

      you know that los alamos is a national laboratory and is not under military domain right?

    28. July 27, 2016 at 9:14 pm

      they are DOE

    29. July 27, 2016 at 9:16 pm

      generally, we use corporate entities to shield our political entities from overexposure, it would require an act of congress or court order which would likely expose the national secret. So what’s your approach?

    30. July 27, 2016 at 9:16 pm

      Hai-Son Nguyen: “Again, I can care less about her breaking the law.”

      OK… but see, if you’re saying it isn’t about her breaking the law, then there is no reason to release her emails. You’re now advocating for a foreign power to hack the private information of a private US citizen and release her personal information to the international press because… I dunno, it’s amusing to show everyone that she’s stupid?

    31. July 27, 2016 at 9:18 pm

      You were discussing his remarks and the reasons behind it, not some maginot line of defense that you want to defend Mav!

    32. July 27, 2016 at 9:20 pm

      The ability to circumvent a binding contract with a contract does require the government to supersede the existing contract. Again follow the logic of the statement made not the path of least resistance

    33. July 27, 2016 at 9:22 pm

      No. I’m discussing why someone would defend his stance. Not his reason for making it. Only he knows that. We can speculate (and it’s not hard. It was an attempt to make his political rival look bad).

      What my actual question is, is why do people who might think it’s a good idea (i.e. you) feel that way?

      And as far as I can tell, your answer is “because it shows that she’s naive about server security. I don’t care if what she was holding was illegal or not”

      So… what I’m asking is…. “you’re advocating the hacking of a private citizen by a foreign power in violation of international law and the release of her private info whatever it may be just because it shows that she’s stupid?”

      Which… if so, seems kind of extreme and scary.

    34. July 27, 2016 at 9:22 pm

      circumvent condition: (2) the information is owned by, produced by or for, or is under the control of the United States Government;

    35. July 27, 2016 at 9:23 pm

      so if his defense is his reasoning then… what are we to discuss

    36. July 27, 2016 at 9:24 pm

      I haven’t advocated hacking of any sort, I think this is my first use of the term

    37. July 27, 2016 at 9:30 pm

      BTW: I’m watching the episode of Enterprise where the captain is being on condemed in a Klingon trial after a few drinks at the bar

    38. July 27, 2016 at 9:33 pm

      So you somehow are attempting to convey the clearance of the president of the united states to the sec of state?

    39. July 27, 2016 at 9:34 pm

      it’s like watching a fish floundering after falling out of a hot air ballon

    40. July 27, 2016 at 9:47 pm

      Executive Order 13526 does not state anything about the president’s access to information. It only prescribes how to classify information. Access to information by the president is limited to those that have been classified to his level of access. Information does exist outside of classification

    41. July 27, 2016 at 9:49 pm

      Have you actually read through the declassification process?

    42. July 27, 2016 at 9:50 pm

      Sec. 3.1. Authority for Declassification. (a) Information shall be declassified as soon as it no longer meets the standards for classification under this order.

    43. July 27, 2016 at 9:56 pm

      On another note, you know the president is eligible for charges of treason and impeachment right?

    44. July 27, 2016 at 9:57 pm

      I don’t think nuclear technology occured under Obama’s authority.

    45. July 27, 2016 at 9:58 pm

      Not all information is classified, some is trade secrets

    46. July 27, 2016 at 9:58 pm

      think about apple and the case to decrypt the iphone

    47. July 27, 2016 at 10:08 pm

      Well what does a president’s executive order have to do with a presidential candidate’s statement about a foreign country’s ability to provide a secretary of state’s past email?

    48. July 28, 2016 at 3:40 am

      I’m interested in the accusation of being a luddite aimed at someone who used a private server in order to handle technical features above and beyond what the federal IT system was willing or able to support at the time (in 2008 a Blackberry or other phone handling multiple accounts elegantly was still a wet dream). What’s more, the assertions that private->insecure is unfounded; apparently the joke around the State Department at the time was that she used a private server because she wanted to actually have a secure server. (And Peter Thiel added a lot of credibility to that claim when he made a point of highlighting the fact that federal systems are better than a decade out of date due to perpetual underfunding)

    49. July 28, 2016 at 8:21 am

      Dmitri Schoeman well to be accurate, I used the phrase “highest level of information” and never mentioned classification of secrets. Information needs to be submitted to for it to be classified. At some point you jumped to classification and confusing the holder’s of information (military, state, DOE). As it stands the state dept does not have unrestricted access to say the DOE’s information. even the sec. of state would have to make a request to which the response can be no. And it’s a violation of law for the president to share information with whomever they want. They can de-classify but that makes the data itself completely declassified. The president does not have the power to share classified information as he deems fit. And would be disregarding the Posse Commitatus act if acting as commander in chief elects to use the military to extract information domestically.

