Thread by Seth Abramson that explains the difference between opposition research conducted by
democrats in 2016 and tnd the crimes committed by the Trump campaign and Trump.
(THREAD) This thread discusses the difference(s) between the OPPOSITION RESEARCH conducted by the Democrats in 2016 and the CRIMES committed by the GOP candidate for president during the 2016 campaign. I hope you'll share this thread with anyone who you think might be interested.
1/ From the moment he decided to run for POTUS in 2016—November 2012, per his own advisors—Trump told about as many lies about his foreign entanglements as he'd continue to do as president: that is, thousands. Each potentially hid the fact he'd been compromised by foreign powers.
5 replies 192 retweets 553 likes
Seth Abramson
?Verified account @SethAbramson
2h2 hours ago
2/ For this reason, and because Trump was widely known to have lived a life of white-collar crime and personal infelicities that could open him up to blackmail, REPUBLICANS decided to conduct aggressive opposition research on him during the GOP primaries.
3/ The right-wing entity that did the opposition research that'd eventually come to the country's notice—involving a company called Fusion GPS—was the WASHINGTON FREE BEACON, which engaged Fusion GPS to conduct such research with funding from a right-wing anti-Trump billionaire.
4/ While REPUBLICANS were paying Fusion GPS to do opposition research—a *lengthy* period from fall 2015 into spring 2016—Fusion GPS turned up evidence involving possible "golden showers" occurring in Russia in 2013, as the right-wing DAILY CALLER reported.
5/ That's right: REPUBLICANS paid Fusion GPS to find dirt on Trump, and almost immediately a Fusion GPS contractor from the United Kingdom (allowed by law because he's a contractor) found intel in Russia about the Kremlin possibly having kompromat (blackmail material) on Trump.
6/ No one in the Republican Party believed the WASHINGTON FREE BEACON and powerful billionaire funders of the GOP were engaged in any untoward behavior over the *nine months* they were paying an American firm, Fusion GPS, to conduct opposition research on Donald Trump. *No one*.
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Seth Abramson
?Verified account @SethAbramson
2h2 hours ago
7/ The said behavior became objectionable the *second* it was a Democratic client paying Fusion GPS rather than a Republican one. So here's what happened with Hillary Clinton and Fusion GPS, beginning in the spring of 2016— when Chris Steele had already done much of his research.
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Seth Abramson
?Verified account @SethAbramson
2h2 hours ago
8/ The Clinton campaign hired an AMERICAN law firm (Perkins Coie) which thereafter hired an AMERICAN research firm—whose employees were likewise AMERICAN—to conduct opposition research. The Clinton campaign had *no role whatsoever* in telling Fusion GPS what to look for or where.
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Seth Abramson
?Verified account @SethAbramson
2h2 hours ago
9/ Because of the work a British Fusion GPS contractor (the former Russia desk chief for MI6, an ALLIED INTELLIGENCE AGENCY) had done for REPUBLICANS, the contractor, Chris Steele, knew that at least some of his research had to be in Russia—because Trump had done business there.
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Seth Abramson
?Verified account @SethAbramson
2h2 hours ago
10/ Any opposition research firm will conduct research everywhere a given person has done—or, in Trump's case, better to say "tried to do"—business. Because most politicians aren't businesspeople, that usually doesn't extend to overseas. But Trump is an international businessman.
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Seth Abramson
?Verified account @SethAbramson
2h2 hours ago
11/ Consequently, Chris Steele did research in Russia—a country he knew well from having worked there as part of an ALLIED INTELLIGENCE AGENCY. Steele was also, as his AMERICAN employers at Fusion GPS knew, someone who had done work alongside AMERICAN LAW ENFORCEMENT in the past.
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Seth Abramson
?Verified account @SethAbramson
2h2 hours ago
12/ Steele found tons of info on Trump—some of which came from American sources, some from Russian sources. Steele thereafter compiled a doc he freely admitted was simply *raw intelligence*. None of the research was willingly supplied by someone REPRESENTING A FOREIGN GOVERNMENT.
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Seth Abramson
?Verified account @SethAbramson
2h2 hours ago
13/ When the research made its way back from the BRITISH contractor to the AMERICAN research firm and thereafter to the AMERICAN law firm the Clinton campaign had hired, do you want to know what the Clinton campaign did with it? Nothing—*nothing*. There are many reasons for that.
5 replies 105 retweets 376 likes
Seth Abramson
?Verified account @SethAbramson
2h2 hours ago
14/ One reason the Clinton campaign did nothing with it was because, as Steele conceded, it was raw intel—no one knew if it was accurate, and while the Clinton campaign might've benefitted by putting inaccurate info out, (a) that would've been wrong and (b) it would've backfired.
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Seth Abramson
?Verified account @SethAbramson
2h2 hours ago
15/ *Another* reason the Clinton campaign did nothing with it was because some of it came from overseas—a fact *no one on the campaign knew was going to be the case beforehand, nor did they ask it to be*—and the use of any overseas material was not something they wanted to touch.
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Seth Abramson
?Verified account @SethAbramson
2h2 hours ago
16/ Meanwhile, the BRITISH contractor was so concerned about the information he'd uncovered—info that surprised even him, as he had *not*, in advance, known he was going to find it either when he was working for Republicans or, thereafter, for Democrats—that he *went to the FBI*.
