Pirate's Cove

The story so far, as provided by Kayleigh McEnany at The Hill

OPINION | Forget Don Jr.’s email — it’s Hillary Clinton who ‘colluded’ with Russia

The effort to prove collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government has proven to be little more than a conspiracy theory desperately in search of evidence.  With only “rumors… newspapers stories… (but) not necessarily evidence” in the recent words of Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein (Calif), the left has tried to take down President Donald Trump and ignore the issues the American people care about.

The recent New York Times stories aimed at Donald Trump Jr. are the latest attempt to provide evidence of collusion where none exists. The Times reported Monday that Trump Jr. accepted a meeting with a Russian lawyer after being told that she might provide damaging information about Hillary Clinton that was part of a Russian government effort to aid Trump.

This micro story about a Trump Jr. meeting with a purported Kremlin-related attorney has been opportunistically harnessed by some to prove a broader, evidence-free, macro story of Trump campaign collusion with Russians in hacking the DNC and releasing Hillary Clinton’s emails to the public.  But the micro fails to prove the macro, though the left breathlessly alleges it does.

The article continues on in this vein for a bit, explaining what is going on, what happened, the emails and such. One thing missing is that politics is a dirty, nasty, roll in the mud business. It always has been, always will be. Remember Hillary attempting to do research on Obama all the way back to his kindergarten days? That’s just one example. The media did most of the work for the Obama campaign against McCain and Romney, and Hillary against Trump. But, then, we jump to this

Again, in a move of full transparency, Trump Jr. publicly released the entire email chain on Twitter.  The initial email states that the “Crown prosecutor of Russia” offered to provide the Trump campaign with “information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia.”

In other words, the information Trump Jr. initially expressed interest in receiving was not hacked emails or illegally obtained documents but apparently information about Clinton’s official Secretary of State dealings with Russia.  At the time the information was offered on June 3, 2016, there was no information suggesting Russian hackers were responsible for the hacking of the DNC.  Donald Trump Jr., in other words, had no reason to believe that the information he sought was little more than opposition research.

Why would they not want to at least hear them out? The media goes and talks to all sorts of people to gather information all the time. They talk to illegal aliens. They talk to criminals. If someone brings them information, they’re willing to listen.

Trump Jr. did, however, have full reason to suspect Clinton had operated nefariously in her dealings with Russia.  Bill Clinton had given a $500,000 speech in Russia.  Clinton had given her approval in handing one-fifth of U.S. uranium to Russia, after which her foundation received $2.35 million from the Russian-controlled company.  Suspiciously, Clinton did not disclose the transaction.

Likewise, Clinton campaign chief John Podesta sat on the board of a company that received $35 million from the Russian government alongside fellow board members Anatoly Chubais, a senior Russian official, and Ruben Vardanyan, an oligarch.

Given this context, why wouldn’t Trump Jr. be open to taking a meeting that offered evidence of incriminating Clinton dealings with Russia, particularly when most of the media refused to look into Clinton’s question-raising actions?

Why would any political campaign not be willing to at least listen?

Trump Jr.’s interest in attaining opposition research is nothing new.  Where was the outrage when “Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump,” according to Politico?  It was non-existent because Clinton is a darling of the media, where the left and the right are held to different standards.

Good point.

No criminality has been proven, nor will it. Where was the outrage when a British spy was providing a completely false report on Donald Trump regarding hookers peeing on a bed to media outlets and the DNC? Are some foreign sources OK and others aren’t? People need to toughen up if they’re going to play in politics. This is the reason I’ve mostly ignored the whole Russia thing. Because it’s people freaking out about nothing by normal politics.

Crossed at Right Wing News.