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Democrat here.
I actually mostly agree with you that Trump would spend the majority of the time doing nothing and passing whatever Republicans put in front of him. From a D perspective that's bad of course, but not unexpected. Though expected or not, his court nominations have had lasting consequences. I think a lot of it is his propensity for impulsive or poor decisions, such as trying to pull out of NATO.
I think a lot of it is his norm-shattering ability to be a complete and utter hypocrite and/or corrupt and for it to be excused. He's a "Christian" that cheats on his wife and no one cares. He calls for locking up Hillary over emails, then has a bathroom full of classified documents and no one cares. Hunter must be punished over corruptly using family connections, but Trump businesses getting a bunch of business and business deals in other countries is a nothingburger. Let's also not forget Jared Kushner.
I expect to see counters about how the entire government is corrupt, and I don't even disagree with all of it. But he is so incredibly blatant about it that he doesn't even try to create plausible deniability.
I think his false elector scheme was a massive attempt at overturning democracy. I don't know how he could do it again since a two-term limit doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room. But I also don't want to give power to the kind of person who seems to love trying to see how he can lawyer his way out of anything, especially when Republicans seem to go out of their way to excuse him.
It is ironic that you compare Clinton and Trump whilst making it seem like what Trump did was on par or worse. It seems clear that what Hillary was trying to do was get around FOIA (ie oversight). Clinton was by far worse.
Because I have no interest in defending Hillary. She could be prosecuted for it and I wouldn't shed a tear. I voted Bernie until I was largely forced to hold my nose and vote Hillary. In either case, her guilt or innocence has nothing to do with Trump's. And Trump's guilt when it comes to classified documents is so cut and dried the only thing anyone can do is whatabout Hillary or cast aspersions on the motive on anyone who would hold him accountable.
No you intimated that what Trump did was worse than what he said he’d lock Hillary up for. Yet what Hillary did was worse so there need not be hypocrisy.
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Every single president before Trump (except maybe Nixon) was allowed unlimited time to go through his documents and decide which ones to give to the archives. Obama probably still isn't done, if anyone cared to look -- hell if you looked in Bush's basement I wouldn't be surprised if you found some shit.
It's the furthest thing from cut & dried; the people breaking norms on this one are definitely not Trump.
I think the unprecedented part isn't that Trump took and kept documents but that he and his team explicitly lied to law enforcement/DoJ when politely asked to report and return classified documents.
The request itself was unprecedented; no other presidents were asked to do this.
The request occurred because the DoJ became aware of their existence. They are obligated to request their return once they become aware of their existence. At least in the past, what, 30 years, I'm not aware of a situation where they discover a former president has classified documents and don't request them to be immediately returned.
The idea that there's all this collusion against Trump feels odd. Many people working at the DoJ and FBI are Republicans and voted for Trump and will probably vote for Trump again. (Maybe some have changed their mind after starting to prosecute him.) They're not picking on him by going like "those documents you're not legally permitted to have? please report all the ones you're aware of and return them to us". They're not bullying the guy because they hate him. They're following the law and carrying out their duties. It's possible there's some political motivation in the New York case, but many of the people involved in the classified documents case likely aren't putting politics into the mix. It's a pretty straightforward case.
How did they 'become aware of their existence' though?
I'm sure there's the odd one, but considering the polling in D.C. and more direct evidence I suspect that the others are rather more... impactful.
This is not even a foregone conclusion -- again, he was the President -- he's legally permitted to do anything he wants with classified documents, and ones in his possession when he left office are quite some grey area, legally.
LOL -- glad you acknowledge the possibility.
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Assuming I believed you, then it sounds to me like the proper thing to do is decriminalize keeping confidential documents if it is apparently no big deal. Hell at that point why even have confidential designation if it apparently means nothing?
It means nothing to the President -- it's legally arguable that he's already excluded from existing regulations, even once his term is up.
You're aware that presidents normally continue to receive classified security briefings once their term is up? There's no need to handle the transfer of documents in a confrontational way, particularly so soon after leaving office -- it's just a fact that this is all completely unprecedented, and completely on the Biden admin.
Congressmen and Presidents get a massive amount of leeway, which is that them still having classified documents is considered a mistake and they're told to give them back. That in fact happened to Trump, and he claimed he was cooperating. This isn't about any information he received after leaving office, or about him simply having documents. This is about him saying he's returned documents and then they come back to Mar-a-Lago and find more that were obviously moved from the last time they searched, meaning they believe he was actively trying to obstruct them. Also he showed classified documents to civilians and admitted on recording that he knew they were classified documents.
