Like with many investigations, it didn't start as a Trump/Russia investigation (remember, the Clinton impeachment over consensual sexual contact that he lied about was supposed to be an investigation into a Hillary Clinton land deal from the early 1980s).
Originally, during the summer and fall o...
Counterpoint: observing the 2016 primaries, it should have been obvious that the DNC was skewing the campaign against Sanders: holding the debates at off peak viewing hours was a big clue. Their bias was later confirmed through leaked emails. The RNC appeared more befuddled - putting up the lame Jeb Bush, and then doing nothing when Trump unexpectedly gained traction. The DNC meddled in its own primary, while the RNC did not, and maybe they should have. This suggests that only DNC info was leaked, because there wasn't anything in RNC files worth leaking, other than they were inept.
@tj1000 - that's not actually a counter-point. The DNC is not a foreign, hostile entity. The DNC was trying to skew their own internal selection process, which is different from an open election. To be clear, I think Wasserman-Schultz has a special place in hell for what she did, but that has NOTHING to do with the subject of Russia influencing the presidential election.
If the purpose was just to create juicy gossip and mistrust of institutions, releasing the communications of an organization so obviously distressed by Trump's populist success, just as the DNC was of Sanders', would be very attractive.
@Sjoerd - Accessing previous and authentic emails and documents from the RNC is still a breach, a hack, and still has information that is proprietary and that the RNC would not want released. Comey didn't say the RNC was not hacked, he said they accessed through some previously-used domains (hence the "current" modifier).
PoloHoleSet - the DNC was being a hostile entity... to its own electorate. While technically, this isn't a crime, more a violation of the charter the DNC purports to adhere to, it certainly qualifies as a very embarressing detail: that big money had taken over the democratic party. This has a lot to do with why the DNC info was dumped but not RNC, partially because the RNC was more befuddled than deceptive to its own electorate, and partially because there are still some idealistic people in the democratic party who might have dumped it themself, in horror at what their party had become.
@tj1000 - I don't necessarily disagree with that overall assessment. It's a slimy, corrupt political insider system. But, again, that is nothing like Putin and Russia trying to pick who they want to be POTUS, and actually influencing the results towards that end. The RNC info wasn't dumped because Russia wanted Trump, plain and simple. Do you really think the party that is as blatantly bought by wealthy cronies as the GOP doesn't have tons of dirt in their older emails that would destroy them with the kind of populist supporters Trump turned out? You know, "drain the swamp?"
@PoloHoleSet - fair enough, neither party is clean, though I'm disappointed in the dems for embracing big money during the Obama years. I still believe that much of the DNC dumps probably were done by an idealistic insider, the motivation was there. Sadly, the message: ditch the big influence and start representing the people again, has been lost (the sanders backstab). In contrast, the RNC appears to have just sat back and let the cards fall where they may. Maybe they should have interfered - i would have preferred Kasich, maybe Rubio. Ironically, no one appears to have learned from 2016.
@tj1000 - That was key to Bill Clinton's success, so it goes back well before that. Obama talked "change" but he was very Regan-esque, overall, in his approach, until there were no more elections to worry about. Definitely too disappointingly cozy to Wall Street, for sure, for anyone with who was actually looking for something along the lines of "hope and change."
@PoloHoleSet - B Clinton wouldn't have won were it not for Ross Perot who took a big chunk of repub votes, so he was an unexpected victor. The 'perot effect' wasn't obvious until the post primary campaign was already under way. Whereas H Clinton was the expected victor, and awash in money. Maybe I'm being idealistic, or just out of date, to expect the democratic party to represent the working class and the grass roots. They sure didn't in the last election. Who do we turn to now?
@tj1000 - True, but I'm talking about the Dems fully embracing the money trough once Clinton was in place, and since he was so successful, and there was no Perot effect for the second election, that's when their "Republican-lite" corporate model was really formed, IMO. We'll see if the Dems feel like they can keep being the more corporate party, or if they feel they have to move to the more "Sanders" wing to succeed in 2018. As an idealist, myself, I'm not optimistic.
That's also why Hillary followed that model - the machinery was fully in place for the Clintons.
@PoloHoleSet How is that different from all the other leaders picking who THEY want to be POTUS and actively campaigning against Trump? Or Obama actively influencing elections in other countries (e.g. Israel)? The only difference that I can see is that the hacks and emails released were honest (the emails weren't faked) whereas propaganda everyone else uses was just that, propaganda ("Trump will start WW3 all'yall, vote Democrat"!).
Discussion between PoloHoleSet and tj…
Discussion between PoloHoleSet and tj…