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Seth Abramson
?Verified account @SethAbramson
2h2 hours ago
17/ You'll notice I keep mentioning that Steele was BRITISH and had worked with an ALLIED INTELLIGENCE AGENCY. I do that because Fusion GPS *had* to contract with *some* non-Americans to do *overseas research*—but chose allied-intel researchers for a reason that'd become obvious.
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Seth Abramson
?Verified account @SethAbramson
2h2 hours ago
18/ The reason Fusion GPS, which had to contract with *some* non-Americans, chose to contract with a BRITISH man who'd worked for an ALLIED INTELLIGENCE AGENCY—and who had worked alongside the FBI—is that they could trust his intentions. Unlike, say, if he worked for the Kremlin.
6 replies 77 retweets 365 likes
Seth Abramson
?Verified account @SethAbramson
2h2 hours ago
19/ And Fusion GPS turned out to be right, as when Steele took his info to the FBI—a federal agency he was known to, respected by, and had previously worked with—he did so, he told Fusion GPS, because he cared for AMERICA and was worried about a U.S. politician being compromised.
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Seth Abramson
?Verified account @SethAbramson
2h2 hours ago
20/ And Steele also turned out to be right, as when U.S. LAW ENFORCEMENT saw what he had—*coupled* (as Republicans repeatedly forget to note) with similarly troubling intel from SEVEN ALLIED INTEL AGENCIES that arrived between December 2015 and July 2016—they were concerned, too.
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Seth Abramson
?Verified account @SethAbramson
1h1 hour ago
21/ What Steele didn't expect was that US LAW ENFORCEMENT—while routinely talking and leaking to media about the less-serious Clinton email probe—would *take to its damn grave* the *wildly more serious* Trump case, at least pre-election. It even lied to the NYT to protect Trump.
4 replies 98 retweets 342 likes
Seth Abramson
?Verified account @SethAbramson
1h1 hour ago
22/ Concerned that the FBI had been compromised by politics—which a subsequent IG investigation would show it *had been*, with the entire New York field office of the FBI in the tank for Trump pre-election, and committing Hatch Act violations to aid him—Steele spoke to the media.
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Seth Abramson
?Verified account @SethAbramson
1h1 hour ago
23/ Fortunately for Trump, virtually no one in the media would touch Steele's dossier either, even though—yes, even post-Mueller report—there's substantial evidence confirming Steele's own analysis at the time, which is that about 75% of his raw intelligence on Trump is accurate.
4 replies 82 retweets 338 likes
Seth Abramson
?Verified account @SethAbramson
1h1 hour ago
24/ Now let's compare that sequence of events with the CRIMES committed by Donald J. Trump, his family, and his campaign.
(As with everything else in this thread, everything I've reviewing here comes directly from *major media reports*. None of this is guesswork or speculation.)
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Seth Abramson
?Verified account @SethAbramson
1h1 hour ago
25/ By spring 2016, Trump, his family, and his campaign *knew* that at *least* four nations (one hostile) wanted to see him become president: RUSSIA, SAUDI ARABIA, ISRAEL and the UNITED ARAB EMIRATES. How did he know? Because agents of these governments had told his campaign so.
26/ A campaign isn't just *one person*, of course. There were *many* people on the Trump campaign who had *worked campaigns before* and knew election laws in the United States, and undoubtedly would have communicated those laws to the neophytes on the Trump presidential campaign.
27/ So by spring 2016, one thing the Trump campaign knew FOR ABSOLUTE CERTAIN was that under NO CIRCUMSTANCES would it be legal for them to directly receive opposition research from an agent of a foreign government. LET ALONE a hostile government and LET ALONE *stolen documents*.
28/ Instead, the Trump campaign let it be known it was OPEN FOR BUSINESS to ANY government that had ANY information on Clinton acquired by ANY means and transmitted to the Trump campaign in ANY setting and for ANY purpose. This was the ethos of the entire campaign, top to bottom.
29/ We know that Trump, his family, and his campaign knew this policy violated the law because EVERY TIME THEY EXECUTED IT—in the process VIOLATING U.S. LAW—they did their utmost to *cover their tracks* and *lie about ever
y aspect of their actions and any meeting they had taken*.
30/ The Mueller Report shows Trump Jr. was told the Kremlin wanted his dad to win; was told the Kremlin had dubiously obtained documents on Clinton; was told it wanted to give Trump those documents to influence the election; and Trump Jr. was ABSOLUTELY ECSTATIC to break the law.
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= new reply since forum marked as read
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Seth Abramson
?Verified account @SethAbramson
2h2 hours ago
14/ One reason the Clinton campaign did nothing with it was because, as Steele conceded, it was raw intel—no one knew if it was accurate, and while the Clinton campaign might've benefitted by putting inaccurate info out, (a) that would've been wrong and (b) it would've backfired.
3 replies 106 retweets 378 likes
Seth Abramson
?Verified account @SethAbramson
2h2 hours ago
15/ *Another* reason the Clinton campaign did nothing with it was because some of it came from overseas—a fact *no one on the campaign knew was going to be the case beforehand, nor did they ask it to be*—and the use of any overseas material was not something they wanted to touch.
2 replies 87 retweets 334 likes
Seth Abramson
?Verified account @SethAbramson
2h2 hours ago
