Those are not the same damn things at all, as using foreign aid to an important strategic ally as leverage against their president's willingness to perform a campaign favor for you. I also have a problem with your characterization of the Russian probe as "unfounded".
The June 9th, 2016 meeting at Trump Tower between senior members of the 2016 Trump Campaign (Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner), and agents representing the Russian government did take place. Trump Sr. and Jr. both told lies to the media regarding who was in attendance at this meeting and what its true purpose was. At first, Trump Jr. said the meeting was to discuss Russian adoptions. It later came to light that he wanted to take the meeting to discuss dirt on Hillary Clinton. That meeting and those lies by themselves justified a collusion probe. Why lie if there was nothing wrong with the meeting? Those lies represented a consciousness of guilt.
Also, two weeks ago, the United States Treasury Department revealed that Paul Manafort's top aide, Rick Gates, passed along sensitive campaign polling data to Russian intelligence in 2016 by way of a Manafort associate in Russia named Konstantin Kilimnik:
"During the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign, Kilimnik provided the Russian Intelligence Services with sensitive information on polling and campaign strategy," the Treasury Department wrote while announcing a new batch of sanctions against both Russia and Kilimnik.
Of the varied flimsy rationale for the Mueller probe, this was among the flimsiest as the 14 page treatment and disposal of the meeting attests in his report. Do you find it just a bit strange occurrence the Russian lawyer Veselnitskaya was also in league with Fusion GPS and met with founder Simpson the day of and prior to meeting with Jr/et al, and then evening of the Trump Tower meeting? That Fusion planted a false allegation re: William Browder (who championed the Magintsky Act) with the attending translator Anatoli Samochornov? That the Mueller report referred to the translator multiple times but never the exculpatory evidence that Samochornov outright stated there was no collusion or conspiracy implications during the meet? But then, that was a pattern for the Comey FBI/Mueller hoaxes; they are readily identified by what they purposely omit.
Buried From Trump Tower Meeting: Translator Telling FBI 'No Collusion' | RealClearInvestigations
You mean this Konstantin Kilimnik/Paul Manafort duo?
Ukrainian flagged as intel danger to Trump had extensive contact with Obama officials, memos show who served not only the Obama State Dept. as trusted and protected sources and facilitators, but were employed frequently by State and EU nations for over a decade prior to 2016? Isn't it odd that they only became sinister under the Clinton/DNC Russia collusion hoax?
"Some intelligence officials interviewed by Just the News expressed surprise at the disparate treatment.
"The Senate report does not give a complete picture to the Obama-era State Department contacts where information was shared two ways with Kilimnik and Manafort," said a U.S. intelligence source directly familiar with Russia intelligence and Kilimnik's dealings with State. "Either this is as serious for State as it was for Trump and there needs to be a damage assessment, or the Senate report is overstating the concerns about Kilimnik for political effect."
"Mueller's final report suggested Kilimnik was assessed to have had ties to Russian intelligence but stopped short of calling him a Russian officer like the Senate report later would. Kilimnik has long denied working for Russian intelligence.
Hundreds of pages of State Department emails, interviews and other communications reviewed by Just the News show Mueller's team gathered evidence that both Kilimnik and Manafort had extensive dealings with the Obama State Department prior to the Russia probe starting in summer 2016.
The documents state flatly that Manafort had been used by the U.S. embassy for nearly a decade as a facilitator with Ukrainian officials on topics as sensitive as getting Ukrainians to turn over nuclear materials and arranging European aid packages. Kilimnik, meanwhile, was treated as a "sensitive source" since at least 2013 by the U.S. embassy's top officials in Kiev, the memos also show.
An FBI interview with Manafort, for instance, divulged that the then-Republican lobbyist was regularly used by the U.S. embassy as an intermediary to the Ukrainian government run by the Russia-friendly Viktor Yanukovych, who was ousted from power in early 2014. Manafort "briefed U.S. Ambassadors in succession; John Herbst, William Taylor, John Teft, and Geoffrey Pyatt, on a regular basis," the FBI wrote in a Sept. 2, 2014 report of its Manafort interview.
Alan Purcell, who succeeded Kasanof as chief political officer and served in Kiev for the State Department from 2014 to 2017, told FBI agents that embassy officials deemed Kilimnik to be such a valuable asset they protected his name in cables for fear his name would leak.
"Purcell described what he considered an unusual level of discretion that was taken with handling Kilimnik," the FBI wrote. "Normally the head of the Political Section would not handle sources, but Kasanoff informed Purcell that KILIMNIK was a sensitive source."
Purcell told the FBI that Kilimnik provided "detailed information" to him about Ukraine political figures and the inner workings of Yanukovych's Party of Regions.
The Senate report portrayed Kilimnik as an "interlocutor and representative to the Embassy" on behalf of Ukrainian figures. In fact, hundreds of pages of emails gathered by Mueller's team and reviewed by Just the News show he was far more than that.
Kilimnik routinely was asked to provide information to embassy officials about goings-on in the Yanukovych empire and on some occasions was given non-public information in return from State officials. The emails also showed State officials repeatedly expressed confidence in Kilimnik's assessments."
In fact, the one thing we know for certain is that Hillary Clinton and DNC did collude and sponsor foreign oppo dirt on Trump, that was contrived entirely by foreign agents of UK and Russia, to influence the American election in Clinton's favor. And Clinton did so without regard to truth or impact to the country.
IOW, doing exactly what they accused the Trump team of doing. Congrats! - you've finally found your pack of traitors and foreign meddling agents!
Once again, this revelation does prove that senior members of the 2016 Trump Campaign and people working on behalf of Russian Intelligence, did collaborate with each other for the purpose of collecting and disseminating opposition research to be used against Hillary Clinton. Not only does that justify the probe, but had this been known during Robert Mueller's probe... I'm not so sure that his report's conclusion wouldn't have been much different - he didn't exonerate the 2016 Trump Campaign of colluding with the Russian government as it was. The report basically just said that it could not be proven at that time - but things have obviously changed.
It proves no such thing and certainly not "once again". In fact, there's no acknowledgement that Treasury has any new information, that it implicates Trump, or that this isn't simply Biden's bureaucratic swipe in mourning of the dead collusion narrative. What pathetic clinging.
