DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Trump Bankrolled, by proxy, through Russian Investors; alleged Putin Connections Exist

If sowing civil disruption in the United States was their goal, Hillary would be their preferred choice. Actually, Obama would be their choice, but since that option is realistically off the table, Hillary would be the next best thing. She would continue the rhetoric and policies that got us into this unrest in the first place. Trump is the law and order candidate.

Cool ... We'll be neighbors ..

I'll send u my address when I close ...

We need to talk ..

That's what amazes me ... Hillary/oBUMa have done nothing to Russia or anyone else for that matter ..

ALL our enemies are licking there chops at another 4 years of doing nothing .. NOTHING ..

Why would they want Trump? .. That makes no sense ..

Really it is about choosing the lesser of the two evils. As really can't really find the lesser of the two. This election could turn out to be the lowest ever!

It's a good question. I have some ideas although nothing that I'm really confident enough about to share on here. I do wonder if further leaks will clarify the situation.

Putin isn't trying to help Trump, Putin hates and has always hated Hillary. He is nailing her now and enjoying it.

I don't know. If you want to see something ran into the ground just look at a Trump business for a decade. I'm not sure Trump is the law and order candidate either... Or why he'd want to be, considering how bad Nixon was.

But Obama's approval rating is around 60%. I'm sure both Republicans and Democrats alike would love to have him over Trump or Hillary.

Just when I thought I was out, IT drags me bag in. Only 40 and company could take a thread about Trump taking money from the russians and turn it into a bash the BLM movement thread. Talk about political misdirection and utter nonsense!

40, we all know you were born a poor black child, so I don't understand your anger?



Now back on topic, Trump would never go for this:



Because he want's this:



after he bankrupts America.

-Yes 40 I do not understand why these posters read the News when you give it to them days in advance. So wise...



If Russia is indeed behind the damaging leak of Democratic Party emails on the eve of its national convention, it's not just because President Vladimir Putin likes Republican nominee Donald Trump and his pro-Russian views, former U.S. officials and experts tell NBC News.

It's because the former KGB operative hates Trump's Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, with such a passion that he wants to embarrass her personally and undermine — if not derail — her presidential campaign, they say.

For a Russian leader who is considered as vain as he is ruthless, Clinton's criticism long ago crossed over from the political into the personal. He carries a grudge against a woman who has publicly compared him to Hitler and expressed doubts that he has a soul.

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/27/dnc-email-hack-why-vladimir-putin-hates-hillary-clinton.html

Trump said he was not certain Russia was behind the theft, but said, "if it is Russia, it's really bad for a different reason, because it shows how little respect they have for our country when they would hack into a major party and get everything."

But oh, that must have been yesterday...because today



Donald Trump Encourages Russia to Find Hillary Clinton’s Missing Emails


By ASHLEY PARKERJULY 27, 2016



Donald J. Trump at a news conference in Doral, Fla., on Wednesday. Credit Todd Heisler/The New York Times

DORAL, Fla. — Donald J. Trump said Wednesday that he hoped Russia had hacked Hillary Clinton’s email, essentially encouraging a foreign power’s cyberspying of a secretary of state’s correspondence.


“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Mr. Trump said, staring directly into the cameras. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”


Mr. Trump’s call was an extraordinary moment at a time when Russia is being accused of meddling in the U.S. presidential election. His comments came amid questions about the hacking of the Democratic National Committee’s computer servers, which researchers have concluded was likely the work of two Russian intelligence agencies.


Later in the news conference, when asked if he was really urging a foreign nation to hack into the private email server of Mrs. Clinton, or at least meddle in the nation’s elections, he dismissed the question. “That’s up to the president,” Mr. Trump said, before finally telling the female questioner to “be quiet — let the president talk to them.”

The Clinton campaign immediately accused Mr. Trump of both encouraging Russian espionage against the United States and meddling in domestic politics.


“This has to be the first time that a major presidential candidate has actively encouraged a foreign power to conduct espionage against his political opponent,” said Jake Sullivan, Mrs. Clinton’s chief foreign policy adviser. “This has gone from being a matter of curiosity, and a matter of politics, to being a national security issue.”

Mr. Trump has largely dismissed assertions that Russia was behind the Democratic committee breach as conspiracy theories — a view he reiterated again when he said the hack “is probably not Russia.”


