{"id":110,"date":"2017-02-15T17:02:08","date_gmt":"2017-02-15T17:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rationalnationusa.com\/blog\/?p=110"},"modified":"2017-02-15T17:02:08","modified_gmt":"2017-02-15T17:02:08","slug":"where-there-is-smoke-there-is-usually-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rationalnationusa.com\/blog\/archives\/110","title":{"rendered":"Where There Is Smoke, There Is Usually Fire…"},"content":{"rendered":"

CNN is reporting<\/a> the Trump campaign was involved in extensive communications with the Russians during the 2016 presidential election campaign. Communications between Russian operatives and the Trump campaign certainly is cause to raise owns eyebrows. If true it lends credibility to the argument the presidential election was influenced by the Russians, possibly tipping the outcome in Trump’s favor.<\/p>\n

Any foreign influence and involvement in United States elections puts our democratic republic as great risk. Putin, who is arguably intellectually superior to Trump and clever as hell, knows how to play Trump. \u00a0Trump’s narcissism and huge ego makes him an easy mark. If Russian influenced the outcome of the 2016 presidential election Trump would theoretically be indebted to Putin.<\/p>\n

Let the investigations continue. In great earnestness.<\/p>\n

\n
\n

High-level advisers close to then-presidential nominee Donald Trump were in constant communication during the campaign with Russians known to US intelligence, multiple current and former intelligence, law enforcement and administration officials tell CNN.<\/p>\n

President-elect Trump and then-President Barack Obama were both briefed on details of the extensive communications between suspected Russian operatives and people associated with the Trump campaign and the Trump business, according to US officials familiar with the matter.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

\n
Both the frequency of the communications during early summer and the proximity to Trump of those involved “raised a red flag” with US intelligence and law enforcement, according to these officials. The communications were intercepted during routine intelligence collection targeting Russian officials and other Russian nationals known to US intelligence.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Among several senior Trump advisers regularly communicating with Russian nationals were then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort and then-adviser Michael Flynn.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
SKIP<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n
Adding to US investigators’ concerns were intercepted communications between Russian officials before and after the election discussing their belief that they had special access to Trump, two law enforcement officials tell CNN. These officials cautioned the Russians could have been exaggerating their access.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Trump dismissed the claims that his advisers had close ties to Russia in a tweet Wednesday.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
“This Russian connection non-sense is merely an attempt to cover-up the many mistakes made in Hillary Clinton’s losing campaign,” Trump tweeted.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
SKIP<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\n
\n
The FBI and US intelligence agencies continue to try to determine what the motive for the communications were.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
One concern was whether Trump associates were coordinating with Russian intelligence operatives over the release of damaging information about the Hillary Clinton campaign.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
“If that were the case, then that would escalate things,” one official briefed on the investigation said.\u00a0Full story\u00a0<\/em>BELOW THE FOLD<\/a>.<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CNN is reporting the Trump campaign was involved in extensive communications with the Russians during the 2016 presidential election campaign. Communications between Russian operatives and the Trump campaign certainly is cause to raise owns eyebrows. If true it lends credibility to the argument the presidential election was influenced by the Russians, possibly tipping the outcome … Continue reading Where There Is Smoke, There Is Usually Fire…<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[15,4,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-foreign-relations","category-government","category-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8ovtF-1M","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":342,"url":"https:\/\/rationalnationusa.com\/blog\/archives\/342","url_meta":{"origin":110,"position":0},"title":"Is It Wise, Or Even Possible, To Believe Anything Trump Says?…","author":"Les","date":"March 7, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Contradicting repeated denials from Donald Trump and his team, Newsmax reported on May 14,\u00a02016 that Trump met Russian Ambassador Kislyak at a VIP reception in Washington on April 27. And while meeting the Russian ambassador is fine, why lie about it? UPDATE: The Wall Street Journal of May 13, 2016\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Government"","block_context":{"text":"Government","link":"https:\/\/rationalnationusa.com\/blog\/archives\/category\/government"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":313,"url":"https:\/\/rationalnationusa.com\/blog\/archives\/313","url_meta":{"origin":110,"position":1},"title":"The President Of The United States Is A Conspiracy Theorist…","author":"Les","date":"March 4, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Trump is, in essence, a conspiracy theory nut job. He bought into the birther movement of the far right. Now he has made wild accusations that President Obama had his phones wiretapped. This folks is something you would expect from Alex Jones, Stephen Banning, Joseph Farrah, Rush Limbaugh, INFOWARS, Breitbart,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Government"","block_context":{"text":"Government","link":"https:\/\/rationalnationusa.com\/blog\/archives\/category\/government"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":306,"url":"https:\/\/rationalnationusa.com\/blog\/archives\/306","url_meta":{"origin":110,"position":2},"title":"Following Trumps Address To Congress He Quickly Returns To The Old (True) Trump…","author":"Les","date":"March 3, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"President Trump is back to playing Twitter in Chief. As his administration is coming under increasing scrutiny for contact with the Russian Government, and, Attorney General Sessions failure to disclose his contact with Russian official(s) during confirmation hearings, Trump has went into full attack mode. His modus operandi of course\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Foreign Relations"","block_context":{"text":"Foreign Relations","link":"https:\/\/rationalnationusa.com\/blog\/archives\/category\/foreign-relations"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":464,"url":"https:\/\/rationalnationusa.com\/blog\/archives\/464","url_meta":{"origin":110,"position":3},"title":"Comey Confirms Trump’s Allegations Obama Had His Phones Wiretapped Are False…","author":"Les","date":"March 20, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"So, Trump was wrong. And, for folks like me we suspect he knew he was wrong all the while. He willfully spouted lies to mislead the American people and he should be held to account for it. Most likely\u00a0Trump will pass it off that he was given misinformation, pick a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Government"","block_context":{"text":"Government","link":"https:\/\/rationalnationusa.com\/blog\/archives\/category\/government"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":185,"url":"https:\/\/rationalnationusa.com\/blog\/archives\/185","url_meta":{"origin":110,"position":4},"title":"On This Presidents’ Day…","author":"Les","date":"February 20, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 Following is an excerpt from an article published in\u00a0the NEW REPUBLIC July 12, 2016. On Presidents' Day 2017, as we pay respect to President's of the past as well as\u00a0witnessing\u00a0widespread dissatisfaction\u00a0and protests\u00a0of our current siting president,\u00a0the words following now seem\u00a0\u00a0prescient If making sense of Donald Trump requires regular reminders\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Government"","block_context":{"text":"Government","link":"https:\/\/rationalnationusa.com\/blog\/archives\/category\/government"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":579,"url":"https:\/\/rationalnationusa.com\/blog\/archives\/579","url_meta":{"origin":110,"position":5},"title":"Koch Influence In The Trump Administration…","author":"Les","date":"April 4, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"The long reach of the Koch bothers into American conservative\/libertarian politics now reaches to the Trump administration. \u00a0They have been actively involved in exerting influence on politicians for years. Their primary goals are to strip regulation on business and reduce tax responsibilities on the wealthiest of Americans. They must certainly\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Ethics"","block_context":{"text":"Ethics","link":"https:\/\/rationalnationusa.com\/blog\/archives\/category\/ethics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rationalnationusa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rationalnationusa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rationalnationusa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalnationusa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalnationusa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/rationalnationusa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":113,"href":"https:\/\/rationalnationusa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110\/revisions\/113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rationalnationusa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalnationusa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalnationusa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}