  8. July 27, 2016 at 8:25 pm

    It’s good to hear there are no supporters out there trying to spin the Russian hack as a good thing. What is perhaps more scary is he now gets to have the national security briefings and will have direct access to highly sensitive info. “The things I could tell you…” I am sure he will say at some point, and will hint at leaking something that would damage the Democrats. If he wants Putin to hack the Dems, when he has current info on what a Obama is doing, who knows what he might do.

    1. July 28, 2016 at 12:00 am

      Yeah. There actually was a push to block him from getting them (and a push to block Hillary from getting them from the other side because if the investigation).

      I actually don’t support either of those efforts. As scary as Trump may be from a loose lips sink ships POV he did earn the spot he’s in. And he hasn’t violated that trust yet. And as scary as that might be, as the possible future president he needs those briefings.

      For better or worse, this is where we are. So we’re in a hope for the best situation.

  9. July 27, 2016 at 8:32 pm

    Yeah, seen the “it was a joke” excuse. Which is handy and can be used for everything he says, even including the wall, should it become something undeniably bad. And yknow, cuz he IS a joke as a human being.

    1. July 28, 2016 at 12:02 am

      Yeah. He wasn’t joking. He totally doubled down on it I. The Q&A. And it doesn’t matter. As the prospective president he doesn’t get to make that joke anymore.

      Granted, trump doesn’t have respect for that implied rule. That’s one of the reasons people like him.

    2. July 28, 2016 at 8:22 am

      It’s the O’Reily “I am a legitimate reporter until facts are brought up that dispute what I have ‘reported’ – then my show becomes an ‘opinionated show'” and ‘facts’ don’t actually matter”. 🙂

    3. July 28, 2016 at 8:29 am

      And I’m actually fine with that for O’Reilly. Less so for a prospective president. For reasons that I just addressed to your other comment below.

    4. July 28, 2016 at 8:32 am

      Yeah, I’m just pointing out that with Trump on the political stage, there does seem to be a “I mean what I say until I get massive blow back from it and then I’m just being sarcastic” kind of thing going on.
      Which, really, has always been his calling card anyway.

    5. July 28, 2016 at 8:45 am

      O’Reilly acting this way primed his viewers to support Trump. It’s why Trump can lie, then double-down, then call it a joke, then deny facts, and not lose any followers. They’re quite used to it.

    6. July 28, 2016 at 8:54 am

      So very, very true.
      But hey, at least all of O’Reily’s viewers were well fed and clothed…

    7. July 29, 2016 at 7:58 am

      Chris Flick as my husband once told my father, “you’re not actually joking. you’re hiding behind that because you’re a coward.” it seems appropriate to apply this to trump

    8. July 29, 2016 at 11:12 am

      So true, Laura but that has ALWAYS been Trump’s calling card…

  10. July 27, 2016 at 8:53 pm

    His supporters are saying he meant that Russia should give what they have to the FBI. You could charitably read his statement as admonishing Russia to cough up what they’ve got, but Trump needs many things and charity isn’t one of them.

    1. July 27, 2016 at 9:00 pm

      His supporters are wrong. They didn’t watch the whole press conference (which I have linked to in the blog version of this post). He clarified it specifically when the reporters asked. (most people only watched the 1 minute clip, I’m guessing).

    2. July 28, 2016 at 4:24 am

      I’m not sure they are wrong. It’s silly to think he was advocating that they hack a server which isn’t online anymore, and which everyone in the world knows isn’t online anymore because we heard months of ranting about it from his supporters. Their narrative has also been all along that the server was inherently insecure and that foreign powers definitely had all her emails, both secret and personal.

    3. July 28, 2016 at 8:07 am

      Geoffrey: Oh maybe I wasn’t clear. I said his supporters were wrong because he never asked for Russia to turn the information over to the FBI. His supporters have tried to spin it as that’s what he meant. But he does explicitly ask them to turn it over to the press (multiple times in the Q&A) and that’s what I am taking issue with.

      I do agree that he isn’t asking for future hacking but is asking for the disposition of a previous hack.

    4. July 28, 2016 at 8:10 am

      Fair enough. Also, they’re mostly wrong about everything else in their whole worldview, so possibly being charitable toward them is a bit much. Maybe I’m being too influenced by Cory Booker telling me to love my political enemies.

