I’m curious, what do you see as 'inaccuracies of his position’?
Here are three items that are either established as completely wrong, or assertions on the part of Crunch that he refuses to provide sources for. They were all covered in detail above, so I am not sure what you are curious about.
I stated what I was curious about, specifically, whether Greg was asking him if his opinion had changed in light of the "updated facts" (though I expressly noted, that the "updates" are in large part second hand statements and not direct information), or whether Greg was equating factual inadequacies in part of the record with a refutation of a position (which its not).
the Obama DOJ inserted a spy into the campaign, paying him over $1 million for his efforts.
That's very specific. A lot of parts of that are true, or subject to multiple interpretations but when it's all together its false. Unfortunately, it doesn't have to be all together to have meaning.
The "spy" was paid over $1 million over a few years by the government, while that government was under control of the Obama Administration.
DOJ vs. DOD, maybe material, maybe not so much. It would be very material for a criminal investigation (which the DOD is not permitted to be involved in), which is troubling given how freely descriptions shift between terrorism investigations and legal ones as if they have the same basis and standards.
Whether he's a "spy" or an "informant" or a "trojan horse" for that matter is a matter of interpretation. It can certainly be entrapment for law enforcement to send someone into a situation to solicit a crime, and it in fact is so, if the crime would not otherwise have occurred.
Of course, we really don't know anything about what actually happened, cause it's only on a second hand basis that we know anything at all.
You do understand they were not investigating a crime? Right? They illegally used Clinton’s opposition research to mislead the FISA court so they could run this under a counterintelligence operation.
You are objecting to the claim that they were not investigating a crime? The rest of that passage is a reasonable though not indisputable interpretation of what occurred.
As to the crime part, the typical investigation requires that there be evidence of a crime to start an investigation. Evidence of Russian operatives reaching out is
not a crime of anyone they are reaching out to, at best its evidence of a potential crime on the part of the Russian agents, and honestly, even that it is highly questionable. It was not then, nor is it now, illegal to speak to Russian people, even Russian agents. That's literally not a crime.
The Trump-Russia investigation did not originate with Page or Papadopoulos. It originated with the Obama administration
Not sure what that even means, or how its falsified by anything that's described above.
We have not seen data or evidence that would allow anyone to reasonably determine if the "Trump-Russia" investigation originated in bad acts of the Trump campaign, Russian spies, Hillary's campaign, Obama's administration, Comey and Pal's thinking they were above the law, or even MI6. You can make a reasonable speculation based case for any or all or even none of the above, but that's all it is, speculation.
Also, Trey Gowdy, Mitch McConnell, and Paul Ryan all think that Crunch’s position is inaccurate.
Maybe. They all said they think the FBI's actions were justified. That's kind of all we know. Hopefully, that means that this wasn't a spying situation and that any impact it had in that direction was inadvertant. Of course they are part of Congress that keeps the illegal FISA courts online. Can't wait till this is all in the public record.
It's still not remotely clear (because if there are clarifying facts they haven't been released), why the decision would be to treat the campaign as the criminal if the FBI had identified Russian attempts to obtain influence, rather than treat the campaign as the victim and help them shut down those attempts.
Not remotely clear, but in-your-face-obvious clear, and explained above. When foreign governments attempt to recruit agents,(sorry, "obtain influence" is a gross distortion of the truth, nice try though) we don’t just warn the potential agents that we see them about to break the law, we watch them to see what they do.
Influence campaigns is literally what they are called, sorry if that's confusing to you. It's also far more likely to be what they are seeking than trying to recruit Americans to be literal foreign agents or spies. In fact, most national politicians are friendly with more than one agent of a foreign government. Being favorably inclined doesn't make them spies.
And again, you're literally wrong. We warn people all the time about foreign agents, they literally tell politicians to be careful because they suspect person x is actually a spy or agent and not the attache they present themselves to be.
Not to mention, they were completely capable of solving for multiple goals at once by involving the Trump campaign at the highest levels, which would have ensured several things, like isolating any potential spread of an agent network, making the campaign aware that it was being targeted (which contrary to your implication is a net good thing) and at worst making it clear that this was being watched.
