Explaining why the Steele Dossier isn’t collusion

[Hindsight was 2020]

https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1140357421547839488
So just to clear up because Trump and others have been saying that the Steele Dossier is no different then what Trump said in the ABC interview. Steele is a private citizen hired by an American firm to do oppo research on Trump which he did with a dossier who’s content he was concerned enough with to go to the proper authorities over and to top it off Hillary never even used the dossier. Nothing about that situation is remotely similar to what Trump’s campaign did in 2016 or what he said in the interview.

[Hindsight was 2020]

The content of the dossier was Russian disinformation, or as the media likes to call it, Russian "dirt". Steele, working on behalf of the Clinton campaign, gathered this "dirt" from Russian government sources. The "dirt" was then propagated through the US media with the purpose of influencing the 2016 election. None of this is in dispute.

This is far worse than anything the Trump campaign was alleged to have done.

1) a lot of the dossier was confirmed
2) propagated through the media? Nobody heard of this thing until buzzfeed published it in January 2017

[Hindsight was 2020]

The content of the dossier was Russian disinformation, or as the media likes to call it, Russian "dirt". Steele, working on behalf of the Clinton campaign, gathered this "dirt" from Russian government sources. The "dirt" was then propagated through the US media with the purpose of influencing the 2016 election. None of this is in dispute.

This is far worse than anything the Trump campaign was alleged to have done.

1) a lot of the dossier was confirmed
2) propagated through the media? Nobody heard of this thing until buzzfeed published it in January 2017

1) Which of the central claims of the dossier were confirmed by the Mueller report?
2) I'll point you to this story: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/veteran-spy-gave-fbi-info-alleging-russian-operation-cultivate-donald-trump/

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.businessinsider.com/steele-dossier-allegations-trump-russia-mueller-investigation-2019-1

[Hindsight was 2020]

The content of the dossier was Russian disinformation, or as the media likes to call it, Russian "dirt". Steele, working on behalf of the Clinton campaign, gathered this "dirt" from Russian government sources. The "dirt" was then propagated through the US media with the purpose of influencing the 2016 election. None of this is in dispute.

This is far worse than anything the Trump campaign was alleged to have done.

So far, you've been talking to some of the most unreasonable partisans Atlas has to offer. 

But you're right.  And they're wrong.

Pot meet kettle

[Hindsight was 2020]

The Steele dossier did not influence the election outcome in any way, it wasn't even publicly known until months after the election. The Russian interference on Trump's behalf, from spreading disinformation to more importantly hacking the Clinton campaign and the resulting Wikileaks releases, did affect the election. The hacked emails were an important part of the news cycle in the final weeks and depressed progressive enthusiasm and turnout at a critical time, as well as of course the DNC leaks adding salt to the wounds of the Democratic primary and the claims it was 'rigged' against Bernie. Given how close the election was, Trump won by 0.76% in the tipping-point state, it's possible this actually did make the difference between President Trump and President Hillary Clinton.

The Steele Dossier has had more influence on the actual behavior of our government than the other actions.  A false, discredited dossier was a critical element in the issuance of FISA Warrants that triggered the endless cycle of investigations, none of which would be happening without that.

The nominating process against the Democrats was rigged.  Is that information the public should have known before they voted?  Podesta and Palmieri had actually discussed plans to infiltrate the Catholic Church with liberal activists in the hope of liberalizing its doctrine; is that something folks ought to have known about before they voted?  Now I grant you that Trump should have released his tax returns, but even in his not releasing them, people could easily infer what they wanted to infer and decide for themselves whether they cared about that or not.  But the rigged nominating process of the Democrats; that was a SECRET that the Clintonistas hoped you never found out about.

Did Russian interference with the election affect matters?  Of course it did.  But Russians can do this as they will; they are free to log on the internet, create memes and fake news and lies on Facebook and such.  Free Speech is the right of PERSONS, and not citizens.  The issue is not whether or not the Russians attempted to inject themselves in the political process; it's whether or not they colluded with Trump to do that, and that question has been answered as a "No!".

I do not sign off on everything Donald Trump has done.  I am under no illusions as to when he's telling tales or being outrageous.  He has not yet told me tales of Americans dying in Benghazi over outrage over a movie that was bogus, but he's told some whoppers.  I do not sign off on all of his policies.  I voted for him hoping he'd be a moderate Republican, especially on economics.  Instead, he's turned out to be a standard supply-sider, which is the essence of today's GOP.  "Voodoo Economics" is more than mainstream; it's defining dogma, and has been for 3 decades now.  And, no, that part of the Trump package is not my bag.

All of that has to be balanced against the "resistance" which, I believe, is an organized effort to drive Trump from office, one way or another, not because he deserves to be, but because elites before the election decided that Trump"must not become President" and, having been confounded by the Electoral College structure, have now going out whole hog to reverse the 2016 election.  This is the part I cannot abide.  It is people saying that we can only elect "approved" candidates of either party.  The process by which this whole matter has been investigated confirms this to me.  What these events say to me is that elite forces will come together to ensure that "this kind of man" cannot be elected President, and if he is, by hook or by crook, his Presidency will not stand.  This is more undemocratic than things Trump has given up to complain about.  

If Trump is beaten in a free and fair election in 2020, that's fine.  I haven't decided to vote for him myself; the most I could say is that, gun to my head, binary choice, I'd either vote for Trump or abstain if the election were today, and it's not being held today.  If Trump is driven from office in the way Comey, Schiff, Nadler, et al are trying to drive him from office, then I will not support that effort, and I will not vote for those pushing it.  That's where I'm coming from.  If there were a Nixonian Smoking Gun against Trump, that would be another thing, but there's not, and the best people can come up with is arguments that require redefining "obstruction of justice" and "thing of value" to mean things they were never meant to mean.  There's no smoking gun.  If Trump's opponents wish to save democracy, they need to drop the investigations and get out and make the arguments as to why his policies are bad.  That, of course, would take work.

No *clap* it *clap* wasn’t.
Edit: also I have to debunk some of your other bs. No Hillary and the DNC didn’t rig the primary and nothing in the emails showed that. I see your catholic emails and rise you Trump getting Farwell’s endorsement with Trump blackmailing him over him and his wife banging a 20 something pool boy. If you wanna go the Benghazi route I got a navy seal who died in a raid in Yemen because Trump didn’t properly read intelligence reports. Also spare me with the “elitist” garbage, most of the “resistance” are everyday Americans who are sick and tired of this jerk and his appalling conduct. Last and not least you been told how charging Trump with obstruction of justice over Comey isn’t “redefining” the term and quite frankly your arguments that Trump should be able to do whatever he wants to the FBI is far more dangerous for our democracy then impeaching him