    5. July 28, 2016 at 8:12 am

      Tough love, Cory 🙂

  11. July 27, 2016 at 9:01 pm

    Also, once again, no one makes reference to my clever graphic for this post. HOVADAMMIT! I put a lot of work into those!

    1. July 27, 2016 at 9:02 pm

    2. July 27, 2016 at 9:03 pm

    3. July 28, 2016 at 3:44 am

      That’s the price of high expectations. I’m sure you’d hear about it if the image lacked the assumed level of cleverness

  12. July 27, 2016 at 9:14 pm

    I don’t know if this counts as a defense (you know how I feel about Trump) but some thoughts. 1) Trump’s statements are functionally meaningless. He is not the boss of Putin. Putin will release whatever serves his interests, whenever it serves his interests to do so. 2) If the two are actually in cahoots (a charge that is only mildly implausible) then Trump would more effectively make private requests for damaging leaks, unless he’s just completely disconnected from reality (which…you know how I feel about Trump.) 3) As such, it’s all political theater, and puts Clinton in the awkward position of accusing Trump of high treason for suggesting that a foreign power should publicize her…utterly innocuous e-mails about yoga. Meanwhile Trump has again infuriated all the people that all the other people hate, and improved his standing.

    1. July 27, 2016 at 9:22 pm

      Meanwhile, trumpites would be on uncharacteristically solid ground arguing that any negative consequences of Hillary’s hacked e-mails are entirely Hillary’s fault.

  13. July 27, 2016 at 9:34 pm

    Chris, the point really isn’t what Trump said (of which ideologues will make such absurd claims that no one will take it seriously), so much as reminding everyone again of Hillary’s extremely reckless behavior and duplicity. Liberal journalists took the bait, hook, line and sinker and now they are keeping alive an issue that Hillary wished was dead already. 😉

    1. July 27, 2016 at 11:53 pm

      I think Cory and Max are making the same basic points here (correct me if I’m wrong) so I’m collapsing them into one thread to answer.

      So that’s an interesting point and I’m somewhat inclined to agree. It certainly is political theater. Trump was certainly trying to control the news cycle. He knows that tonight was the Obama show at the DNC. Anything he can don’t distract from that is probably good for him. Especially if he can add to the narrative of “and remember Hillary is a crook.”

      But the risk is in how he did it. If what he said were to work then, as I was saying to Jeff and Abram in the thread way above, then he would necessarily be risking a bigger threat to national security than she did in the first place. In fact Leon Panetta, former CIA director, changed his DNC speech from today to say exactly that — what Trump said was irresponsible as a candidate because he put the country at risk. Hell, even Mike Pence and Paul Ryan went on record today to contradict Trump on this one.

      But maybe it opens up a different possibility. One I had really considered til reading what you both said. Trump is a master bullshitter. And maybe he knows he’s full of shit here. I DON’T think he’s specifically in league with Putin here. Sure he could be… But let’s say he’s not. If he isn’t he knows he isn’t. And maybe I’m not giving him enough credit. The problem with The assumption Jeff Rand made “Putin already has her emails” is that it conflates what we know has been hacked (DNC server) with what we don’t know had even been hacked (Clinton server). There’s no evidence at all that Russia has her email… No more than there is that they have his email or yours or mine. The media understands this and they took that to mean that Trump was asking for more hacking (which, btw… He has done in the past). Trump supporters took it to mean that DNC server == Clinton server.

      But maybe Trump knows they aren’t the same. Which means he knows that Putin actually has nothing on Clinton (or at least he has no reason to believe that he does). That means he knows that nothing can come of his request which means that national security can’t be compromised. So all he can get is press. And in Trumpland all press is good press.

    2. July 28, 2016 at 12:12 am

      It’s still just empty yammering, unless there’s a quid pro quo, the details of which a sensible traitor would work out in private, and now my brain is trying to spin some ripping cloak and dagger fiction but it won’t work because Trump just isn’t a believable character.

    3. July 28, 2016 at 12:22 am

      Well that’s the thing. If you were writing an episode of 24 or Homeland or were writing a Captain America or Jason Bourne movie you would need to have a believable villain and a believable plot.

      You’d need to have the traitorous candidate having secret meetings with Hydra agents where they discussed how Latveria was going to help him win the presidency and install sleeper agents at high levels in the cabinet. There’d have to be an end game or no one would buy the story.

      In real life you don’t buy the story. And you’re a republican! Trump’s candidacy has never been about writing a believable narrative. He literally said “I could kill a man in the middle of New York and still go up in the polls.” On purpose! There was no logical upside to that statement. It is just shy of saying “you people are so stupid that I can say anything” and he was right. He went up in the polls. That was him proving the point that the normal rules don’t apply to him.

