Trump Junior's now-famous meeting: What actually happened at Donald Trump Junior's now-famous Trump Tower meeting?
Like you, we have no way of knowing. Sometimes, an allegedly pointless meeting is just a pointless meeting. Other times, it may be much, much more.
In this case, we have no way of knowing what happened. We do know this:
That allegedly pointless meeting has become a case study in the sad, silly, childish bad faith displayed by the corrupted pseudo-leadership of our pathetic and sad liberal world.
Our liberal world has become the province of children. As a first example of what we mean, consider what Kevin Drum said in yesterday's silly sad post. Headline included, we offer his full complete text:
DRUM (9/7/17): Here’s the Latest From Don Jr.Junior wanted to collude, the pathetic Drum says, but the Russkie lawyer didn't provide any dirt.
Here’s the latest version of the story about how Donald Trump Jr. decided to meet up with a Putin-connected Russian attorney last year:
"Donald Trump Jr. told Senate investigators on Thursday that he set up a June 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer because he was intrigued that she might have damaging information about Hillary Clinton, saying it was important to learn about Mrs. Clinton’s “fitness” to be president. But nothing came of the Trump Tower meeting, he said, and he was adamant that he never colluded with the Russian government’s campaign to disrupt last year’s presidential election."
So…Don Jr. wanted to collude, and he would have except that it turned out the Russians didn’t have any good dirt. Do I have that right?
Does the childish Drum "have that right?" We're going to say that he doesn't.
According to Trump Junior, he was told that someone was going to provide damaging information about Hillary Clinton. But when the meeting occurred, no such information appeared.
(Just for the record, major stars of the liberal world have been providing damaging misinformation about Hillary Clinton for decades; few people ever complained. This helps explain how Chris Matthews remains employed as The One True Liberal Channel. Our Darling Rachel says that he's the absolute number-one best!)
Back to our basic point:
According to Trump Junior, he was told that someone was going to provide damaging information about Hillary Clinton. But when the meeting occurred, no such information appeared.
Is that what happened at that meeting? Like a range of your favorite liberal stars, we have no way of knowing. But if he had been provided some such (actual) information, it's hard to know what would be wrong with that transaction. And no, that wouldn't have been "collusion," in the sense of the term which was in use when this fandango began.
Suppose someone from the Russian government—for argument's sake, let's make it Putin himself—passed on some (actual) information about Clinton. Unless some act of theft was involved, we don't have the slightest idea what would be wrong with accepting such information.
(Just for the record, our big newspapers publish stolen information all the time. Day after day after day after day, they proved this point all last summer and fall.)
Let's brainstorm a bit. If Putin, or some Russian lawyer, revealed some (actual) information in a speech, does Drum think we all should just ignore what had been revealed? Isn't it true that information is information, no matter where it's revealed?
At any rate, when charges of possible "collusion" began, they didn't involve the idea that someone received some actual information from someone in the Russian government. The alleged collusion involved the idea that the Trump campaign was adopting policy positions in some sort of corrupt bargain with the Russkies, or that Trump Senior's endless pandering to Putin was the fruit of some such corrupt trade.
The claim of collusion involved the idea that a corrupt trade was being made in bad faith. Later, it came to involve the possibility that the Trump campaign helped the Russkies target American voters with their "fake news"—with their disinformation campaign.
Those acts of collusion would all be corrupt; presumably, they'd all be illegal. Trump Junior would have been doing none of those things if he simply accepted some real information from someone inside the Russian government.
In that childish post, Drum is playing the game of Snark, the pitiful silly dumb stupid game which has largely subsumed what used to be "liberal thought." In short, Drum is pandering to his readers. It's how career players keep jobs.
What exactly would be wrong with accepting real information from some foreign government? From someone connected to some foreign government? If the information is real, what would be wrong with receiving it, perhaps even passing it on?
We'll let silly-boy Drum explain. In the meantime, he's experiencing his second childhood, or maybe his first, serving us snark as he plays.
Liker Drum, like Matthews, like Josh Marshall (Won't you please sign up for Prime?), we have no way of knowing what happened in that meeting. It could have been ugly, or it could have been nothing. Presumably, the Mueller probe may end up working that out.
That said, we do know these things:
The original messenger in this fandango was a somewhat laughable music publicist—a music publicist who enjoyed perhaps three degrees of separation from Putin himself.
In yesterday's statement to the Senate, Trump Junior suggested that he didn't necessarily take this person completely seriously when he made the initial proffer concerning the now-famous meeting. To us, this has always seemed like an obvious possibility. (It may also be total bullshit.)