Here is a timeline if needed
Do unprecedented things, get unprecedented treatment. Especially if you leave a bunch of slam dunk evidence.
Not Congressmen, but with presidents it's not really leeway but rather that legally it's much closer to a l'etat c'est moi situation, and the norm is to not test this. Again, the request itself is unprecedented; see Biden. Despite his lack of Presidential privilege, nobody was knocking on his door asking for documents during Trump's term; nor should they have been.
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Yeah as opposed to I don’t know doctoring emails sent to fisa courts or destroying evidence under subpoena. Who, whom.
How many times do I have to say I encourage them to pursue crime against Democrats?
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And honestly seemed a bit like a set up (ie files were sent to him and then he was hassled about it).
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Is it? You know that picture with all the classified cover sheets was essentially fabricated by the FBI -- they put those cover sheets there.
Is it supposed to be a defense that the classified documents he had didn't have coversheets?
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They had to categorize dozens of boxes of papers, and made a dumb mistake. We still have Trump admitting on recording that he was showing documents to a guest that he didn't declassify.
Then you are being naive. The FBI knew that photo would be on the front page of major news publications. By showing that it makes it appear like Trump was causally keeping things that say Top Secret around — he even had a FOLDER!
And now that it was found out, which guess what, Trump has lawyers whose entire career is catching things like this, they have egg on their face. If it was a scheme, it was an absolutely dumb one. They're still attempting to go ahead with the case even though there's no way it will be concluded before the election.
You are assuming the goal was legal as opposed to political
You are assuming the goal was political as opposed to legal.
I don't pretend that Democrats would never do anything underhanded. But I think Republicans are getting to the point of treating everything that happens to a Republican as a conspiracy. Sorry, I don't buy that Trump can do no wrong, and must be immune to any consequences of his actions else the world is out to get him. And often by the same people who claim that Democrats in cities let repeat offenders walk.
A lot of the evidence in this case is public, including Trump literally confessing to showing classified documents to someone who has no clearance. So yes I think he is guilty, and guilty in a way that is easily provable in court, outside of a judge who tosses a case for completely unprecedented reasons. If all of this is made up, we'll soon see.
If they are only prosecuting a guilty person because he's the wrong guilty person, well I say it's a good start. If Republicans want to engage in "lawfare" against Democrats by punishing them for things they are guilty of, great! Either government gets cleaned up, or laws that aren't being enforced get removed. Sounds like a positive to me.
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It probably would have worked if it wasn't for Judge Cannon.
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Oh yes, they added a bunch of classified cover sheets to a photo, and put it in a court filing without mentioning that those cover sheets were added by them. Just your average everyday "oopsie" in the FBI.
I generally believe incompetence over maliciousness.
What's more likely?
An impulsive braggart with a tendency to think he can do anything grabbed some docs as personal trophies or to win arguments?
Or...
Trump normally keeps stacked up boxes of documents in bathrooms and the FBI throws in cover sheets to make Trump look guilty? And the judge is going to accept they they are classified based on this cover sheet and not check? Oh, and also they trick Trump into saying these exact words?
The later. That's what actually happened, after all, and is consistent with years of prior leaks from the FBI and associated probes pursued for political harm, whereas there is no allegation that Donald Trump used those classified documents to try and win arguments.
Stacks of boxes in odd places is pretty normal. It was a minor- and not prosecuted- reoccurance of both former VP Pence and former VP Biden that they both were found to have boxes of classified documents in their domiciles well after their departures. In Biden's case, they were found being kept in a garage.
Further, there was no practical reason to put classified cover sheets over the documents in question for the purpose of an evidentiary photo. The cover sheet has no evidentiary power in and of itself- it could be any document behind it, so you'd need to take photos sans cover sheet anyways, and if you're doing that you'd need to have a camera and photo-storage planned for the relevant classified level anyway.
The cover sheets were brought for a photo that could be shared without itself being a disclosure incident, the documents were staged for the photo, and the photo was presented publicly and presented in a way to insinuate that the cover sheets had been there from the start. (Which itself was furthered by a major media outlet coincidentally being at Mar-a-Lago for the dawn document raid to report it as it happened.)