      So he doesn’t need the quid pro quo. In Trumpland, the empty yammering is reward enough so long as it gets some attention on the next news cycle.

    4. July 28, 2016 at 1:02 am

      I’m just saying, if you want to string him up for treason, this incident is weaksauce. Wait twenty minutes for the next thing.

    5. July 28, 2016 at 1:07 am

      Oh. I don’t. This is going nowhere. I knew from the beginning that it was clearly an empty gesture. The democrats will certainly try to spin it as treasonous and that’s just good campaigning.

      What I was looking for someone to give me some logic to how it was a useful thing to say given the obvious negative optics it would generate. I think you’ve given the best reason really.

      Since it’s pure political theater, the fact that it’s completely empty might play into his favor.

    6. July 28, 2016 at 2:17 am

      The problem with trying to portray Trump’s statement as a national security issue just works to Trump’s advantage, because there is no national security issue but for Hillary’s reckless conduct.

      As to Trump’s various remarks, keep in mind that liberals have spent decades demonizing Republicans and comparing every GOP Presidential candidate to Hitler since Dewey. As a result, liberals crying wolf is just the usual howling of meaningless noise from them. The race card, the gender card, and every other card in the DEM playbook has been so overplayed at this point, that no one but the faithful believes it anymore.[1] So Trump knows how to provoke liberals into outrage, he knows their playbook is completely worn out, and worst of all for the Democrats, liberals have become so isolated in an echo chamber of elitism, that a lot of people enjoy seeing all the liberal outrage he provokes.

      Finally, the Democrats have Hillary, who represents pretty much everything people hated about the Clintons, has about as much charm as a PBS pledge drive, and has no agenda as of yet other than keeping the way of doing things in Washington the same as before (which, btw, everyone hates). So no matter how outraged liberals get and try to point out any flaws in Trump, the flip side of their arguments that they don’t want to acknowledge — but everyone can see plain as day — is that their alternative choice is about as appealing as a pile of dog shit.[2] Consequently, their message suffers from the problem of saying that you should avoid the huge potential mistake of making Trump as President, in favor of the certain mistake of making Hillary as President. Meanwhile, Trump with his rhetoric causes liberals to panic with an outdated playbook (just as the GOP primary candidates did), while convincing a lot of people he could be the wild card choice to actually shake up our self-serving political class in Washington.

      [1] Should you wish to disagree, just look at how meaningless it is now for the GOP to play the socialist card at this point.

      [2] Actually, this might be underselling dog shit. If you went to a bar and asked people if they could only choose between Hillary, Trump, or a pile of dog shit as the next President of the United States, I think dog shit would be a hefty contender.

    7. July 28, 2016 at 3:51 am

      This line of thought is probably closest to the truth. There was a danger of the media paying less attention to him than the Democratic Convention this week, so he needed to get out there and say something so unignoreable that he could grab the headlines back. Not only does he know is horrible crap, that’s exactly why he said it. He gets cameras and more room to wave the media victim flag, while the actual content will be out of sight, out of mind in a week or so, after he does his next media grab.

    8. July 28, 2016 at 8:21 am

      Cory: Yeah I actually agree with you (more or less) on his reasoning here. And I think Karl is underscoring that. We might all have subtle differences in the assessment, but I think we’re close enough to the same page as to WHY he did it.

      I’m more interested in why anyone who is in support of what he said would be. That is to say, I’m looking for people who actually think it would be a good idea for the Russians to release said emails to the press think that’s a good idea. The closest discussion as to this is in the Jeff Rand thread above.

    9. July 28, 2016 at 9:40 am

      There is a transparency in government argument to be made, though i’d expect Bernie types would be more likely to make it

    10. July 28, 2016 at 1:54 pm

      If a third-party already has the emails, then the damage to national security is already done. Since not many people believe that she deleted only benign emails, the remaining question is what is it she was hiding, which a lot of people would like to see exposed (certainly the media would have a field day), regardless of who has it. This belief is supported primarily by the candidate’s untrustworthy nature, but also by statistical analysis of email activity that suggests there are significant and unusual gaps in the emails she did provide.

    11. July 28, 2016 at 2:22 pm

      Cory: there I think the argument starts to break down.

      First: I don’t think we can say “not many people believe she only deleted benign emails.” We don’t really have that data. I don’t know that you’re wrong. But I can’t say your right either. At the very least there is a strong partisan bias here and I suspect MOST people don’t care at all. That said, what people believe is irrelevant. It’s a legal matter and one of national security and as such shouldn’t be tried in the court of public opinion.