But at the news conference at one of his Florida golf courses, as the third day of the Democratic National Convention was set to begin in Philadelphia, the Republican presidential nominee refused to unequivocally call on Vladimir V. Putin, Russia’s president, to not meddle in the United States’ presidential election.



“I’m not going to tell Putin what to do,” Mr. Trump said. “Why should I tell Putin what to do?”


He added that if Russia, or any foreign government, is, in fact, behind the hack, it simply shows just how little respect other nations have for the current administration.


“President Trump would be so much better for U.S. relations” than a President Clinton, Mr. Trump said. “I don’t think he respects Clinton.”

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Comments

As an avalanche of criticism poured over Mr. Trump, some Republicans defended his comments as a worthy attack on Mrs. Clinton. Former Representative Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, a former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Mr. Trump was right to keep hammering Mrs. Clinton on the subject of her private emails.


Mr. Hoekstra said he was untroubled by Mr. Trump’s goading on of a foreign power.

”Trump is bringing up a fairly valid point: Hillary Clinton with her personal email at the State Department, has put the Russians in a very enviable position,” Mr. Hoekstra said. “Most likely the Russians already have all that info on Hillary.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/28/us/pol...www.nytimes.com

Wow. Millions of people have already voted for this asshat to be PRESIDENT of our country.

He called out and urged a foreign hostile government to gain access to private information from a high ranking US government official and citizen.

Just think about that. That is who YOU are planning on voting for.

He's seriously a wild card. Between his childish name calling and etc, just yikes.

Has he no idea how much of a buffoon he makes himself sound when he says something like that? Doesn't he know what position he's running for? Wow.

Any press is good press to Donald Trump.

There's an old saying,"tongue in cheek"

Humor always gets lost within hatred.

Incorrect. He asked if they could find them. As they are already deleted from her server, which was not a government server, they'd have to already have them on hand, or get them from another hacker out in the world. When you think about it, we already had a high ranking government official leave all her private information out there free for the taking, seeing as she had no protections on that server.

I'd like to see those emails too. I think those are the ones of her selling influence, and I'd like to know what her prices are.

I like to bring you the News ahead of time so I am warning everyone now...

Those emails are on their way.

Film at 11

"Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press."

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/28/us/politics/donald-trump-russia-clinton-emails.html

Hear it yourself from the horse's ass mouth.

The Dem's forgot:


July 27, 2016

Remember when Ted Kennedy asked the Soviets for help defeating Reagan?

By Thomas Lifson


The Democrats are desperately diverting attention away from their rigging the nomination fight by charging that Russia is interfering in our election. But there was a time when going to Moscow to help defeat the other party didn’t seem to disturb Democrats. In fact, with the help of friendly media, the entire incident has been sent to the memory hole. Once upon a time it was revealed, but nobody outside of the conservative ghetto remembers.

But Betsy Newmark of Betsy’s Page remembers: (hat tip: Instapundit):






As the Democrats struggle to turn the story of the DNC hacks into an attack on Trump by arguing that the Russians are behind the hack and that Putin is trying to help Trump get elected, let's remember when a prominent Democrat actually went to the Soviets for help in defeating Reagan. In 1984 Ted Kennedy approached the Soviets who were then led by the former KGB head, Yuri Andropov, and tried to negotiate help in opposing Reagan. We found out about Kennedy's efforts when Yeltsin opened up the Soviet archives in 1991. Sean Davis links to the story as reported in Forbes.

Picking his way through the Soviet archives that Boris Yeltsin had just thrown open, in 1991 Tim Sebastian, a reporter for the London Times, came across an arresting memorandum. Composed in 1983 by Victor Chebrikov, the top man at the KGB, the memorandum was addressed to Yuri Andropov, the top man in the entire USSR. The subject: Sen. Edward Kennedy.

“On 9-10 May of this year,” the May 14 memorandum explained, “Sen. Edward Kennedy’s close friend and trusted confidant [John] Tunney was in Moscow.” (Tunney was Kennedy’s law school roommate and a former Democratic senator from California.) “The senator charged Tunney to convey the following message, through confidential contacts, to the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Y. Andropov.”