The nature of Presidential classification authority is that there is nothing to check, hence why the classified document case got nuked by implications of the official acts immunity ruling by the Supreme Court during the parallel attempt at anti-Trump lawfare.
The Biden Administration's effort to target Trump in the classified document case rested on an argument that Presidents have to go through a formal process for declassification, insist that because Trump did follow the process the documents were still classified, and thus that once Trump left office with them he could no longer declassify them and thus it was improper holding.
However, there is no required procedure, the current White House does not assert it has created a required procedure, and neither the National Archives or FBI ever actually identified a required process that Trump failed to follow to lead to the judgement of 'improper' holding. This is why the charges were under the espionage act for having classified documents, and not for violation of a declassification process in improperly declassifying documents. The case has hinged from the start on the argument that Trump did not declassify them, as opposed to could not do so automatically as part and parcel of the job.
Which has been utterly unsurprising to anyone actually familiar with US classification regulations. The President does not need to justify the decision to declassify to other parts of the US government, does not need to communicate that decision to anyone else, and if the President determines something no longer needs to be classified then- as long as it doesn't derive from Atomic Energy Act- there is nothing and no one to say he can't. There are all inherent aspects of being the ultimate classification and declassification authority of Executive Branch documentation, an authority that the Biden administration has never taken the position that then-President Trump didn't have the authority to do.
This is why the case functionally broke when the Supreme Court made its ruling on immunity for official acts. The President's decision to declassify solely Executive branch information is an official act. It's not something regulated by Congress. It's not something beyond the scope of the Executive to establish limits on itself either in certain ways, but no such procedural requirement was ever alleged.
No allegations?! For the umpteeth time, There is literally a recording of him doing so! It's 2 minutes long, listen for yourself.
Yes, and when the government told Biden to return the documents, he did. Trump is an outlier in that he allegedly attempted to hide documents to prevent them from being returned, That's the difference here.
They aren't going to show the actual confidential documents of course. But as you stated the cover sheet doesn't make them confidential. The contents of the documents will not be revealed to the public, but the case is immediately dead if Trump's lawyers prove the documents are not confidential. So yes, the cover sheet snafu is immaterial.
You think the government doesn't have procedures for declassifying? Trump could have changed the procedures, but he didn't do so. You are correct that Trump doesn't need to explain why he is declassifying something, but incorrect that a document is declassified simply by thinking about it. According to this article, it doesn't even matter. The Espionage Act criminalizes mishandling information "relating to the national defense" not "classified information." Meaning that theoretically you can be guilty of sharing information that was never even classified.
False. An ex-President is not a President, and the actions of a former President are by definition not official acts. The case was dismissed because Cannon bizarrely claimed that Special Counsels have no authority to prosecute, which is currently being appealed.
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"Norm-shattering" is a good description, but incomplete. What trump is is the first person to recognize and reify a wholly new strategy for executing politics. That being: to organize his supporters not as interest groups, not as a cult of personality, not as ideological compatriots, but as a fandom.
Recently, we've been seeing a lot of ink spilt on the subject of the social media-depression link. Particularly where it concerns children, but I hold that the problem extends universally across age groups. Ubiquitous smartphones with social media is (so far) the ultimate realization of the "bowling alone" trend-- where the world inside the screen becomes so addictive that people lose social links outside the screen. Consequently, in-person social links become scarce despite being just as valuable as ever. More valuable, perhaps, because in-person interactions retain all their old benefits while also making you a high-priority person to someone who has potentially valuable virtual contacts.
People on some level realize this, so they still optimize for some level of in-person contact. And they do that by engaging in fandoms. Large, energized masses of people with a shared understanding of a universe easily gel together when they meet in person. That fact that these universes are fictional doesn't matter. In fact, the very fictionality of these universes is what makes them so effective. They can optimize for being interesting and pleasurable over being true. (See: epistemic minor leagues). And unlike traditional social groups that performed the same function (e.g., fraternal societies, religions) they demand very little from you personally outside what you were already willing to give: the free time you already wanted to spend doing something fun, and the opportunity cost of spending time with people who aren't into the same things you are anyways.