      So that brings us to the second issue. And I addressed this in another comment thread: saying the damage is already done because someone hacked her is untrue. Right now at worst SOME people know govt secrets that they shouldn’t. Certainly not most people. I don’t know them. You don’t know them. This is the entire reason there was an investigation. If it was common knowledge what she deleted the FBI would know what was missing. They don’t. We don’t even know that she was hacked. The DNC was. That’s different. But say Russia did hack her. That’s SOME damage done. Not all. Iraq doesn’t know. North Korea doesn’t know. ISIS doesn’t know.

      The entire reason the FBI cares is not to smear Hillary. They care what the 33,000 emails were because they DON’T want them to end up on a public website somewhere. They don’t want a wiki leaks situation. Trump is now calling for that. No matter how unsecure we are now, publicly publishing the info would make it worse.

      Now turning the info over to the FBI would be different. But that’s not what he called for.

      Looking at a less serious recent case. A year or two ago there was the massive celebrity phone hack. It turned out that a lot of the images that were in that DB had been hacked years before.

      With good reason celebs like Jennifer Lawrence were upset. She was embarrassed. She did not want private sexting pics of her floating around for the world to see. But she also wanted the hacker caught.

      Say I knew who the hacker was. Say I had email from my college friend Bob Hackington that said “hey look Mav, here’s pics of JLaw’s tits that I hacked from her phone. You should totally use these as spank material.”

      Now say you figure out that I have them. What’s the right thing for you to do? Ask me to send the mail to the authorities or ask me to send them to the New York Times?

      I mean, the damage has been done, right? Bob has already seen JLaw’s boobs. I’ve already seen them.

      But you haven’t! Most people haven’t!

      The right thing here is to turn me and Bob over to the authorities to minimize her exposure as much as possible.

      Obviously, Trump had no real evidence here. I believe him there. But he is auditioning for the position of top law enforcement officer for the country. That means that he should probably understand the proper way to minimize damage in a situation like this.

    12. July 28, 2016 at 3:17 pm

      McClatchy-Marist did a survey back in November where 7 out of 10 Americans found that Clinton acted either unethically or illegally with respect to her emails. That doesn’t address the particular point I made directly, but given the revelations since that poll (which show Clinton made many false claims about her email), I’m doubtful that suddenly a lot of those people would now think that her deleted emails were purely benign if asked about it. But I agree that this is something we can’t exactly prove, so we can agree to disagree on it.

      On your later argument, when I say the damage is done, that means if a foreign entity has those emails than any identifiable intelligence assets from a security perspective are compromised. So while you mention the possibility of say Iran acting on a public disclosure, one also has to consider the more important possibility of us continuing to use compromised assets that we don’t know have been compromised. For every hypothetical of enhanced damage from public disclosure, there’s plenty of hypotheticals of enhanced damage from no disclosure.

      As to whether disclosure to the FBI or the press would be most appropriate, it depends on the nature of the material. Classified designations can be used to hide lies or illegal misconduct, for example. Consequently, in some circumstances, it can better for the press to act as an intermediary in handling classified information, rather than just handing it over to the FBI (especially if there is a concern that the FBI would bury it until after the election). One can disagree with that, but in view of the Pentagon Papers, Abu Ghraib, etc., there’d be a lot of people who might see it otherwise depending on what was really deleted.

  14. July 27, 2016 at 11:02 pm

    They just are trying to blame Russia for all the hacked/ leaked emails…….. I’m going to say that I think it is going a little to far fetched at thus point because they really have no idea who did it.

    1. July 28, 2016 at 12:05 am

      They might not. The question is more that if the Russians DIDN’T do it the prospective president of the United States just invited them to.

      Honestly, the Russians ARE hacking us. We know that… Frankly we’re hacking the Russians. It’s just that the president (or prospective president) shouldn’t be inviting us to or pointing them in the right direction.

  15. July 28, 2016 at 4:20 am

    Any claim that Trump “was joking” is disingenuous and stupid. If you’re in the TSA security line and you say “I hope they don’t find that bomb in my carry on luggage” do you think saying you were joking is going to prevent you from getting strip searched and probably jailed?

    1. July 28, 2016 at 7:24 am

      Right. And he said he wasn’t joking.

    2. July 28, 2016 at 8:33 am

      No. He was being “sarcastic”. Apparently, there is a difference. 😉

  16. July 28, 2016 at 5:09 am

    “Paul Manafort, says that Trump didn’t ask Russia to hack Hillary Clinton or anyone else. Of course he did… like literally… in almost those exact words:”

    No he didn’t. He LITERALLY said no such thing. You even posted his words, granted you left about half of what was actually said but, hey, you need to rile up your readers somehow.

