A huge problem here, that I think we can all agree on, is that there is no set of established facts as to what happened. I am not getting my information from goofy sites. I am getting it from the NYT, WSJ, Politico, etc.
I simply do not have enough time to follow every single thing about this, in and out, over and over. But my understanding is that the dossier was used as grounds to obtain a FISA warrant, which led to the surveillance on Trump's campaign. Yes, there may have been some investigating before that, but the FISA warrant was the fuse that lit the bomb of this whole thing (from my perspective).
And yes, my statement about the dossier is poorly worded -- what I meant was that 99% of the salacious allegations are completely unverifiable. As an attorney, to use a largely unverifiable dossier as grounds to obtain a search warrant (in whole or in part) just blows my mind. That's abuse of power against ANYONE. To be specific, go ahead and get a FISA warrant, that's fine; but this dossier CANNOT be used as grounds.
Back to my point, the FISA process is largely secret. Exactly how this all got started is largely secret. Mueller's report is still secret. So we are all left in the dark and attempting to connect dots. And man, there are a lot of dots out there, so a lot of well-meaning and decently well-informed people can have different sets of opinions. I wish everything from start to finish was out there, and wouldn't mind a 9/11 Commission or Warren Report.
Regarding specific questions:
1. No, I do not think the Mueller report exonerated Trump. But that campaign had the biggest collection of idiots of all time, and to think that they could conspire with a foreign government and not have it blow up in their face is beyond my imagination.
2. Regarding obstruction of justice, that's an incredibly murky constitutional question that could be taught in a law school class. Trump certainly breached protocol, norms, and traditions; whether that rises to the level of obstruction is a different question.
3. Regarding
@sol, yes, you may not call people names. But just because you are attacking ideas and not people does not absolve you. I encourage you to listen to this episode of NPR's Hidden Brain podcast :https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=654127241
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On that note, I'll bow out. I'm being perceived as a troll because I don't post in this thread or the off topic forum regularly. Whatever. I came over here because the biggest news since Trump got elected dropped this weekend.
But my brief hours in this thread confirmed why I don't post about politics -- it just gets ugly, nobody is going to change their mind, so what's the point.
You may disagree with me about things I've posted. Just know that I am posting in good faith, and that maybe I can look at largely the same set of facts as you and come to a different conclusion. And there are millions of well-meaning people like me.