Kennedy’s message was simple. He proposed an unabashed quid pro quo. Kennedy would lend Andropov a hand in dealing with President Reagan. In return, the Soviet leader would lend the Democratic Party a hand in challenging Reagan in the 1984 presidential election. “The only real potential threats to Reagan are problems of war and peace and Soviet-American relations,” the memorandum stated. “These issues, according to the senator, will without a doubt become the most important of the election campaign.”

This is open, self-initiated collaboration with a rival power, and there’s a name for that sort of thing, “treason.” But that word is not associated with any Kennedy (at least not since Joe was Ambassador to the UK) because of the studious ignoring of the story coming from the Soviet archives.

Compared this reliable evidence, the case against Trump is made of air. We don’t know who did the hacking, and the bits of code that supposedly incriminate the Russians could well be a false flag operation, as argued by intelligence expert Michael Ledeen. There is no evidence at all of any Trump business in Russia, and he has denied having any investments there. There is, in other words, nothing to connect Trump to the leaks, much less to Russia.

The amount of attention paid to the non-evidence of Trump versus the studied avoidance of the conclusive evidence of Ted Kennedy soliciting enemy collaboration against a domestic political rival is the epitome of our propaganda media.



http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016...ing_reagan.html

Yes, the Dems would rather have us look everywhere else but at slimy, crooked Hillary.

Oh Oh Trump!
Oh Oh Russians!
Oh Oh don't look at the TRUTH of Hillary.

Saying "but what a totally unrelated democrat did in 1983 is way worse than what Trump is accused of" is diversion.



Put in by the "real" hacker, who claimed out loud "his" work? Who can barely construct sentences in his claimed native language? Why got hrough all that trouble to make it look like it was coming from Russia, right down to the activity matchign the time zone and Russian Holiday schedule if you're just going to openly say "it was me! Me me me!"

Trump really likes Russia.

Not to mention this "hacker" hates being associated with Russia, yet applies all of their customs.

What a terrible thing indeed if we have a President who can actually get along with and work with Russia.

You remember Russia don't you? You know, that Nation that has enough Nukes aimed at us to kill us all. Yea, them.

You say it full of snark and whatever... but, this is actually probably the closest thing to the truth that there is.

Uh, thanks?

Let me get this straight. You're ok with how Hillary dealt extensively with information that was from classified to above top secret, on an unsecured private server, against state department policies and quite frankly, common sense. She then had someone delete said emails in a specific way to make it so they would not be retrievable. I should make a note here that typically when files are 'deleted', they can still be found in the memory; it would take someone far more knowledgeable than Hillary to delete them in such a way that they could not be retrieved by the FBI.

This is ok. Her opponent making a tongue in cheek (or not, whatever) comment about an adversary finding said emails is an outrage. Where is the consistency?!

By the way, Wikileaks has already said they are going to release some of the more damaging and illegal stuff that Hillary was involved in. They have a history of promising to deliver the goods, and then delivering the goods. When does it happen... while she is on stage at the DNC? October surprise? I don't know. I do think it will be an interesting few months.

I guess I'm having a hard time wondering why criticizing trump automatically means a support for Hilary.

Did clevesteve ever say he was cool with what Hilary did?

Good point. I shouldn't have read into that as much as I did.

I wonder, would a Trump president welcome back Putin's house pet, Edward Snowden...the traitor to America, who sought and was granted asylum in Russia by Putin?

Trump, openly asking for Putin to help get him elected by finding and releasing emails that might be damaging to Trump's opponent..that disqualifies Trump to be the Commander in Chief, imo.



Fact check: Trump’s presser on Clinton emails, Putin and more

8:08 p.m. EDT July 27, 2016

Donald Trump made several false and misleading statements in an hourlong press conference Wednesday — on Bernie Sanders, Vladimir Putin, Hillary Clinton’s emails and more.

• The Republican presidential candidate wrongly said that Sen. Bernie Sanders had “lied” in saying Trump supported a minimum wage below $7.25. In fact, Trump told NBC News in May that he didn’t support a federal “floor” and would leave it up to the states. Sanders got it right.

• Trump insisted again that Vladimir Putin called him a “genius,” even though Putin clarified just last month that he called Trump “flamboyant.”