    Here is what he ACTUALLY said:

    “Why do I have to get involved with Putin? I have nothing to do with Putin. I’ve never spoken to him. I don’t know anything about him other than he will respect me. He doesn’t respect our president. And if it is Russia—which it’s probably not, nobody knows who it is—but if it is Russia, it’s really bad for a different reason, because it shows how little respect they have for our country, when they would hack into a major party and get everything. But it would be interesting to see—I will tell you this—Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

    Nowhere does he ask Russia or anyone else to hack anything. What he suggests is that any information that can be gleaned, by whomever is responsible, would be worth a lot to the vultures in our media. His response, to a question(I assume regarding the hack), is about how these incidents project weakness to the rest of the world.

    It is an indictment of how weak and incompetent the current administration is in his eyes. And a jab at the media, who would love nothing better than to gain access to the missing emails themselves.

    Anyone who thinks he was asking a foreign power to hack and disseminate classified information is being silly. Nothing about what he says, in the context of the entire response suggests that to be true.

    As always, you are disingenuous with your analysis. Carefully crafting your post as to not actually mislead people, but just kind of nudge them in a particular direction.

    So, you answered you own question in posting the video that proves your assessment of what he said to be completely off base.

    Case closed. And no, I do not, nor will I ever support Trump.

    1. July 28, 2016 at 7:39 am

      I certainly do carefully craft my posts to underscore my points and weaken the other ones. That’s just good writing. I mean, why would anyone do any less.

      But in this specific case, you’re missing the point. And I did carefully craft my post to try to underscore that.

      Yes, I get that he is NOT asking the Russians to hack her now. I actually am giving him the benefit of the doubt here and believing that he DOES understand that the information in question is NOT there anymore.

      But I’m not looking for the semantic argument based on verb tense here. So let me be clear. He’s not asking for the Russians to hack and release information in the future. He’s assuming the Russians have hacked information in the past and asking for them to release it in the future.

      The problem is that’s not what I’m asking about him. What you’re doing is offering the Manaport defense. Which I was clear in the post that I was aware of. I actually accept the Manaport defense as to why Trump isn’t being treasonous in PROMOTING the FUTURE hacking of a US private citizen especially a former Secretary of State. I agree. I have no issue with Manaport here.

      As has been pointed out in several of the threads here. The problem is in the second half of the statement. Turning the information over to the press. Assuming Trump is right and Hillary’s server has been hacked and the Russians are in possession of possibly hundreds if not thousands of pieces of sensitive or classified information regarding the workings of the US State department, then by calling for that information to be released publicly to the press he is 1000x worse than anything she did. In theory, the entire reason that anyone is concerned with her mistreatment of government information is the potential that she exposed information that shouldn’t have been publicly available. Therefore asking a foreign power to make said information publicly available is problematic.

    2. July 28, 2016 at 7:51 am

      We can just disagree on this one. My response was based on your assessment of his motive.

      “So that means he does want this, but not even his campaign manager officially supports him on this one. As far as I can tell there’s not a single person on earth who likes what he said today.”

      And now your response to me is in reference to this:

      “I will tell you this—Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

      Which is a jab at our press and Clinton, not an endorsement of Russia having our secrets.

    3. July 28, 2016 at 7:51 am

      We can just disagree on this one. My response was based on your assessment of his motive.

      “So that means he does want this, but not even his campaign manager officially supports him on this one. As far as I can tell there’s not a single person on earth who likes what he said today.”

      And now your response to me is in reference to this:

      “I will tell you this—Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

      Which is a jab at our press and Clinton, not an endorsement of Russia having our secrets.

    4. July 28, 2016 at 8:00 am

      Again, I’m not assessing his motive. I’ve actually said that in the big long comment thread under Hai-Son Nguyen, but that veered way off of the original topic (which is fine… that’s why we have threads.) so I don’t expect anyone to go looking for it.

      only he knows his actual motive. The rest of us can guess. And my guess is that it was to make his political rival look bad. I’m 100% fine with that.

      That’s not the question of this post. You even quoted what I actually asked. I’m not asking why Trump did anything. I’m looking for people who are in support of what he did and asking why they are. Those are two completely separate conversations.

      The people who are in support of it here seem to understand that just fine.

    5. July 28, 2016 at 8:07 am

      I thought the e-mails she deleted weren’t supposed to contain any sensitive material? Those are the e-mails in question correct? The 30k personal emails Clinton said were not relevant?