Trump is the first modern politician to truly realize the power of fandoms. I want to say, "unwittingly" because I think he's an idiot, but given his success with TV and branded enterprises I can't rule out genuine epiphany. He's creating a shared universe than his fans can all be passionate about, with interesting characters, noble heroes, and evil villains. And in organizing his political supporters into a fandom, he's invalidated all the usual tools of traditional politics. Fact checkers; negative news coverage; research papers-- none of that stuff is effective against a fandom. In fact, it's actively counterproductive. Every youtube video about how star wars physics aren't realistic just keeps people interested in the star wars fandom.
Indeed, the only thing that can successfully oppose a fandom is an equal and opposite hatedom. Whether his enemies deliberately organized themselves into one, or were simply forced by selection pressures to fit the mold doesn't matter. What matters is that when someone says, "Drake and Josh are amazing singers," you don't bother telling them that they're overproduced corporate slop. Instead, you go out and create a powerful social group of your own, by telling them, "look at all these idiots that love something Dan Schneider, a pedophile, created!"
The hate against the clintons for being slimy, the "bush is stupid" people, and the the obama birtherism were essentially prefigurement for this. They cultivated proto-fandoms with their charisma that made traditional policy attacks less effective, and therefore were subject to proto-hatedoms. Bernie came the closest to emulating trump with his own dedicated online fandom, but he definitely didn't consciously understand what was happening, and in any case failed to take advantage of his devotees like trump did.
Until technology dramatically changes the social environment again, I predict that every future president will act like trump and be treated like trump. He is to social media as Kennedy was to television as Coolidge was to radio-- laying out the path for every candidate after.
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EU has twice the people of US, comparable GDP and whatnot. It totally should be able to match US contribution 50% and have comparable forces.
They don't deserve protection. Saying as an EU citizen.
While it is certainly true that the EU is not sharing their fair share of the NATO defense burden, it would be premature to conclude from that alone that NATO is hence a bad deal for the US and all the pre-Trump administrations were idiots for having the US taxpayer protect Europe.
The way I see it, the relationship between the US and European NATO countries like Germany is an unequal partnership, but not necessarily an unfair one. Germany gets the protection of the US, but it also accepts the US as the hegemon. When the US decides that they want to embargo some country, Europe generally follows them. When the US decides that China should not have extreme ultra-violet photo-lithography machines, the Netherlands make ASML comply with that rather than weighting their alternatives.
With NATO, there is at least a contractual obligation for the Bundeswehr to fight Russia if it were to invade the US, even though nobody is under any illusion about the threat the Bundeswehr poses to Putin. But the umbrella of US protection extends even over countries who are not under formal obligation to aid the US, especially in the Pacific.
I would argue that the US puts up with this because being the leader of the status quo coalition comes with certain perks. If the US had adopted a policy of isolationism after WW2, they would certainly not be the economic powerhouse they are today.
There isn't. It's a common misconception, but while there would be massive political ramifications if a country did not step up during an Article 5 invocation, countries are not required to fight. All a NATO member is required to do is "take the actions it deems necessary to assist the Ally attacked."
So in your 'invade the US,' the Germans could make the argument that 'Americans, with your navy you got this, the Bundeswehr isn't necessary.' It could even point to the sorry state of the Bundeswehr as evidence that mobilizing a non-functional Bundeswehr wouldn't help, would be detrimental even, and thus not only be unnecessary but fully in keeping with the spirit of the alliance to not force the Americans into a two-front war defending Germany as well.
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He never did any such thing though. He said we should pull out if it's not restructured in such a way that other members don't start pulling their own weight instead of just leaving everything to the US. And he was absolutely right to do so, around that same time we had embarrassments from our allies like Germany only being able to field ~10 mission ready fighter jets and ZERO submarines:
https://www.dw.com/en/only-4-of-germanys-128-eurofighter-jets-combat-ready-report/a-43611873
https://www.reuters.com/article/business/autos-transportation/germany-sees-continued-issues-with-readiness-of-submarines-aircraft-idUSS8N20M021/
You're right, but it's still absurd to threaten to leave NATO over it, regardless of how serious the threat is. Other kinds of pressure should be exerted to make NATO members spend more on their military. Combined with his lax at best or friendly at worst attitude towards Putin, it's not reassuring.
Or maybe whatever pressure was brought to bear, you would say "Not that kind"?
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This is why the people that like him like him and don't like the rest of the government. Honest liar. There's value in knowing exactly how you're being conned.
