Rep. Schiff has seen 'more than circumstantial' evidence of Trump/Russia collusion

[Commodus]

So he says, anyway.

If this is true and not just blowing smoke (which is entirely possible)... er, Trump's in trouble. We're talking the kind that even a sycophantic party can't excuse. It means certain impeachment and likely doom for the Republicans in 2018, if not also 2020.

Not to get ahead of myself too much, but can you imagine how badly such an incident would ruin the careers of certain Republican politicians? Nunes' political career would effectively be over, I'll say that much.

 

[Fern]

So he's leaking info from the investigation?

Does "more than circumstantial" evidence means direct evidence? If so, is he saying they've an eye witness, a vid or phone recording (back to wiretapping I guess)?

It's pretty rare to get more than circumstantial evidence. Circumstantial is stuff like finger prints and dna, blood evidence, murder weapon etc.

Fern

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I'm siding with disbelief for the time being. Not saying he's lying but until I see the proof I'm not buying anything. This whole business is so awful I can't trust anything less than my eyes.

 

[Commodus]

So he's leaking info from the investigation?

Does "more than circumstantial" evidence means direct evidence? If so, is he saying they've an eye witness, a vid or phone recording (back to wiretapping I guess)?

It's pretty rare to get more than circumstantial evidence. Circumstantial is stuff finger prints and dna, blood evidence, murder weapon etc.

Fern

That's what I would suspect: actual transcripts of calls, smoking gun connections, that sort of thing.

I do want to be highly cautious around this, because we could end up with Maddow 2.0 where there's a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. But if you take Schiff at his word, it'd blow the whole thing wide open.

 

[woolfe9998]

Not sure what to make of this. Technically, the Steele Dossier could be considered "direct evidence," if we assume that Steele's sources had direct first hand knowledge of the things they told him. But any sort of evidence must be credible to be persuasive, regardless of whether it is direct or circumstantial. Also, the Steele dossier is double hearsay and certainly inadmissible. But that's probably not what he's referring to.

All we can do is wait to see what comes out.

 

[woolfe9998]

deleted

 

[woolfe9998]

I'm siding with disbelief for the time being. Not saying he's lying but until I see the proof I'm not buying anything. This whole business is so awful I can't trust anything less than my eyes.

Direct evidence is evidence which, if true, conclusively establishes guilt. He could mean that there is direct evidence but that the credibility of the evidence has yet to be established. It could be something other than a wire tapped conversation which would be pretty hard to refute. Like some identified Russian or Trump insider saying that they participated in or directly witnessed collusion. But who knows if what they're saying is true.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

He could mean that there is direct evidence but that the credibility of the evidence has yet to be established. If true, it would be something other than a wire tapped conversation which would be pretty hard to refute. Like some identified Russian or Trump insider saying that they participated in or directly witnessed collusion. But who knows if what they're saying is true. Direct evidence is evidence which, if true, conclusively establishes guilt.

And that's what I'm looking for, something concrete and verifiable. I can hope but things have a way of not being easy.

 

[Jhhnn]

We shall see. What I'm sure of is that the Trump team is mighty touchy about any contact they may have had with the Russians & that both Flynn & Sessions lied about it...

Not to mention that Manafort was a member of the inner circle of Putin's stooge in Kiev...

 

[alien42]

So he's leaking info from the investigation?

Does "more than circumstantial" evidence means direct evidence? If so, is he saying they've an eye witness, a vid or phone recording (back to wiretapping I guess)?

It's pretty rare to get more than circumstantial evidence. Circumstantial is stuff like finger prints and dna, blood evidence, murder weapon etc.

Fern

imo, anyone who was paying attention last summer already knew this, leaked info not needed, does Paul Manafort ring a bell?

 

[Commodus]

Not sure what to make of this. Technically, the Steele Dossier could be considered "direct evidence," if we assume that Steele's sources had direct first hand knowledge of the things they told him. But any sort of evidence must be credible to be persuasive, regardless of whether it is direct or circumstantial. Also, the Steele dossier is double hearsay and certainly inadmissible. But that's probably not what he's referring to.

All we can do is wait to see what comes out.

According to CNN's sources, it doesn't have to do with the Steele Dossier. Also, that story by extension adds a bit of color to what Schiff alluded to earlier.

It's still hard to say for sure that the info will be incriminating, but nor does this sound like Schiff and crew are just recycling facts we've seen before.

 

[woolfe9998]

According to CNN's sources, it doesn't have to do with the Steele Dossier. Also, that story by extension adds a bit of color to what Schiff alluded to earlier.

It's still hard to say for sure that the info will be incriminating, but nor does this sound like Schiff and crew are just recycling facts we've seen before.

Yeah, I read the CNN piece and I'm not certain if this is what Schiff was talking about or not. It isn't really all that different from previous pieces where sources have told the press about numerous communications between the Trump campaign and suspected Russian operatives. It adds in the explicit idea that they suspect these communications were collusory, but doesn't say why. It also continues to describe the evidence as "largely circumstantial" which sounds like they know about communications but do not know the contents of them. Then again, the qualifier "largely" could mean there is something in there which is more direct.

 

[HomerJS]

So Trump NEVER calls his own intel people for proof of his wiretapping claim. The only thing he has is the GOP head of committee running down to WH to tell daddy? Nunes doesn't have Schif's phone number. Why didn't he call him before running over to White House??

Again why hasn't he called for info from his own people??