• We found no evidence to corroborate Trump’s claim that Putin “mentioned the N-word one time.” Two experts on Russia told us they had no idea what Trump was talking about.

• Trump claimed with no evidence that Hillary Clinton deleted emails from her private server “after she gets a subpoena” from Congress.

• There’s also no evidence for Trump’s repeated claim that “many people” saw or knew about “bombs lying all over the floor” of the San Bernardino shooters’ home and didn’t report it.

• Trump said Blue Cross Blue Shield in Texas had “announced a 60% increase” in health insurance premiums. That’s a proposed increase for 2017 that has yet to be approved by regulators for certain plans purchased by those buying their own insurance.

In the press conference, Trump was right about one top Democrat, Vice President Biden. Trump pointed out that Biden was wrong to say that Trump wanted to “carpet-bomb” in the Middle East to fight the Islamic State. Sen. Ted Cruz said that.
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I have heard where the democrats are calling it treason that Trump would encourage a foreign power to produce emails.

How is it treason if the emails don't contain state secrets?

I honestly don't know.


Trump is a showman first, "business" man second. Everything he does is typical of the old adage where you accuse your opponent of having relations with an animal just to have them deny it.


Also, on her private server, just because she wiped out he server doesn't mean the emails disappear. IF she hit send, someone received it. If she received it, someone sent it. There has to be copies out there being held by someone. Right?

A candidate openly and publicly asking for assistance from Putin and Russia, to interfere in the American election process is un-American.




Op-Ed Trump's opposition research firm: Russia's intelligence agencies

by Max Boot
July 25, 2016

As a lifelong Republican, I don’t much care who runs the Democratic National Committee. But I am deeply disturbed by the way that Debbie Wasserman Schultz was forced to resign as the DNC head over the weekend. WikiLeaks released 20,000 stolen emails revealing a clear, if unsurprising, preference for Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders among Democratic officials. This appears to be a foreign intervention in American politics — and it may only be the beginning.

Last month, CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm hired by the DNC, traced the source of the leaks to two groups of hackers (“Cozy Bear” and “Fancy Bear”) associated with two Russian intelligence agencies. Moscow’s virtual fingerprints are all over this operation, including hyperlinks in Cyrillic and Internet protocol addresses linked to previous Russian hacks. In short, this appears to be a Russian intelligence operation designed to damage Clinton.

The Russians have every reason to sabotage the Democratic candidate. Her opponent, Donald Trump, is more pro-Russia than any previous presidential candidate. As far back as 2007, Trump was telling CNN that Russian President Vladimir Putin was doing a “great job.” In 2013, Trump tweeted: “Do you think Putin will be going to The Miss Universe Pageant in November in Moscow - if so, will he become my new best friend?” In 2015, Trump told MSNBC that Putin was a real leader, “unlike what we have in this country,” and that reports of Putin killing political opponents didn’t bother him — “Well, I think our country does plenty of killing also,” he said.

Trump repeatedly says he would “get along very well with” Putin. In return Putin has praised Trump as “bright and talented.” Trump positively glows as he repeats reports that “Putin likes me.”

The Trump-Russia links beneath the surface are even more extensive, as Franklin Foer has shown in Slate. Trump has sought and received funding from Russian investors for his business ventures, especially after most American banks stopped lending to him following his multiple bankruptcies. Trump’s de facto campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was a longtime consultant to Viktor Yanukovich, the Russian-backed president of Ukraine who was overthrown in 2014. Manafort also has done multimillion-dollar business deals with Russian oligarchs.

Trump has sought and received funding from Russian investors for his business ventures, especially after most American banks stopped lending to him.

Trump’s foreign policy advisor Carter Page has his own business ties to the state-controlled Russian oil giant Gazprom. He recently delivered a speech in Moscow slamming the United States for its “hypocritical focus on ideas such as democratization” and praising Russia for a foreign policy supposedly built on “noninterference,” “tolerance” and “respect.” (Try telling that to Ukraine.) Another Trump foreign policy advisor, retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, flew to Moscow last year to attend a gala banquet celebrating Russia Today, the Kremlin’s propaganda channel, and was seated at the head table near Putin. Flynn is a regular guest on Russia Today; he refuses to say whether he gets paid.

