• Carter Page testifies that he DID meet with Russian government officials on Moscow trip
    64 replies, posted
[QUOTE=sgman91;52866683]So I'm on page 168 of the testimony, and am probably going to read through the whole thing, but I have some questions: 1) Where does he say he told Sessions about meeting with anyone? So far, I've only read him saying that he told Sessions about giving a speech at the Moscow University, something that was public knowledge. 2) What part of the Steele Dossier was confirmed? I saw Radyr mention the Rosneft thing, but I didn't see any confirmation of that meeting in the testimony. The Dossier claims: - Paul Manafort used Carter Page as an intermediary with Russia - Carter Page met with Sechen and discussed removing sanctions Both of these are flat out denied by Page and are not consistent with his testimony.[/QUOTE] Unless you're also reading through the associated discovery done on this case, then you do not have the full picture, and I'm not saying I do, but these are things brought up by Schiff and Gowdy because they have info we don't.
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;52866693]Unless you're also reading through the associated discovery done on this case, then you do not have the full picture, and I'm not saying I do, but these are things brought up by Schiff and Gowdy because they have info we don't.[/QUOTE] Do you know where I can read their comments in full? It doesn't look like that's true for the quotes by Raidyr, though. The BI article simply took a bunch of quotes out of context and tried to make them seem way more meaningful than they were. For example, it quotes Page as saying there may have been a greeting between him and the professor working with Papadopoulos, but he was actually saying that yeah, he might have met him at some point in his life at a university event or another because they were both professors. He wasn't saying he might have actually met him in a meaningful way or that he was actually remembering any meeting with him.
Every major takeaway from Page testimony, neatly summarized, in the following thread: [media]https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/927999713714081799[/media] SGman, I have no interest whatsoever in arguing semantics with you today. Page's testimony was a fucking mess, but he [I]did[/I] reveal key info despite his attempts at deceit. You can pretend otherwise; that's your prerogative.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;52866883]Every major takeaway from Page testimony, neatly summarized, in the following thread: SGman, I have no interest whatsoever in arguing semantics with you today. Page's testimony was a fucking mess, but he [I]did[/I] reveal key info despite his attempts at deceit. You can pretend otherwise; that's your prerogative.[/QUOTE] "Semantics" is like the new throwaway line when you don't want to have to substantiate your claims. He literally never said anything about telling Sessions about meeting with Russians. That isn't semantics. That's the truth. You claiming that he did is 100% factually false, assuming we're talking about the same testimony I'm reading through. Page said that he mentioned to Sessions, in like a 10 second little chat, that he was glad to have been able to meet Sessions because he was going to be traveling to Russia in the next few days for a speech. The conversation is around page 100 and forward for anyone interested in checking.
[QUOTE=EXPLOOOSIONS!;52866003]people at t_d and /pol/ are already saying "ok so WHAT if the russians rigged the election, politics is about winning and if u want to win you've got to take every opportunity!" and the thing is, i can honestly see the trump team using that as their last resort[/QUOTE] To nobody's surprise. The last refuge of Trump's cult, now that a conspiracy between Trump's campaign and Russia is all but proven, is to justify the treason. "[I]Russia is actually our pal, and Trump was smart to work with them to save our country from Evil Hillary.[/I]"
[QUOTE=sgman91;52866891]"Semantics" is like the new throwaway line when you don't want to have to substantiate your claims. He literally never said anything about telling Sessions about meeting with Russians. That isn't semantics. That's the truth. You claiming that he did is 100% factually false, assuming we're talking about the same testimony I'm reading through. Page said that he mentioned to Sessions, in like a 10 second little chat, that he was glad to have been able to meet Sessions because he was going to be traveling to Russia in the next few days for a speech. The conversation is around page 100 and forward for anyone interested in checking.[/QUOTE] Excepting, of course, that he admitted having told and/or emailed everybody on the National Security team, which includes Sessions. Now's the part where you say that his "ten second conversation" and email alert don't really count, because how do you define "telling?" People call you out for semantics because they are the basis for, like, 90% of your arguments.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;52867783]Excepting, of course, that he admitted having told everybody on the National Security team, which includes Sessions. Now's the part where you say that his "ten second conversation" and email alert don't really count, because how do you define "telling?" People call you out for semantics because they are the basis for, like, 90% of your arguments.[/QUOTE] Like I said at the beginning: can you please quote the part where he said that? I mean, really, just quote the part where he tells Sessions about meeting Russians and it's done. That's all I want. It's a big document, and I've ready like 100 pages of it without seeing what you're talking about. I may very well have missed it or it might be later in the document.
