of his victory insulting. And from what I've seen, there is nothing that Trump is as concerned with as protecting his ego. So someone questions whether Russians played a hand in the election (as opposed to Trump's innate greatness carrying the day alone), and he's going to deny it / go on the attack. Look at how he responded to questions of crowd size at his inauguration (a verifiable figure of which we have photos). The unfortunate reality is that Russians did at least try to have some influence, and Trump's pride is standing in the way of a full investigation to protect the nation. It drove him to fire the FBI chief who wouldn't swear fealty to him, and who wouldn't protect him from the media feeding frenzy with a public statement.

To a certain extent I can understand Trump's frustration. Assume for a second that you're Trump, and you know that you didn't communicate with Russians to coordinate leaks damaging Hillary. Then look at the media coverage of this. His problem is that he's a jerk, and can't help but respond in the worst way possible ironically adding to the scrutiny. He's in full Streisand effect mode.

Speculating about financial ties to Russia isn't any more grounded than convoluted theories of treasonous collusion. What we need is some accounting made publicly. We got the special prosecutor we need. Until Mueller is done, people are just letting their desire to see Trump ousted overtake their reason. Trump really does need to release his tax returns though.

It would be better for everyone if politicians would simply "resist" Trump's policy rather than indulging the crazier aspects of the collusion narrative. Until we have a basis for collusion, the hysteria is only undercutting faith in our electoral process. No better than Trump spewing nonsense about the election being "rigged," or about millions of illegal votes, etc. And that distrust within our democracy is precisely what Putin wanted all along.


There's also a question, if there was collusion... what was the quid pro quo? The most favorable position with respect to Russia has been Trump's verbal undercutting of NATO. But spending on defense is up among members, and we added Montenegro.












[Post edited by Hoo05Dave at 06/14/2017 03:38AM]