Given the pro-Putin orientation of Trump and his circle, it is no surprise that his campaign quietly rolled back a call in the GOP platform for arming Ukraine to fight back against Russian aggression, as most Republican foreign-policy experts have advocated. Trump has more than once criticized NATO, the chief obstacle to Russian designs, as obsolete and has said he wouldn’t necessarily come to the aid of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s members if they are attacked by Russia. Trump also cheered Britain’s vote to exit the European Union, another institution that Putin sees as an impediment to his influence.

Trump’s campaign — whose slogan might as well be “Make Russia Great Again”— presents Putin with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reorient American foreign policy in Russia’s favor. Without the countering influence of the U.S., Putin has a good chance to achieve his dream of undoing the collapse of the Soviet Union, which he has called a “geopolitical catastrophe,” by re-swallowing Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and other former Soviet republics.

Putin may just be getting started in his campaign to elect Trump. Bloomberg reported in June the Clinton Foundation was breached by Russian hackers. The Russians may also have acquired the emails that Hillary Clinton sent as secretary of State. Putin might be holding back explosive material until October, when its release could ensure a Trump victory.

Such a development ought to alarm all Americans, even Republicans. The idea of a hostile foreign power interfering in a U.S. election is a threat to our democracy, one that Republican leaders would be condemning if they hadn’t checked their principles at the gate in exchange for tickets on the Trump Train.

Max Boot is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a contributing writer to Opinion.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook
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It is also very disturbing to know for sure that the people didnt get who they wanted. If Bernie was intentionally bumped that means our elections are rigged (some of us think that already, but this proves it).

The funny thing about this is that this server has been offline for a long time now. It would be impossible to hack now for that reason, so if the Russians do have the emails, they already had them long before Trump made that comment.

There's also a sort of catch-22 for the Democrats.

Did the server and the emails contain highly sensitive state secrets? If so, that makes Trump's comments a bigger deal..... and also Hillary's involvement in such a thing a much bigger deal. If she was truly just harmless personal communication, it would let Hillary off the hook, but then again Trump's comments wouldn't be as big of a deal.

Unfortunately we can't know the truth because that information was deleted in such a way that it could not be retrieved by the FBI. Of course, we are talking about an unsecured private server here, meaning it is likely that some actor out there has it and it's possible the information will be released.

You see, if she is caught red-handed trading state secrets for cash (either directly or through the Foundation), that would be a huge blow to Hillary. We already know that some of the Clinton Foundation donors received arms deals, which is sketchy enough to begin with, but establishing a true quid pro quo would make it highly illegal. We'll see what happens. I don't have the exact details but this much I'm confident on: The big leak, the bombshell if you will, is still yet to come.

Dems can't secure their emails, but people want to trust them with our healthcare.

What matters to me, more and more, Trumps connection to Putin and Russia. Below is a story about Putin and his method of rule in Russia...this is the man Trump is in bed with!

If the Russian dictator who has been implicated as the man behind several murders of political opponents and journalists, is openly being courted by Trump...that bothers me.

Putin is doing all he can to turn back time and restore the old Soviet Union and it concerns me that Trump appears to be in bed with Putin. Putin will use Trump and expect favors in return for the Russian support Putin is giving Trump.




The Putin Critics Who Have Been Assassinated

Boris Nemtsov is the latest in a long line of opposition figures who have died under suspicious circumstances in recent years.

Monday 04 July 2016

Boris Nemtsov is the latest in a long line of opposition figures who have died under suspicious circumstances in recent years.

The murder of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov close to the Kremlin makes him the latest vocal critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin to die violently or in suspicious circumstances.

The former deputy prime minister was gunned down in central Moscow while walking home from a restaurant with his girlfriend on Friday.

Mr Putin has pledged a full investigation into his death and said he will take personal charge of it.

Some activists have accused Mr Putin of being responsible, while his supporters have suggested Mr Nemtsov's murder may have been a provocation aimed at tarnishing the president's image.

No suspects have been arrested following the murder, considered the one of the most shocking in a long list of suspected political assassinations during Mr Putin's rule.

The Kremlin has denied any involvement in the deaths of these high-profile activists, politicians, journalists and lawyers.

:: Alexander Litvinenko - 2006
Former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko died in November 2006, almost three weeks after drinking tea poisoned with radioactive polonium-210.