[QUOTE=sgman91;52866891]Page said that he mentioned to Sessions, in like a 10 second little chat, that he was glad to have been able to meet Sessions because he was going to be traveling to Russia in the next few days for a speech.[/QUOTE] Overblown, it's overblown... It's not important. He spoke to him for ten seconds, big deal. Crooked BDA is lying, folks! He is totally desperate. I'll tell you. Desperate!
[QUOTE=sgman91;52867799]Like I said at the beginning: can you please quote the part where he said that? I mean, really, just quote the part where he tells Sessions about meeting Russians and it's done. That's all I want. It's a big document, and I've ready like 100 pages of it without seeing what you're talking about. I may very well have missed it or it might be later in the document.[/QUOTE] So he shares info with the whole council he was a part of, who Jeff Sessions was a apart of, and you literally have no problems saying "Didn't happen like that"? Neat. Argue semantics, argue reality, it's not really important. It's just absurd that what is little more than right wing flavored propaganda has completely short circuited so many peoples logic.
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;52867879]So he shares info with the whole council he was a part of, who Jeff Sessions was a apart of, and you literally have no problems saying "Didn't happen like that"? Neat. Argue semantics, argue reality, it's not really important. It's just absurd that what is little more than right wing flavored propaganda has completely short circuited so many peoples logic.[/QUOTE] I actually am not sure what quote he's talking about with the council. The only quotes I can think of are about the quick chat with Sessions while leaving the Republican event and the email, which was sent to two specific people (not the council or Sessions), about some Russians having positive opinions about Trump, which was clarified as not being about meetings. Tell me the page number and I'll go read it myself. I'm trying to figure out which part he's talking about. Hell, give me a 20 page section and I'll search for it. Maybe it's on the part I haven't gotten to yet.
[QUOTE]MR. GOWDY: Was the Trump campaign aware of your visit to Moscow in July of 2016? MR. PAGE: I had asked if, you know I had mentioned it a few times to J.D. Gordon, and I had you know, again, it was a standing invitation. And I sent a note around tora few of the members of our team and MR. GOWDY: Why? PAGE: Just to make sure that again, I wanted to be very careful, because there was starting to be some -- there was starting to be some allegations about or concerns about Russia in general. And ljust wanted to be careful, and just given the fact that my name was MR. GOWDY: Well, if you wanted to be super careful, why did you go? MR. PAGE: Because l'm trying to live my life and it's something I've spoken at these universities for well over a decade. MR. GOWDY: Well, if it was unrelated with the Trump campaign, why did you feel the need to email some of your ad hoc committee members to let them know you were going? MR. PAGE: Committee members, but also some members of the official campaign. I just -- similar to the way l'm being very careful with you, I want to be overly cautious not to create any concerns, et cetera. So [/QUOTE] This is page 53. This is talking about letting other people know about a meeting and a trip, people that would include jeff sessions despite him not being named due to the fact we can cross reference what groups he belonged to and what groups Page did. This is ridiculous. This is semantics. You can keep patting yourself on the back for your fierce defence of "truth" but this isn't truth. [url]https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/31/us/trump-foreign-policy-advisers.html[/url] [QUOTE]Finally, in late March, Mr. Trump presented his team, led by Jeff Sessions, the Alabama senator and future attorney general. Among the other five he named were Mr. Page and Mr. Papadopoulos, whom he described as “an energy and oil consultant, excellent guy.”[/QUOTE] Quite literally an in-excusable oversight on your part if you're genuinely trying to argue any points about this being a nothing burger of a story like you do with literally everything Trump does. Why? Because if you were unaware of such things, then what research are you really doing? If you were aware of it but aren't connecting the dots, then I'm wasting my time.