I can tell you part of why they didn't, they knew what they were doing was highly contestable, even if justified, and Trump was perfectly capable of making it a favorable campaign issue. What I can't tell you, is whether they also had a political motivation in how they did it.
That way we can learn about how they operate, we can learn if there are other people involved, and we can build a case against them. Any undercover law enforcement, anywhere, operates on this principle. Any anti-corruption law enforcement does this. Any counterintelligence operation does this.
This is true, we do run undercover operations, but again that's when we've already seen a crime by a US person and allowing the influence campaign doesn't continue or increase the risk. The FBI literally kept this underwraps during the election. The idea that they should knowingly allow Russian agents to spread inside the campaign of one of two people that may become President as part of an undercover operation is almost literally insane. The public policy goals that favor allowing an undercover operation are completely overwhelming by the national security risk in that situation.
In fact, you're building on a history of investigations from a different context to try pretend that this would have been a normal course of action in a unique and much higher risk context. It's not normal. And it's incredibly high risk to secretly investigate the Presidential campaign of the opposition party.
I’m really at a loss to understand what is confusing about this. Could you please try to explain it?
How people are so conclusive without having access to the actual facts.
Why they don't see that investigations of the other political party are especially suspect. Particularly in light of all the oddities that have arisen, not to mention the denials that turn out to be false.
Trying not to be sarcastic, but there are indictments and guilty pleas for several members of his campaign, not to mention investigations ranging from the emoluments clause to illegal campaign spending to defamation.
First of all, from the public record, the guilty pleas from campaign members relate to process crimes where the underlying conduct was most likely not illegal. Even Papadaous's actions, other than lying about them, were most likely not illegal - at best borderline. Manafort seems to have nothing alleged that relates at all to the campaign, and it appears that his prosecution (persecution?) is just to try and force him to provide testimony on others. It's amusing to me that Mueller can file new charges because Manafort talked to someone else on trying to suborn perjury, but prosecutors can give people massive incentives, including literal bribes and its not considered suborning perjury.
Emoluments is a farce and not subject of the investigation.
Defamation, not aware of relevant charges on defamation.
Illegal campaign contributions, pretty specious, and decidely anti-democratic to try and bring charges against someone who largely funded their own campaign, while the other candidate (and virtually every other politician) is completely in the tank for whomever writes them enough checks. It's almost Twilight Zone levels of farce.
The FBI is investigating obstruction of justice.
Are they? Last I checked there's no confirmation of that, though it does seem possible or even likely they are investigating it. In any event, its pretty much a specious claim if you are referring to Comey's firing.
Trump Jr. agreed to meet to accept illegal campaign contributions.
No he didn't, that's a big stretch. I agree he never should have met with a foreigner who claimed they could provide information. He's responsible for being a political neophyte and not having a better grasp on the potential illegality (note I said potential).
There's a lot of questions about the Clinton campaign's indirect involvement in arranging that meeting, which is literally a violation but whose counting (honestly counting anyway).
ere you not aware of these? Maybe not open and shut, but any reasonable person would agree that it seems elements of his campaign engaged in illegal activity.
I can honestly say there's never been a campaign where "elements" didn't engage in illegal activity. Every local election someone is tearing down signs or putting them in illegal places. There's always someone that crosses lines. Normally, unless there's a top down directive or some evidence of wilful blindness we recognize that bad people sometimes support good ones.
I mean honestly, you seem to have been alluding to Manafort earlier. His known "illegal activity" was years before his involvement with the campaign. He's worked on 4 out 5 of the last Republican Presidential campaigns, and he was on the Trump campaign for only a short while, yet he's part of this attribution you are making right?
We readily guess why there's so much pressure on Manafort. They want him to say that Trump knew about something specific, cause they don't have evidence that he did. Without that connection, they don't have a case. So if Trump didn't know about something are you okay with the DOJ bribing Manafort to get him to perjure himself saying he did?