It is understood he ingested the tea during a meeting with two fellow former Russian spies, Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun, at the Millennium Hotel in London's Grosvenor Square. Both deny any involvement in his death and remain in Russia.

Before fleeing Russia and being given British nationality, Litvinenko had accused Mr Putin of corruption. He also blamed Mr Putin for a number of apartment block bombings which helped start the Second Chechen War in 1999, the popularity of which helped bring him to power.

:: Anna Politkovskaya - 2006
The 48-year-old journalist, a prominent critic of Mr Vladimir Putin, was gunned down at her Moscow apartment block on 7 October 2006, the president's birthday. She was shot twice in the chest, once in the shoulder, and once, at point blank range, in the head

Five men were found guilty of the killing, including the gunman Rustam Makhmudov, although it is not yet known who ordered the killing.

Ms Politkovskaya specialised in uncovering state corruption and rights abuses. She won international acclaim for her reports in the Putin-critical newspaper Novaya Gazeta, about Russian abuses in Chechnya, and for her book Putin's Russia.

Magnitsky- 2009
Lawyer Sergei Magnitsky died in police custody in November 2009 after allegedly being denied medical treatment and brutally beaten.

He had been instructed by British-American businessman William Browder to investigate a multi-million tax fraud against the Russian state which Mr Browder's businesses had become unwittingly involved in. But when Magnitsky found evidence suggesting that police officials were behind the fraud, he was arrested and charged with having carried it out himself.

In July 2012 he was convicted - three years after his death - of tax evasion. Mr Browder successfully lobbied the US government to impose sanctions on those linked to Magnitsky's death.

: Natalia Estemirova - 2009
The prominent human rights activist was found dead hours after being kidnapped on 15 July, 2009, in the Chechen capital, Grozny.

The 51-year-old had collected evidence of human rights abuses in Chechnya since the start of the second war there in 1999.

She also worked with the investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was murdered in 2006.

:: Stanislav Markelov and Anastasia Baburova - 2009

Leading human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov was gunned down in broad daylight on 19 January, 2009.

Journalist Anastasia Baburova, 25, was shot dead after she tried to come to his assistance.

Mr Markelov had just held a press conference to protest at the early release of an army colonel who was jailed for the killing of a young Chechen girl. He had also represented the murdered journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

:: Paul Klebnikov - 2004
Another investigative journalist, Paul Klebnikov, an American of Russian descent, was killed outside his office in a drive-by shooting in Moscow in 2004. He was the editor of Forbes Russia.

Mr Klebnikov had written about corruption in Russia and Forbes had published a list of Russia's richest people.

:: Sergei Yushenkov - 2003

The co-chairman of the Liberal Russia movement was murdered outside his home in Moscow, on 17 April 2003.

According to the Moscow Times, he was gunned down just hours after the Justice Ministry officially registered his Liberal Russia movement as a party.

:: Boris Berezovsky - 2013
Once one of the most powerful men in Russia, the self-made tycoon was leader of the so-called "oligarchs" who wielded power during the presidency of Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s.

But after falling out with Mr Putin - who is said to have been handpicked by Berezovsky as Yeltsin's successor - he fled and settled in Britain, where he became an outspoken critic of the new president.

He was found dead at his Berkshire home in March 2013 in an apparent suicide, although an inquest into his death recorded an open verdict.

SUSPECTED SHOW TRIALS

Alongside the suspicious deaths, there have been a series of criminal cases condemned as political "show trials" by critics of Mr Putin. Most recently was the case of anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny.

The Kremlin denies any political motivation and insists the judiciary is independent.

:: Alexei Navalny
The 38-year-old lawyer and activist rose to prominence by exposing political corruption in his blog before becoming a prominent speaker at anti-Putin rallies. He coined the phrase "party of crooks and thieves" to describe United Russia, Mr Putin's party.

He and his brother Oleg were charged with defrauding several companies, including the Russian subsidiary of the French cosmetics company Yves Rocher.

He was convicted in December of fraud and given a three-and-a-half-year suspended sentence. His brother Oleg was jailed for the same period.