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;52867913]This is page 53. This is talking about letting other people know about a meeting and a trip, people that would include jeff sessions despite him not being named due to the fact we can cross reference what groups he belonged to and what groups Page did. This is ridiculous. This is semantics. You can keep patting yourself on the back for your fierce defence of "truth" but this isn't truth. [url]https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/31/us/trump-foreign-policy-advisers.html[/url] Quite literally an in-excusable oversight on your part if you're genuinely trying to argue any points about this being a nothing burger of a story like you do with literally everything Trump does. Why? Because if you were unaware of such things, then what research are you really doing? If you were aware of it but aren't connecting the dots, then I'm wasting my time.[/QUOTE] Thanks for posting the page. I do appreciate it. With that said, people keep bringing up the idea of "semantics" without actually showing how I'm arguing about semantics. BDA tried to make some strawman about me arguing about the meaning of "telling," but I'm clearly not doing that. So it's not really anything more than pointless attack. I'm argueing about what was actually said, the truth of what was spoken in the testimony. BDA, and the article cited in the OP, claimed, specifically, that Page's testimony further shows that Sessions committed perjury because Page told Sessions that he was going to Russia to meet with Russian government officials. Nothing in any quotes that anyone had provided have shown this. The quotes you provided right now don't mention it at all. It says that the campaign was aware of his visit to Russia. Well, yeah, I said that right at the beginning. Page directly told Sessions, to his face, about his visit to Russia. It wasn't a secret. The guy was going to give a commencement address at a high end Russian University that he had spoken at many times in the past. It wasn't some clandestine operation. The speech was recorded for god sakes. It was a public event. To say that Page telling the campaign that he's visiting Russia for a public university commencement speech is equivalent to saying that Page told the campaign about meeting with Russian government officials isn't semantics. It's two totally different truth claims.
[QUOTE=sgman91;52868043]Thanks for posting the page. I do appreciate it. With that said, people keep bringing up the idea of "semantics" without actually showing how I'm arguing about semantics. BDA tried to make some strawman about me arguing about the meaning of "telling," but I'm clearly not doing that. So it's not really anything more than pointless attack. I'm argueing about what was actually said, the truth of what was spoken in the testimony. BDA, and the article cited in the OP, claimed, specifically, that Page's testimony further shows that Sessions committed perjury because Page told Sessions that he was going to Russia to meet with Russian government officials. Nothing in any quotes that anyone had provided have shown this. The quotes you provided right now don't mention it at all. It says that the campaign was aware of his visit to Russia. Well, yeah, I said that right at the beginning. Page directly told Sessions, to his face, about his visit to Russia. It wasn't a secret. The guy was going to give a commencement address at a high end Russian University that he had spoken at many times in the past. It wasn't some clandestine operation. The speech was recorded for god sakes. It was a public event. [B]To say that Page telling the campaign that he's visiting Russia for a public university commencement speech is equivalent to saying that Page told the campaign about meeting with Russian government officials isn't semantics. It's two totally different truth claims.[/B][/QUOTE] you can't be serious
[QUOTE=sgman91;52868043]Thanks for posting the page. I do appreciate it. With that said, people keep bringing up the idea of "semantics" without actually showing how I'm arguing about semantics. BDA tried to make some strawman about me arguing about the meaning of "telling," but I'm clearly not doing that. So it's not really anything more than pointless attack. I'm argueing about what was actually said, the truth of what was spoken in the testimony. BDA, and the article cited in the OP, claimed, specifically, that Page's testimony further shows that Sessions committed perjury because Page told Sessions that he was going to Russia to meet with Russian government officials. Nothing in any quotes that anyone had provided have shown this. The quotes you provided right now don't mention it at all. It says that the campaign was aware of his visit to Russia. Well, yeah, I said that right at the beginning. Page directly told Sessions, to his face, about his visit to Russia. It wasn't a secret. The guy was going to give a commencement address at a high end Russian University that he had spoken at many times in the past. It wasn't some clandestine operation. The speech was recorded for god sakes. It was a public event. [B]To say that Page telling the campaign that he's visiting Russia for a public university commencement speech is equivalent to saying that Page told the campaign about meeting with Russian government officials isn't semantics. It's two totally different truth claims.[/B][/QUOTE] [img]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DN_7HbLW0AAaWNu.jpg[/img] [img]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DN__ESdX4AA_4aE.jpg[/img] :thinking:
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;52868634][img]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DN_7HbLW0AAaWNu.jpg[/img] [img]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DN__ESdX4AA_4aE.jpg[/img] :thinking:[/QUOTE] *clears throat* "Well, how can we be sure that what Page said was accurate? I know I said I was arguing about the 'truth of what was spoken at the testimony' and 'what was actually said,' but bear with me - what if Page was [I]lying[/I] about meeting with Russian legislators in the first place? How can we really be sure that it actually happened? Maybe he sent that email, and spoke those words, just so his friends in the Trump campaign would take him seriously? We just need to consider all the possibilities. Nobody's thought about that yet. We can't trust Page's deposition - he's already shown that he's willing to lie!" Let's see - implicitly refute my position from literally a post ago, cast more doubt on the situation, find an excuse for Trump/Sessions, double down, and ignore the actual facts going against my argument. Did I cover all the bases for an sgman91 post? He spoke those things. He sent that email. If you're concerned about "the truth of what was spoken," you have it - those conversations were [I]explicitly[/I] related to Trump and the campaign. From Page's own mouth. It [I]was[/I] "what was actually said." Got any other ways to dodge around it?