That's all well and good, and a genuinely civic impulse. But it's a bit too late to deescalate the lawfare now isn't it? You can't really ask the other side to give up on Teflon Don when you also keep throwing lawsuits at anybody they field that's any good. And your side can't stop throwing out those lawsuits because he keeps dodging them all.
To you and @Cirrus
Is there? Here's the way I see it. I know the elite are screwing me over. I don't like it, but I try to find the one who might do some good in some way that doesn't conflict with their own power. Trump comes along and says "We are absolutely screwing you over and I'm going to keep doing it!" And then he gathers a bunch of people who cheer as he screws them over. The honesty is something, but at the end of the day he's still doing it and actively gloating about it! Why would I be anything but repulsed by that?
Different forms of corruption are easier or harder to get rid of. Trump is to me the guy who snorts coke right in front of the cop and then the cop says that why should I arrest him when other people manage to get away with it? Okay, they probably shouldn't get away with it, but come on, he's right there!
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I think there’s ample evidence, from the consumption of cats and dogs to FEMA relief being capped at $750 per household, instead of that simply being the limit on one specific, short-term FEMA aid program, that a nonzero number of these people do not know they’re being lied to.
They certainly don't conduct themselves as if they know they're being lied to. The hard core of Trump supporters are far too celebratory and uncritical for me to believe that he is popular because they view him as honestly dishonest.
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Well the cat thing seems to be directionally true even though it isn’t technically true.
https://christopherrufo.com/p/the-cat-eaters-of-ohio
Is "directionally true" the new buzzword that means "actually not correct, but we wish it was"? Might as well say Johnny's answer to a math problem being "three billion" is "directionally true" when the real answer is "five". It's totally meaningless.
Its the mirrior of/response to the sort of technically true but misleading brand of "facts" and "fact checking" that has become distressingly common in the current media environment.
Example: so-and-so claims that Candidate Smith is a psycho who tortures puppies. Candidate Smith responds that this is baseless slander. It was a kitten Smith tortured, not a puppy, and it was only that one time.
Smith's supporters will spill gallons of ink going about how So-and-so is a liar and thier claims have all been "debunked", but the people inclined to think that torturing small furry animals is indicative of Candidate Smith being a psycho have had thier perception reinfored rather than rebuked, making So-and-so's claim "directionally correct".
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Remember how someone making up a fake hate crime is at least "Raising Awareness" or "Starting A Conversation?" Remember how that's weak bullshit nonsense? This is that.
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And yet the WSJ tracked down the woman who made the complaint that triggered the embellished lie — she later found her cat in her own basement — and the at-core intellectually dishonest like Rufo then when looking for “directional” truth to prop up the lie.
And even for Rufo, it’s an African, not Haitians, plural.
Immigrant from third world barbecuing cats is true. Immigrants from third world causing all sorts of problems due to incompatible cultures is obviously true (and the cat thing is merely an extreme example).
That anyone has produced evidence that Haitian immigrants in Springfield are eating cats and dogs is a lie. And this gets back to the initial point. Immigration does cause tensions and problems. So a non-zero number of Trump supports are happy to swallow the lie, as opposed to the claim they view him as an honest liar.
It's not cats and dogs it's only cats. It's not Haitians it's Congolese. And it's not Springfield, it's Dayton. Note that what @zeke5123a said is consonant with all of those things.
I did note it. He’s just derailing things, as are you, about whether Trump supporters do or don’t believe his lies.
During ABC's presidential debate, Trump said: "In Springfield, they are eating the dogs. The people that came in, they are eating the cats. They’re eating – they are eating the pets of the people that live there." But city officials have told BBC Verify there have been “no credible reports" that this has actually happened. -BBC
For Jamie McGregor, a businessman in Springfield, Ohio, speaking favorably about the Haitian immigrants he employs has come to this: death threats, a lockdown at his company and posters around town branding him a traitor for hiring immigrants. -NYT
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Is this a criticism of Trump? Because I see this as a great positive. Would you rather have a public servant who is good at hiding corruption from the people?
Perhaps if you think that brand of corruption is a good thing?
What good will come from public servant being blatantly corrupt? When everyone knows that corruption is against the public mores and generally not done --- some people will choose to do evil anyway, covertly, but the effort not to get caught in public is a tangible cost. Some people on the margin will be uncertain of the cost and choose the public mores. When everyone knows it is permissible and can be done out in the open, within a generation it is becomes the definition of public mores. The rare few who don't do it are those who are weird enough to have their own moral code for no visible benefit. Others will call it prudishness, or soon call them opponents to public mores.