:: Sergei Udaltsov
The leader of the Left Front political grouping, the 37-year-old has described himself as a "Soviet patriot". He and his wife Anastasia have been nicknamed "Russia's Revolutionary Couple".

After playing a prominent role in anti-Putin protests, Mr Udaltsov was charged over a demonstration held the day before Mr Putin's inauguration for his third term as president in May 2012.

He was jailed for four and a half years for organising the protest, which had turned violent.

:: Leonid Razvozzhaev
A Left Front colleague of Sergei Udaltsov, he faced the same charges but fled Russia and tried to seek political asylum in neighbouring Ukraine.

He claimed that while his application was being considered, he was kidnapped, taken back to Russia, tortured and forced to sign confessions which he subsequently disowned.

Russian authorities insisted that he had given himself up voluntarily.

He was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison.

:: Mikhail Kosenko
he political activist was convicted of using violence against police officers during the same Bolotnaya Square protests that Sergei Udaltsov and Leonid Razvozzhaev were jailed for organising.

Despite testimony that he was a peaceful demonstrator, Mr Kosenko was sentenced to indefinite psychiatric detention. He was released in July 2014.

Amnesty International said: "Kosenko’s only 'crime' was publicly expressing his beliefs. This is reminiscent of the Soviet-era tactics when the authorities used psychiatric treatment to silence dissenting voices."

:: Greenpeace
In September 2013, 30 Greenpeace activists, including six Britons, were arrested for taking part in a protest at an Arctic oil installation.

They were initially charged with piracy, which could have carried a prison term of up to 15 years. The charge was downgraded to hooliganism, which still could have carried a seven-year term, before they were released after two months in detention.

At the time Mr Putin said their treatment should serve as a lesson to others and suggested unnamed foreign rivals could have been behind their actions.

:: Riot
The all-female punk group were jailed for two years for hooliganism for performing an anti-Putin song in Moscow's main cathedral in March 2012.

They were freed in an amnesty initiated by Mr Putin in December 2013 shortly before the Winter Olympics in the Russian city of Sochi.

Yevtushenkov
One of Russia's richest men, the billionaire was placed under house arrest in September on suspicion of money-laundering over his purchase of a controlling stake in oil company Bashneft.

He was released from house arrest on 17 December and was praised in Mr Putin's annual press conference two days later.

However, Kremlin critics say the case is part of a bid by the Russian government to regain control of oil and gas assets sold off in the chaotic privatisations of the 1990s.

The arrest has led to comparisons with the case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky
Mr Khodorkovsky was one of the original "oligarchs" - the tycoons who took advantage of the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s to make their fortunes, before using their clout to effectively rule Russia during the weak presidency of illness-plagued Boris Yeltsin.

In 2003 Mr Khodorkovsky was arrested on charges of fraud. He was jailed for nine years and his oil company Yukos broken up by the state. He and his business partner, Platon Lebedev, were put on trial again in 2010, this time for embezzlement, and were jailed for another four years. Mr Khodorkovsky was suddenly released in December 2013.

Both trials were seen as politically-motivated and a signal from Mr Putin to the rich and powerful to think twice before supporting opposition parties.
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Well since I think the links between Trump and Putin are fringe at best, I'm not particularly concerned that (at least within the context of the U.S. election). By the way, you should do some research into what happens to the Clintons' opponents. They have a way of disappearing under suspicious circumstances.

I love how Clinton's emails were nothing of any national security importance ....... most were of a personal nature, with a whole lot of them being correspondence between Hill and Bill. (even though Bill says that he has only send one email in his entire lifetime)

So ..... yoga tips.... family vacation photos ... wedding plans ...... all things that Hillary Clinton claimed were on the server, and were deleted, (because we all delete family vacation photos) are nothing when it's Hillary Clinton at risk ...... but they are a matter of national security if it's anyone but Clinton.

The whole Trump thing was so obviously sarcastic .... but it is the kind of thing Democrats have to latch on to to divert attention from the racist emails found on the DNC email server.

I will say this ..... the Democrats seem bound and determined to force me into having to take the only step I can take to stop Hillary Clinton .... that being voting for Trump. (gag) I cannot do that .... but man .... they keep doing what he, himself cannot do ...... and are making him look better and better with each passing day.

What racist emails?

They referred to Hispanics as Taco Bowls sarcastically.