A couple guys with liberal bona fides, like Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald and some people connected with the Clinton campaign, have said -- prematurely -- that there is nothing to find in the Russia connections.
But this deserves skepticism on multiple points.
First, I think maybe Taibbi and Greenwald are a bit jealous. For years they were the bad boy outsiders enjoying their contrast with the boring, gullible mainstream media.
Now WaPo and NYT are the heroes of the story, with old fashioned journalism newly important, and from a personal perspective and branding perspective I think they don't like it.
Clapper (ex-head of DNI) also said some things to the effect of "no known connections" but that guy is legitimately shady and two-faced. And his strong denial of connections a few weeks ago seems way out of whack with the revelation that the FBI has been investigating since July. If the case was that cold, why wouldn't the FBI have said "nothing to see here" and wrapped up months ago?
Most of all though, besides the insane amount of smoke -- I mean how many Russian connections can a single campaign have, there are dozens when you count cross-links at this point, plus hundreds of millions of dollars in KNOWN transactions involving oligarchs and Trump real estate -- the big point to ponder is why are they ACTING so damn guilty?
It's pretty basic game theory: If there is nothing at all to the Russia stuff, then the Trump administration would not only be helped by getting things cleaned up as soon as possible, they would be dramatically vindicated.
The Trump camp would also score huge political points from the conclusion of a Russia investigation that found them innocent. It would be like Geraldo opening Al Capone's vault, a big fat nothing. The mainstream media would be embarrassed. Democrats would be embarrassed. Trump would have the fun of rubbing it in their faces for the rest of his term.
But of course, that's only if the Trump campaign is actually innocent.
If they are guilty as hell, they will be obstructing and blocking and on the edge of a semi-panic and coming up with bizarre excuses, with Trump's behavior getting wilder and more erratic as the investigation closes in.
Guess which one is actually happening?
[–]Kataphractos [スコア非表示] (0子コメント)