2seaoat wrote:I do not see a problem here. None. Nothing which has been presented is even close to a problem. Legally or ethically. A new administration reaching out with policy parameters to a foreign nation is not treason or even illegal. It is simply a conversation. The idea of the campaign working in conjunction with the Russians needs to have hard proof for me even to raise an eyebrow. All I hear is innuendo and a tempest in a teapot. That is exactly what got President Trump elected. Now, If you have a transcript where Flynn is doing a quid pro quo which was harmful to the American people, or a transcript showing money or influence being traded to betray America, I am all in with roasting the bastards, but nope.......this is just Maddow attempting to create a storm of media attention to profit and raise her ratings.......sorry, Fox and MSNBC make money from noise. I would like to see facts and transcripts and statute which has been violated. I see absolutely nothing in this absent proof. Innuendo is not proof. It is a great lead story for people piszed with the election of President Trump to tune in, and it is not like we did not see Fox leverage that anger for more profits after President Obama was elected. Proof in the form of a house or senate hearing, or STFU Rachel.
I can tell you I have rolled my eyes more than once while listening to Maddow ramble on about some obscure historic event that she eventually weaves into a current story, however in the case of Flynn and the Russians I think we are in new territory. As RealLindaL said, this is not Rachel's story, far from it.
The following is from the PBS News Hour. The same chain of events is reported by The Guardian, NYT's, Washington Post as well as network news and on line sources. I'm especially impressed by information given to reporters from the intelligence community who say they have seen and read the transcripts of the conversations between Flynn and the Russians. That is difficult to overlook.JUDY WOODRUFF: Now: new revelations about contacts between a top aide to President Trump and Russia during the transition between administrations.
Earlier this evening, Hari Sreenivasan recorded this conversation.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Just after Christmas, the Obama administration levied new sanctions against Russia for its alleged role in meddling with the 2016 election.
In the days surrounding that move, Michael Flynn, the incoming Trump White House’s national security adviser, spoke several times by phone with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. The Trump team claimed, after this was first reported in January, that Flynn was trying to arrange a phone call between Mr. Trump and Russian President Putin.
Now The Washington Post reports there may have been other motives for the calls.
For more on all of this, we turn to Greg Miller, national security reporter at The Post.
So, first of all, what was said in these calls?
GREG MILLER, National Security Correspondent, The Washington Post: So, we know now that these calls covered the subject of sanctions.
We have multiple sources telling us that Flynn actually conveyed a signal to the Russian ambassador that the sanctions that the Obama administration was imposing, that the Russian government shouldn’t overreact to them, didn’t need to worry about them, that there would be time soon when they would be able to revisit these policies.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Now, you have
nine different sources in your story. How do we know this is what took place on those phone calls?
GREG MILLER: Well, these are phone calls which involved the Russian ambassador to the United States. U.S. intelligence agencies monitor a lot of the communications of Russian officials who are here in Washington and in New York.
So these are calls that were all picked up, collected. There are transcripts of these calls. They were recorded, and there are intelligence reports on these calls.http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/top-trump-aide-reportedly-talked-sanctions-russian-envoy/