Kurt Eichenwald thread: Oct 30,2017 9:36 AM

Trump supporters: I understand u are committed to him. But w/ Papadopoulus plea, u must
accept, his campaign staff worked w/ Putin. They did this and sent messages from the Kremlin to
Trump about direct meetings. They communicated many diff ways they wanted to work w/Putin,
and Putin wanted to work with them. Russia is not an ally. It is a hostile foreign power. It has
acted to undermine democracy through the same hacking/disinformation tactics in Britain, the
Netherlands, Sweden, France, Germany, Estonia and others. They were not going to stop their
strategy (for the purpose of weakening NATO) when the USA elections came along. Trump staff -
and possibly Trump himself -- played along with Putin, who had launched attacks on other
democracies many times before that.

Papadoupolus is going to possibly go to jail based on his admission of lying about this. His emails
and current statements make it undeniable that there was collusion between the campaign and
Russia. The extent and meaning of that collusion is still being investigated. But these ppl chose to
work with the enemies of our democracy. They chose to undermine US foreign policy - policy
GOP said wasn't tough ENOUGH -- for their own personal and political benefit. At this point, the
conclusions about Trump himself are still open, but the evidence looks very bad from the
Pap'dop plea. As Americans, we cannot be driven apart over whether it is acceptable to conspire
with a hostile foreign power in the course of an election. If Trump came out and said "This is
horrifying, this must be investigated to the end and anyone in my campaign who was involved in
this must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law" this would all be less suspicious.

But he doesn't say that.

He tweet screams "DO SOMETHING!!" about stopping investigation. He rages against Mueller.
With every tweet...attacking the investigation, he could well be racking up charges of
obstruction.. This is not the behavior of an innocent man perhaps he is that foolish and
impulsive. Perhaps he was complicit. But the reality is, we MUST know if the President knew his
staff was working for the benefit of the Kremlin, as Pap'dop guilty plea charges show. We cannot
be democrats or Republicans here. We must be Americans, aligned together against a foreign
power who sought to undermine democracy. Our country is more important than any President.
If he did nothing, he needs to let the investigation finish and stay quiet. If he did something, he
must resign.

I dont claim to know the answer to that.

What we DO know is his staff colluded w/ Russia, & he hasn't expressed any horror about that.