Happens to be one of conservative arguments against licentiousness that I find persuasive.
What you live in a world where corruption is already rampant and the norm? One where you are going to have to bribe your way through no matter what. Consider yourself in that situation.
Do you prefer to deal with the man who is upfront about what he wants, or with the one who obliquely implies it, forcing you to guess what the price may be or if you are ever going to get what you ask for in the first place?
I don't think this a useful way to think about the situation. It won't come down to choosing between dealing with two different men, but one man in either of hypotheticals. Keep track of the rest of the society where these hypothetical men can operate, too. If you get a corrupt official who keeps up the pretense that s/he won't take bribes, s/he wants to avoid getting caught. This means they may still process your paperwork, only slower. The official who is openly corrupt will expect a bribe for anything favorable to happen. More open the expectations, more sure there is nothing you can do about it. It would suck when dealing with a low-level clerk. You won't deal directly with POTUS, but openly corrupt POTUS won't likely cause less corruption in the government.
The only good thing about a publicly known corrupt guy is not the public knowledge, it is that public knowledge can be acted on. There is nothing good about a known corrupt authority when everyone knows them to be corrupt and everyone also knows that everyone knows they won't be successfully prosecuted and stopped.
If your argument for voting for Trump comes down to arguing he is publicly corrupt, where does this leave you?
You are not engaging with the core argument here, which is that from this standpoint society is already far too corrupt for overtness to matter except as predictibility.
Accelerate.
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What if you don't live in that world, but want an excuse to act like a bandit, so you claim that you do?
I'd condemn it in that case. If the US wasn't run by scoundrels me saying this would be evil.
But we do live in that world and you need only look at the headlines of the past few weeks to convince yourself of it.
We have long transitioned to the "loot the treasury" phase of this civilization. If you can't bring yourself to act accordingly, you're not a bastion of virtue. You're a sucker.
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The laptop had some really nasty things on it... It was the cover up that got me.
And why not just compare how both families were treated? That seems more 1-1...
The cover-up certainly was bad, but it seems like the news media, social media, Blinken, and the former intelligence officials mostly or entirely sincerely believed it had a good chance of being Russian disinformation. When more evidence came out that it was real, most serious outlets reversed their stance, and Twitter and Facebook stopped censoring it.
You believe this is more likely than the deep state and political actors working in unison to protect their preferred candidate from the truth?
Have any of the 'intelligence officials' retracted their letter?
When it comes to Blinken, there's a decent shot he might've known it was real and was trying to help cover it up, given he was an advisor to Biden's campaign. But I think there's also a decent shot he thought it had a high chance of being Russian disinformation or real information but a Russia-led operation. Now, could Hunter have told Joe who could tell Blinken that the laptop was real? Very possibly. I'm not going to say with high confidence that Blinken was entirely acting in good faith on the matter. But I think most of the other parties probably were.
For starters, here is the meat of the original letter:
So, to be clear, they carefully hedge the letter to say that it is very possible all of the emails are real. They say "information operation" rather than "disinformation operation", they say they do not know if the emails are genuine or not, they say they have no evidence of Russian involvement, and they refer to one of Russia's tactics being "the dumping of accurate information".
The rest of the letter states past alleged examples of passing of information from Russian intelligence officials to Giuliani and that
This letter was somewhat irresponsible but not that irresponsible. Many of the intelligence officials who signed off on it probably didn't and don't even like Biden or Democrats. It turned out that Russia appeared to have no involvement in it and all the emails were real, but it wasn't ridiculous to assume they could've been involved.
From some quick research, it appears none of the intelligence officials have retracted their signature or said they regret signing it, as recently as a few months ago. Some have explicitly said they don't regret it.
Yes this is how the deep state / PMC lie.
They were careful to tell technically the truth while still creating the impression in the media that this was Russian disinformation. Providing cover for the various social networks to limit / censor the story. They certainly would have known the claimed provenance of the laptop as being abandoned by Hunter at a repair shop. I don't recall their letter rebutting this very directly. Maybe this just means Hunter is a Russian agent leaking his own emails and dick pics.
I'll admit I've very little generosity left for these people. They're the same sort to produce 'intelligence' about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, or Russia blowing up their own pipeline, etc.
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