That's not true for me. Trump and all his underlings are considered innocent of any wrong doing until shown otherwise. However, the IC has seen enough evidence to conclude that something doesn't smell right. Hence, the investigation. I might also add that the actions of Trump certainly do not inspire confidence in his frequent statements that this is all a witch hunt against him.
"All roads lead to Putin" -- Thomas Jefferson
Wrong. They haven't concluded anything...as far as we know. There is likely enough evidence for them to suspect it. But it is relatively easy to initiate an investigation. And even any of it turns out to be true, is it possible that people were set up? Yep.
But thanks for proving my point.
First...I agree with you.
Second...why has no one other than conservatives really dug into the content of the hacked emails? If there was nothing there, hacking them wouldn't have mattered a bit. It really came across to me as if the left made every effort to focus on the hacking and Russia to divert the people's attention from the content. There should have been equal focus IMO. It's the content that was the problem. It's like saying "we would have won if we hadn't gotten caught."
What you you talking about? The IC has CONCLUDED that Russia tried to influence our election by hacking into the DNC emails and then releasing them. Who knows what else they did. As far as Trump and his underlings are concerned, their behavior and contacts with Russia are suspicious (yes, that is a conclusion) and need to be looked into. Frankly, I don't know what kind of point you are trying to make.
"All roads lead to Putin" -- Thomas Jefferson
Sure, the reason you admit when you are wrong is so that you can break out of entrenchment that causes you to make the same mistake or feel like you are pot-committed to a wrong idea.
Honestly, I feel compelled to make more challenging statements here that don't always best represent my personal views.
Let me try different words. Replace "concluded" with "proven beyond a reasonable doubt." And you're going to blindly trust what they publicize?
One of my hospital clients was recently hacked from someone the FBI said was in South Korea. Except the person, after further FBI investigation, was in Pakistan.
Beyond a reasonable doubt is a criminal standard. Some of this stuff may not be criminal, but still is relevant and important to an informed public judging the behavior of our leaderahip and understanding of threats we face. For that, you might have to settle for "the preponderance of the evidence", which as you may know is the burden of proof in civil disputes.
How did they tilt the election? Do you think they changed the vote count? I think one political party that is presently in in the whitehouse, spying on the other party using the sources of the intelligence office, would be much more dangerous to our government. What Obama did in spying on Trump is very similar to what Nixon did. The FISA evidence is already out there. They've already said it was an abuse of power because Obama didn't even bother to get a warrant and I doubt if they would have issued one.. I believe Obama and Brennan both will go down.
They titled the election by hacking the DNC and releasing emails that damaged HRC. They also spread fake news. It definitely influenced vote counts - but who knows whether enough to change the outcome. People obviously disagree on that point. For me personally, HRC's emails were the one factor that almost made me not vote for her. But I felt strongly compelled to vote against Trump. For someone not as compelled, it easily could have influenced their vote of their decision to vote at all. The magnitude of that swing - I could only guess without more data.
Btw, they say that the Russians are continuing to spread fake news to cloud the investigation and to further harm the public's faith in the institution.