      If that is the case, then even if he seriously did ask them to find the messages(which he didn’t), all he is basically asking them to do is reveal her thoughts on her yoga classes and wedding planning. I mean, that is what she said they contained? Right?

      “I’m looking for people who are in support of what he did and asking why they are.”

      Isn’t what he actually did kind of important to that answer?

      Are you asking if they support him asking Russia to hack personal emails or classified emails?

      Why would people support a candidate they like making their opponent look bad? I don’t think there is much question about that.

      Why would people support a candidate who wants our rivals to have state secrets(which is kind of what you imply)? That’s a whole different conversation is it not?

      Anyway, sorry, just a tack on. If you want to respond I will leave it be unless you ask a specific question. No need for back an forth today.

    6. July 28, 2016 at 8:33 am

      That is more on course, yes. But I actually did address those issues specifically in the Jeff Rand thread in response to him and Abram Pafford. Again, I get that there are well over 100 comments here. I can’t expect anyone to read them all.

      I encourage you to read that thread though, because it gets to these specific issues. But short form: That is, I’m willing to assume that she’s lying … be that intentionally or through human error. But assuming she is lying intentionally the solution that is proposed here is clearly much worse. (again… I direct you to the other thread to continue this one though… At least, if you so desire… just to consolidate the conversation).

    7. July 28, 2016 at 8:35 am

      Chris Maverick I will check it out.

  17. July 28, 2016 at 5:28 am

    Barbara Guy Inzina do you have an opinion.

    1. July 28, 2016 at 5:48 am

      My opinion falls into the “overall” category. I think this country is in deep trouble. Not for all the reasons that have been mentioned. No, it is because at this time in the world, I am deeply concerned that the candidates we have – all of them – are the best we can come up with. To have such deeply flawed people – those who are running AND those currently in office – being the people who are/will run our country worries me. Is this the best we’ve got? There are people in the game that I like but would they be able to stand given the 24 hr. press microscope? Where are we falling apart? Where are the good guys/girls? Why are we at this juncture?

      I am not sure if I really have an opinion at this point. When I read anything second hand I am skeptical, no matter the source. I try to do fact checking if it was not something I directly witnessed.

      My opinions are evolving. A few weeks ago I knew who I supported. Now I am not sure. The only thing I do know is that I am deeply disappointed in our “system” and what it has yielded. And I think all the garbage on the net is doing us a big disservice. I am 67 years old, and have seen many elections in my lifetime. This one is nuts. I am not sure I can trust anyone, politicians, candidates, journalists, people who CALL themselves journalisis, ad infinitum.

    2. July 28, 2016 at 5:52 am

      Oh yes, at the time I heard it, in context, I laughed. That’s the way I saw it.

    3. July 28, 2016 at 7:52 am

      Hi Barbara.

      Thanks for answering. I really appreciate when new people take the time to come in an share their opinions. So in this particular case I’m actually not trying to make an argument about Trump over Hillary or even liberals over conservatives. I really am looking specifically only at this one incident and not the overall picture.

      Anyway, you said:

      “When I read anything second hand I am skeptical, no matter the source.”

      I totally agree. Since you’re new to my posts, it’s probably not that obvious. I don’t actually write them on Facebook where you’re reading. They’re actually just being auto copied from my blog and when that happens, Facebook disregards any links I add. So the total post is here:

      http://www.chrismaverick.com/wp/2016/07/27/an-honest-question-for-trump-supporters/

      And it links to the full press conference here:

      So if you were interested in judging for yourself. There you go!

      Thanks again for commenting.

    4. July 28, 2016 at 7:52 am

      Hi Barbara.

      Thanks for answering. I really appreciate when new people take the time to come in an share their opinions. So in this particular case I’m actually not trying to make an argument about Trump over Hillary or even liberals over conservatives. I really am looking specifically only at this one incident and not the overall picture.

      Anyway, you said:

      “When I read anything second hand I am skeptical, no matter the source.”

      I totally agree. Since you’re new to my posts, it’s probably not that obvious. I don’t actually write them on Facebook where you’re reading. They’re actually just being auto copied from my blog and when that happens, Facebook disregards any links I add. So the total post is here:

      http://www.chrismaverick.com/wp/2016/07/27/an-honest-question-for-trump-supporters/

      And it links to the full press conference here:

      So if you were interested in judging for yourself. There you go!

      Thanks again for commenting.

    5. July 28, 2016 at 8:42 am

      Thanks, Chris! I appreciate your reply.