"no, what he [I]really[/I] meant was..."
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;52868634][img]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DN_7HbLW0AAaWNu.jpg[/img] [img]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DN__ESdX4AA_4aE.jpg[/img] :thinking:[/QUOTE] I thought you said you're not gonna argue semantics him :v:
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;52867783]People call you out for semantics because they are the basis for, like, 90% of your arguments.[/QUOTE] Were there a zing rating that'd cover 90% of every page on Facepunch it still wouldn't be big enough, and the joke would still be lost on sgman91. I can't count the number of times he's decided to argue facts that were virtually indisputable, and semantics were his only fallback. That and moving the goalposts. I've learned better than to get involved in those arguments since - it's like trying to explain something to someone who doesn't speak a word of English. Just plain exhausting. Look, if you've got to pick your battles, at least pick ones you've got some chance of winning. Like people making fun of Trump for cancelling a flight to the DMZ because of bad weather. That's totally legit. It doesn't take a lot of brains to figure out that yes, Sessions was in fact implicated again in Carter Page's testimony. Why else is the Senate Judiciary Committee pulling him up for yet another hearing like some recalcitrant schoolboy? For the DoJ head himself, that's just plain embarrassing. This'll be his, what... third? Fourth hearing?
It's a little depressing that any time I think we're rid of the bottom-of-the-barrel asinine posters of Polidicks, another one pops up and makes me go 'oh yeah, he still exists'.
Thanks for posting the sections you're referencing. [QUOTE=Big Dumb American;52868634][IMG]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DN_7HbLW0AAaWNu.jpg[/IMG][/QUOTE] Here's his response directly after that question: [IMG]https://i.imgur.com/6LuGieV.png[/IMG] [QUOTE][IMG]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DN__ESdX4AA_4aE.jpg[/IMG][/QUOTE] And here's his response to this: [IMG]https://i.imgur.com/ykYcBEw.png[/IMG] [IMG]https://i.imgur.com/16GWR1W.png[/IMG] Don't you think we should at least look at Page's response to the questions asked of him, even if we dismiss them as fabrication? Is he totally lying in his description of those emails? Sure, he could be.
Given that earlier in the same conversation, Page was pleading the fifth, that seems more than a little suspect, wouldn't you agree?
[QUOTE=archangel125;52869175]Given that earlier in the same conversation, Page was pleading the fifth, that seems more than a little suspect, wouldn't you agree?[/QUOTE] Again, if we're going to take him at his word, then he isn't pleading the 5th because he's afraid that the documents will incriminate him on the whole Russian thing, but because he's worried that his storage of documents won't be as comprehensive as the FBI's data gathering, that they've been doing secretly, on him, and that he will get in trouble because of it. Any time people asked him to provide a specific document to substantiate a claim, he was happy to agree. He even offered up documentation a few times. [editline]8th November 2017[/editline] If we're assuming that he's a lying SOB, then it doesn't really matter what he says.
If that's really all he was worried about, it would seem more prudent simply to disclose whatever he had with the caveat that he may not have all the papers the FBI had on him. One would assume one would get into less trouble by disclosing such things openly than pleading the fifth and it being assumed one had something to hide.
[QUOTE=archangel125;52869225]If that's really all he was worried about, it would seem more prudent simply to disclose whatever he had with the caveat that he may not have all the papers the FBI had on him. One would assume one would get into less trouble by disclosing such things openly than pleading the fifth and it being assumed one had something to hide.[/QUOTE] To be honest, I don't know the legal ramifications of it all. It's hard for me to evaluate which would be the better path for him legally. For example, let's say he didn't provide an email chain that ends up being important later on, but the FBI were able to gather it through other means. It would look like he had purposefully deleted it, when he might not have.
