madhatter wrote:so you are ok with a gov investigating a "yet to be named" or discovered crime?
Actually that's how it works in almost every case. You investigate based on suspicions, not evidence. This happens all the time, in fact. Bobby comes to the police and claims that Joey stole his car. Maybe Joey did, maybe he didn't. The police look into it, and maybe they find Bobby is a liar and Joey did nothing wrong - but they should at least investigate and ask some questions, shouldn't they?
In this case there were accusations of Russian meddling in the election, and that Trump's campaign was connected. That's a named crime that merits an investigation.
madhatter wrote:that goes against virtually every tenet of our constitution...
Not really, no. The constitution protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, not against being investigated by police/FBI. The FBI has every right to investigate and start asking questions. Now if they want a warrant, that's when you need some evidence, but even then you just need probable cause, which is not the same thing as evidence of a crime.
madhatter wrote:so explain to me how we even have an investigation if we have no evidence to indicate a crime may have been committed?
The word "may" in your sentence completely changes everything. I think we do have evidence that a crime
may have been committed. In fact, we know crimes have been committed now, because two people have plead guilty to crimes.
madhatter wrote:our system of law says show me the crime and we'll search for the perpetrator....aka...innocent until proven guilty...without legal "probable cause" ( not "this a$$hole must be hiding something") we don't investigate US citizens in search of any wrongdoing they may have comitted at any time during their lives...
Again, you don't need probable cause to start an investigation. In this case, all of the intelligence agencies agreed there was Russian meddling in the election, and there was some indication that there was a connection to the Trump campaign (see Papadopoulos). That was enough to start an investigation in my opinion, but on top of that the FBI/DOJ may have had additional information that we are not yet privy to. On top of that, as much as you hate the Steele dossier, it too would be enough to merit at least an investigation. The dossier makes some wild claims, and maybe they are false, but shouldn't the FBI look at them to verify whether they are true or false? It seems to me that they should.