If President Donald Trump did indeed collude with Russia to defeat Hillary Clinton, his best chance of getting away with it rests on manipulating our culture’s notoriously distractible attention span. Indeed, there has been so much thrown out there about this issue — from countless interactions between Trumpers and unsavory Russians to the president’s attempted deflection with various bogus “I was wiretapped” narratives — that it’s almost understandable that we could lose sight of the important points here.

Focus on this

1. What stories do Michael Flynn and Sally Yates have to tell?

As the media reported last week, the Trump administration tried to prevent former acting attorney general Sally Yates from testifying about the scandal involving Russia, she said she was going to do it anyway, and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes then abruptly — though he’d probably argue coincidentally — canceled the hearing in which she would have testified.

Again, the media reported on this — great! — and then moved on from the story, most likely due to the aforementioned pitifully short attention span. This is a huge piece of the puzzle, especially since Yates would have likely discussed the background that led up to the firing of former national security adviser Michael Flynn. The former lieutenant general has extensive connections to Russia himself and actually offered to testify before Congress in exchange for immunity, which he himself would have to admit suggests that he “probably committed a crime.”

There could be more here, if only the media picks up the thread again.

2. What exactly are Trump’s business ties to Russia?

If you want to understand how Trump developed such close ties to Russia, start with the fact that Trump needed to turn to Russian financial interests when other banks wouldn’t loan him money due to his multiple bankruptcies.

Over the years Trump has developed numerous business ties with powerful Russians, including some allegedly affiliated with the Russian mob, and as recently as 2008 Donald Trump Jr. admitted that “in terms of high-end product influx into the U.S., Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets; say in Dubai, and certainly with our project in SoHo and anywhere in New York. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”

Of course, Trump could clear up all of these suspicions by releasing his tax returns. That is one thread that can never, ever be dropped.

3. What role did Paul Manafort play? 

There are a number of Trumpers with ties to Russia — former national security adviser Michael Flynn and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson are the two biggest names that come to mind — but none send up red flags quite as much as Paul Manafort. It’s easy to forget this now, but when Trump chose Manafort to be his campaign manager after releasing Corey Lewandowski, it was a pretty big deal. It was also a big deal when Manafort was released amidst scrutiny over the fact that he had been an adviser to Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who is best known for being a puppet of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and was ousted in 2014 (after which he fled to Russia). Since that time, more reports have come out suggesting that he pushed for Putin’s political interests throughout the world, particularly his work with Russian billionaire and Putin crony Oleg Deripaska.

This may explain why, while Manafort was campaign manager, the Trump campaign changed a plank in the Republican Party platform that was sharply critical of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It definitely explains why, when Trump hired a campaign manager for a critical part of his presidential campaign who is best known for being one of Putin’s puppet-masters, that Trump can’t shake his reputation as a puppet.

4. Is Julian Assange a partisan?

Well before the 2016 presidential election, it would have taken an act of willful denial to believe that Julian Assange isn’t working as a tool for the Putin regime. The evidence is overwhelming: Russia was one of the first nations to support Assange when he took refuge in London’s Ecuadorian Embassy to flee rape charges in Sweden. Assange specifically requested Russians to protect him. He has frequently appeared on Russia’s state-subsidized propaganda TV station (can you imagine Putin allowing anyone to appear there, particularly someone as prominent as Assange, without that person being in his pocket?). He tried to discredit the Panama Papers because they were embarrassing to Russia (a bit odd for an ostensible advocate of transparency, no?), and he has even praised Russia as having “vibrant publications, online blogs, and Kremlin critics such as [Alexey] Navalny are part of that spectrum.”