How you can read the top section of page 42 without any qualms about the claims you're making, I don't know. I don't have the ability to share with you information that is written on the wall in plain words. I don't have the energy nor the effort and I think you'll have to expend ten times what you already have to convince anyone here that this is a nothing burger.
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;52869288]How you can read the top section of page 42 without any qualms about the claims you're making, I don't know. I don't have the ability to share with you information that is written on the wall in plain words. I don't have the energy nor the effort and I think you'll have to expend ten times what you already have to convince anyone here that this is a nothing burger.[/QUOTE] By "the top section of page 42," are you talking about Schiff's statements? Clearly Schiff thinks Page is lying in his description of what he meant by that comment about "insight" and "outreach." Yeah, I get that. That's why I said that Page may very well be lying. If you're going to assume that Page is lying, then his response is fairly irrelevant. If you don't think he's lying, then it's relevant that he clarified that email as not referring to any meetings. It was, instead, in reference to general outreach shown by the Russian's through their speeches, news coverage, etc.
So what's the point of Gowdy grilling him over Pages different definitions of "meetings/greetings/listening to a speech" if we're just going to take Page at face value in regards to this? Why does Gowdy seem like a more rigorous individual towards Page, then you seem? You seem ready to believe him, Gowdy doesn't seem to believe him as he has info you and I don't. I am genuinely at the point with you where I don't think Page stating outright "I did bad things" would earn anything but a vehement semantic defence of what he "really meant"
Carter Page: "I literally went to Russia to discuss sanctions, collusion with Putin, and how to develop meaningful relations between the Russian Government and the Trump Campaign." sgman91: "im pretty sure that when he said 'literally' he really was being non-literal, and please define 'discussions' because he could have been listening to a speech, and by collusion im pretty sure he meant talking to" :v:
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;52869714]So what's the point of Gowdy grilling him over Pages different definitions of "meetings/greetings/listening to a speech" if we're just going to take Page at face value in regards to this? Why does Gowdy seem like a more rigorous individual towards Page, then you seem? You seem ready to believe him, Gowdy doesn't seem to believe him as he has info you and I don't. I am genuinely at the point with you where I don't think Page stating outright "I did bad things" would earn anything but a vehement semantic defence of what he "really meant"[/QUOTE] Gowdy didn't grill him about that, he clarified how he was using those words. For any discussion to be clear, the people within the discussion need to agree on how words are being used (technically called "defining terms") So that's what Gowdy did. For example, on page 52, Page clarified that when he said he "met" someone that he didn't mean he sat down and had a meeting with them. He just meant that he "met" them in the sense that he greeted them, shook their hand, exchanged a few words, etc. Gowdy has the correct response to this: he says, "I'm more interested in the content as opposed to the duration. I don't really care how long the handshake took." Gowdy went to the meat of the issues, which is the substance of the conversation, not whether the word "meet," or "meeting" applies. Page answers by saying that the conversation had "No substantive content." Gowdy responds to this clear statement by dropping the point and moving on. Unlike Schiff, Gowdy doesn't really express his opinion on whether he thinks it's true or not. [editline]8th November 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=Quark:;52869736]Carter Page: "I literally went to Russia to discuss sanctions, collusion with Putin, and how to develop meaningful relations between the Russian Government and the Trump Campaign." sgman91: "im pretty sure that when he said 'literally' he really was being non-literal, and please define 'discussions' because he could have been listening to a speech, and by collusion im pretty sure he meant talking to" :v:[/QUOTE] This sort of response really makes me question if you're reading with any comprehension at all. I've responded, this entire time, by giving Page's response to those questions, in his own words. I'm not sure how you can think I'm trying to twist his words by quoting his own words and analysis of the statements in question. Page is the one making these claims. If you think he's a big fat liar, then fine, but they are his words. I'm not twisting them at all.
Either Page was been lying to the Trump campaign team, or to Congress about the Trump campaign team, because the documents (which he Illegally withheld despite a subpoena) are pretty damn explicit, and his explanations for them make no sense whatsoever. So, either he's telling the truth now, and lied to the campaign staff in his emails, or he told the truth to his campaign team and is now lying to congress under oath. Given Papadopoulos's testimony, and the fact that the documents confirm major pillars of the Steelers dossier, I think I know which way I'm leaning.
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