Did Trump Junior possibly think the music publicist was full of borscht? It's a stunning display of liberal/mainstream bad faith that we've never heard anyone explore this obvious possibility in the months since this turmoil began.
Is it possible that Trump Junior thought the music publicist was perhaps semi-nuts? We'd have to say it is. It's also entirely possible that a different dynamic obtained.
What did Trump Junior think was going to happen at the meeting? Like you, we have no way of knowing. That said, Josh Marshall, another pander bear, offered this pathetic review in yesterday's post.
While we're at it, won't you please sign up today for Prime?
MARSHALL (9/7/17): The specific identity of just who Trump was going to meet with is beside the point. The name would have meant nothing to him. The relevant point is that Trump Jr was told in advance that he was dealing with the Russian government and that the Russian government was supporting and trying to elect his father. I don’t care how naive you are. Unless you were raised by ferrets in the Catskills, you’re going to know this is a problem. Trump Jr took the meeting. This is the critical omission. My recollection is that Don Jr also forwarded those emails to Kushner and Manafort. So they knew that information too, or could have. We will return to the significance of this in a moment."Unless you were raised by ferrets?" In the case of Trump Junior, that seems to come pretty close!
The next key is that Don Jr. says his phone records show “three very short phone calls” between Don Jr. and Emin Agalarov (the pop star son of the oligarch) over the two days (June 6th and 7th) just prior to the meeting on June 9th. He says he doesn’t remember those calls and that they may have traded voicemails. That seems dubious. Voicemails leave recordings and records. I’m not sure if the phone records reflect when a call goes to voice mail or not. But how short were the calls? This seems quite significant. Why are we hearing this? Almost certainly because you can’t hide the records that the phone calls happened. I don’t think investigators even need a warrant for those. What was discussed if anything was is another matter. There may be no record of that at all. So Don Jr. would be in the clear saying he didn’t remember.
At any rate, Trump Junior says he doesn't remember those phone calls. As with almost everything else, that may be true, and it may be false.
Josh says it "seems dubious."
Here's our question: Why does that seem dubious? Josh never quite says, but we can tell you this: it seems dubious because, by hard tribal law, it's required to seem that way. When tribal feeling boils up this way, everything has to seem the way that leads to pleasing conclusions.
By tribal law, everything has to seem dubious as we excite ourselves about this murky tale, about which we have no real information. Note the way Josh flounders around, talking about the claim that these three phone calls may have been telephone tag-style voice mails.
That seems to sound dubious to him too, although he acknowledges that he doesn't know how long the phone calls actually were and whether they were actual conversations at all. In fact, it's abundantly clear that he has no freaking idea what he's talking about on this point, but he does know what the story-line is, and that he wants you to sign up for Prime.
Sometimes, an allegedly pointless meeting is just a pointless meeting. That may have been the case here, or the truth may be quite different.
That said, the Drums and the Marshalls have no more idea what they're talking about than your six-year-old next door neighbor. They're simply pandering to stampeding tribal sentiment.
They're also asking for your support. Won't you please send more of your money to Josh?
We'll close with our original question:
If that Russkie lawyer had presented some actual information that day, what would have been wrong with Trump Junior accepting it? If she had written an op-ed column or given a speech in which she disclosed some actual information, do Drum and Marshall think that the world should have refused to acknowledge it?
Our liberal leadership has been corrupt for decades. Our liberal rank and file, like all rank and files, tends to be lazy, true-believing and dumb.
Like all rank and files, our rank and file needs intelligent leadership. People like Marshall and Drum stopped providing that long ago.
Chris Matthews was astounding on this topic last night. Not too long ago, he was astounding as he slimed and slandered both Clintons, and Candidate Gore, over a great many years.
Josh kept quiet; Kevin hid. Neither one will ever tell you how our fail occurred.
In conclusion, we're going to say it so slowly that even our tribe will be able to hear it. That meeting may have been corrupt. Possibly also, it wasn't.
Robert Mueller may find out; Matthews and Marshall won't. In the meantime, you're being played, like the ditto-heads before you.
Concerning music publicists: Do you know how many people in the entertainment world spout off about all manner of things?
Often, they're connected to influential people in some major or minor way. The things they're saying may be true, or they may be absolute bullroar.
Robert Mueller may find out. Your favorite stars almost certainly won't.
Concerning a horrible corporate player: Matthews pimped bullshit about Hillary Clinton approximately forever. You've never seen a "career liberal" star say a single word about it.
You are being played by those people. Rachel says he's the best!
