LittleFokker wrote:Isn't that a textbook example of treason....
I tend to try and stay objective in my use of words, but I think treason is the most adequate term here. And it is blatant.
A large amount of evidence has come to light (and keeps coming) indicating a clear involvement of Russia during the election with a clear goal of disrupting and influencing them. All evidence points to Russia trying to favor Trump.
The CIA agrees, the NSA agrees, the FBI agrees, every other intelligence agency in the country that has looked into it agrees.
There is evidence that many in the Trump campaign team have had dealings with Russia.
There is evidence that this very campaign team had contacts with Russian linked to the government (i.e. to Putin) during the campaign.
There is an ongoing investigation on the Trump campaign's dealings with Russia.
All of the experts knowledgeable in the field would agree that this is an attack on American democracy, a very severe one, and that it is bound to happen again if nothing is done.
Yet Trump unilaterally decides to ignore all of that evidence and to proclaim that nothing has happened, and that it is all a hoax designed to incriminate him.
During all of the repeated times he has met Putin already since last year, he has always appeared to defend Putin's position or to be conciliatory, and that visibly hasn't changed.
If he somehow wasn't involved in all of this, then he is clearly more interested in not antagonizing Putin than getting to the bottom of an issue that threatens the country.
If he (more likely) was knowledgeable of the Russian operation ongoing during the campaign, then he is trying to keep it from boiling over as it benefited him directly.
Either way, he is defending the interests of a foreign nation (along with his) at the expense of his own country, and that is treason.
Dutchy wrote:No, that isn't treason, that naive at best, but just plain stupidity I would say.
I disagree. Trump is indeed quite stupid, but I personally don't believe for an instant that he was not informed of what the Russians were trying to achieve during the campaign. There is a high probability that it was done very indirectly, of course, and through people he could distance himself from if they were discovered (Flynn, Manafort, etc...), but there is almost no chance that the man whose signature business management style is extreme micromanaging was not at least informed of what was going on, especially since members of his own close family appeared involved.
And even if you assume that he didn't know anything at all and that he is really an ingenuous blockhead oblivious all the shady dealings happening under his feet, then there is no excuse for disregarding the loud fire warnings sounding from all US intelligence organisations and preferring to take Putin at his own words and pretending that everything is fine.
Unless you believe that, much like Trump, Putin cannot tell a lie...

I'll do my own airline. With Blackjack. And hookers. In fact, forget the airline.