If they did, they might tell trump to shut the eff up for the good of his presidency, the party and the country.

But they don’t. And, reality is they won’t, for a variety of reasons, good and bad.
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Of course, in a court of law, you are correct, it is heresay.

But, we don’t have the benefit of courtroom rules to have verified facts placed in front of us either.

What to do?

Do we treat it as fact?

Of course not.

Do we dismiss it out of hand?

Well, in 2012 several tea party groups complained about IRS treatment.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/02/28/numerous-tea-party-chapters-claim-irs-attempting-to-sabotage-non-profit-status.html

That was dismissed by the left, shortly afterward.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/08/opinion/the-irs-does-its-job.html

Even after Lois Lerner ineptly dropped her bombshell in 2013, the left still denied it was a problem, no doubt following the WH spin on it.
http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/the-i-r-s-and-the-tea-party-where-is-the-scandal

So, how about option 3? Maybe we ought to have a healthy skepticism, with the WH.

Why? Because it is in character with how we’ve seen trump behave for about two years.

It informs us as to the possibility and keep our eyes open for later.

We may never get to the bottom of this. But it may well be a minor point in the overall investigation that Mueller is undertaking.

If anyone of these anonymous sources has the guts to, as he should, resign and tell his story publically, I’ll start to believe it. Not unless and not until.

“I am told that what the President did is actually far worse than what is being reported. The President does not seem to realize or appreciate that his bragging can undermine relationships with our allies and with human intelligence sources. He also does not seem to appreciate that his loose lips can get valuable assets in the field killed.
…

This is a real problem and I treat this story very seriously because I know just how credible, competent, and serious – as well as seriously pro-Trump, at least one of the sources is.“ – Eric Erickson

I know this doesn’t “prove” anything, but would Erickson really be lying about what he was told and about the type of source he has?

Meuller won’t solve this puzzle, but he may be able to put to bed others, hopefully.

In any case, i certainly recognize that Trump shoots his mouth off, bloviates, exaggerates, blusters, bullies, takes wildly off-the-wall positions in negotiations, only remembers his side of the story, etc., etc., etc. Unfortunately, 40 years of law practice has made me more familiar with his type than I ever wanted to be. Fortunately, this has taught me to see through the bullshit.

I find his conduct much more acceptable than someone who looks you in the eye and smoothly and coolly says, “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.” But that’s me. YMMV.

Returning to the main thread, we don’t know what was said at that meeting. We don’t know if it contained any sensitive or classified information. We don’t know if he revealed any sources and methods. We don’t know if the Russians already knew. (It seems likely they did, because the laptop ban is public knowledge and has an obvious source.) We don’t know if it was worth saying to get the Russians on board an anti-ISIS campaign. What we do know is that three highly respected people have said it didn’t happen.

That’s good enough for me.

P.S. Comey should have been fired on January 20th, for taking a dive for Hillary on July 5, 2016. I don’t care if the White House offers a hundred different reasons — Comey had to go!

I’m not excusing Trump’s faults but I am trying to put them in perspective. He’s always been a lot closer to the truth about the important things than any of the recent democrats. That’s not the ideal but it’s a hell of a lot better than we’ve been getting previously.

Then, I am indeed on the right thread. It is just that your remark seems aimed at someone, but not sure who.

We have no reason to disbelieve McMaster (though some think he is part of the “establishment”) and Powell. Not sure that I’ve read here anyone discrediting their statements.

BUT, fact is, trump’s had people do his bidding and we later find out that the reality was a shade or two, or three different. Case in point, the rationale for Comey’s firing.
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That reaches to the core point folks are making here – the ones I presume you are aiming at – that trump himself is creating this environment by his own hand…

“President Trump has done too many disturbing things lately that feed into the perceptions of him as a loose cannon and an unreliable reporter of events. And some of those things have nothing to do with media reports, they are his very own tweets.” – Neo

“The doubts about his veracity make him a worse president than he might otherwise be, not a better one. They may make it harder for him to win people over to his side who are not already predisposed to be there. They make the negative stories designed to whip up fear about him in his role as president more believable, rather than less.”

(Yes, I reversed the order of the quotes, lest some other commenters here wanna make this about “misrepresentation” again.)

Sure, we should give those others the benefit of the doubt, and we shouldn’t just believe what is reported.

But, unless you are already in the bag for trump, regardless of what he does, it is rather hard to take anything he, and by extension, his admin, says about anything.

And THAT is the bigger problem.

Trust and Credibility.

When you don’t have those, it doesn’t matter if you happen to be correct on the specific point in that moment in time.

Folks just won’t believe you.

Re: Comey’s meeting w trump?….

“The encounter between Comey and Trump unfolded after the FBI director was in the Oval Office briefing the President along with Vice President Mike Pence and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, according to a source close to Comey who has a copy of the memo. After the briefing, Trump “asked Sessions and Pence to leave,” the source told CNN.”
http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/16/politics/trump-james-comey-memo/

Creating Chaos?