  18. July 28, 2016 at 6:34 am

    I don’t see how there’s any defense for what Trump said. (a) if he doesn’t know what these emails said, then he’d have no idea that they were of the innocuous “work-related but nothing that could cause real damage to the U.S.” variety, (b) If he does know this, then he’s in collusion with Russia. (By the way, you *have* to watch last night’s Daily Show to see Manaport’s reaction to questions about Trump’s ties to Putin.)

    1. July 28, 2016 at 8:04 am

      obviously I agree on point A. On point B, I wouldn’t say he’s in collusion with Russia. Assuming he knows there is damaging information in there but can’t prove it so he wants this done, then there’s still no real evidence of collusion to that one way or the other. It’s more that he would have a dangerous disregard for national security.

    2. July 28, 2016 at 8:23 am

      I’m saying these are the two possible options ( so you can really only agree on one or the other). Although, really, it’s possible that there are other reasons why he may know the contents of Hillary’s emails, but I can’t imagine a case where there would be a good (and legal) reason for this.

    3. July 28, 2016 at 8:41 am

      Ok. I see where you’re going. But yeah, I think I was trying to get what you’re calling option C in your most recent comment:

      It’s possible that he knows for a fact from some other way that Hillary had secret info in her deleted emails AND is not in collusion with the russians. I can’t think of any legal way he might know for sure. But let’s just say that 2 years ago, he met with Deep Throat in a dark alley and Deep showed him hard copies of Hillary emails that clearly violated national security, and then took them away and never met with him again.

      In such a situation Trump would know and not be in collusion. But I’d still think that what he is doing here, if taken seriously, would be highly dangerous.

  19. July 28, 2016 at 8:27 am

    Since Dmitri Schoeman’s thread is invisible to my blog sync app, I’m moving Chris Flick’s follow-up to it’s own thread:

    Well, apparently he was just on Fox News today (12 hours after you stated this post, Chris Maverick) and is now claiming he was saying all of that “sarcastically”…

    —–

    And my answer:

    This is an interesting side issue.

    Yes, I saw that. The problem is assuming we take him at his word here, this opens up a question as to whether or not the president (or prospective president) is allowed to make such a claim. Kevin Kelly got into this in his thread.

    Certainly the president receives the same protections of free speech as any other citizen, however the word of the president also carries with it heavy domestic and geopolitical consequences. Trump would probably argue that this doesn’t matter. His rights to free speech are absolute, hence his stance on political correctness. And I am actually inclined to agree with him there. However, there is certainly an argument to be made that the correct course for someone with that view is to be a political pundit (which for better or worse, is what Trump basically has been for the last 8 years) and not the president.

    1. July 28, 2016 at 8:52 am

      Yeah but doesn’t this sort of thing bring up a whole new discussion thread though?

      If we indeed want to go back to the 1950’s – where many think THAT’S exactly the point where America was great – wasn’t that also the same time where a very public official made huge public claims that destroyed many American lives by claiming they were Communist?

      Sure, McCarthy had the FREEDOM to do so – and the country, by and large, allowed that freedom to grow into paranoia – but shouldn’t there be some kind of responsibility to public servants (or people who WANT to be public servants) to self-censorship themselves so they DON’T start a country-wide paranoia?

      But then again… we are talking about Trump here so the word “responsibility” is probably not one of those “great” words included in all of his great words… :-/

  20. July 28, 2016 at 7:12 pm

    There is none. I have a FB friend who was ranting about this, and I couldn’t help but chime in “come on, if the shoe were on the other foot, you’d be screaming bloody murder.” Crickets.

    1. July 28, 2016 at 7:17 pm

      There are a few. If you look at the Jeff Rand thread above there’s a LITTLE bit of trying to defend it in his argument. But mostly crickets. I’ve been looking for two days now.

      Mostly there’s deflection from what he said to the point he was trying to remind people of (her indiscretions). No one wants to talk about the fact that he at the very least came within a hair of committing treason on national television at all.

      Like I haven’t even seen that many “Obama did it too…” Comments (like with the Melanie thing). There just isn’t much defense so it seems like it’s easier to just ignore and hope it goes away.

    2. July 28, 2016 at 7:19 pm

      I actually asked a lawyer friend about the treason bit, because it piqued my interest and it was everywhere. Bottom line: she said the emails were personal, so she shot herself in the foot. If she’d said they were governmental and she’d screwed up, she could have threatened Trump to back off.

    3. July 28, 2016 at 7:24 pm

      Right. I don’t think there’s a case and I don’t think she’d ever try to pursue it.

      But given what HE thinks. What he is asking for is ridiculous.

      Of course he has also officially advocated that out military engage in war crimes, so…

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