Trump Campaign's Best Defense Against Accusations of Collusion Is Lack of Central Planning

So the narrative that George Papandapolous was unimportant, had no connections to anyone important, and was not an authorized member of the campaign is failing. He appears to have been present at a national security briefing with Trump himself in attendance.

On the other hand, the campaign was chaotic, and it sounds like any random idiot could get into national security meetings without a specific authorization, a trend that continued well into the White House, until COS Kelly put a kibosch on that. What this tells you is that

1. Trump's campaign was more incompetent in basic security matters than it was malicious and conspiring

and

2. Current apologists are trying way too hard. Trump's best defense is not the attempt to diminish the significance of GP, but actually the inherent flaws of his campaign.

There was mass miscommunication and disorganization, which we have seen with the rollout of the immigration EO early at the start of administration. The right hand didn't know what the left hand was doing. You can't have a properly masterminded collusion there. Rather, it sounds like a bunch of haphazard opportunistic contacts at various levels and for various reasons.

When the Cover-Up Is a Crime, and the Actual Act Being Covered Isn't

I'm of mixed feelings on the George Papadopolous case. On the one hand, it's commendable that the White House is not covering up for obstruction of justice in the form of George P's lies to the FBI, and fully cooperated with the probe, and gave everything that was needed to build the case.

On the other hand, I can't really rid myself of a nagging feeling that George P. may have been lying per the request FROM the White House, and if so, he is being made into a scapegoat for not only the thrust of misguided initial policy towards Putin, but engaging in crime for the sake of the President who is perfectly ok with having someone else commit a crime just to avoid scrutiny of non-criminal but bad policy.

I mean, I wasn't sure what Papadapolous thought would happen as a result of his lies, and it was remarkably stupid and unethical for him to do that, regardless of whether he did that of his own initiative or was asked to do so. But there is something altogether Nixonian about having low-level grunts engage in obstruction of justice to cover up for someone with an enormous ego who is likely not man enough to face the political consequences of strategic mistakes made during his presidential campaign. Again, the irony of this is that none of the initial comments about Putin or even meetings with Russian diplomats are in and of themselves criminal.

It's the cover-up that raises legal questions, and it's unclear why it's even necessary, since it makes the whole thing look significantly worse than it was originally was.

Paul Manafort Plot Thickens

Was the Clinton Foundation involved with the Podesta corruption in Ukraine?

That sort of influence peddling, if it happened while she was SoS, is blatantly illegal and deserving of a separate investigation.

Tucker Carlson: "The chairman of one major presidential campaign colluded with the chairman of the other major presidential campaign to enrich themselves by secretly advancing the interests of a foreign adversary. That happened. That’s the swamp they told you that needed to be drained.”

Disbarment for Hillary and Comey

The appearance of impropriety regarding Hillary's emails, and Comey's cover-ups and premature comments is so overwhelming that there are sufficient grounds for disbarment for all the lawyers, contributing to this travesty regardless of any criminal charges or other penalties.

How FBI, the Clinton Campaign, and DNC Colluded over the Trump dossier

Money quote from the WaPo bombshell about Clinton Campaign/DNC collusion over the Trump dossier:

"After the election, the FBI agreed to pay Steele to continue gathering intelligence about Trump and Russia, but the bureau pulled out of the arrangement after Steele was publicly identified in news reports."

Let's translate this: FBI, having relied on the likely compromised report to try to get FISA warrants, continued to rely on the same source even as it became increasingly obvious that something funny was going on and that both his client and his sources had political agendas. And this continued after the election, and McCain found out about it before the president. Not until Trump had taken office did the FBI reveal that they were secretly spying on him via a paid agent of the Democratic party.
Methinks, it's time for a long thorough Congressional investigation of all involved.

Guess Who Opposed Standing Up To Russia?

Blast from the past: Hillary Clinton vehemently opposed the Magnitsky Act.

The entire Obama's administration unseemly opposition to that legislation is detailed in Bill Browder's Red Notice.

Obama-Era Cybersecurity Protocols Deserve Scrutiny

Under the Obama administration:

* Russians ratcheted up fake news and other types of information warfare

* Attempted to hack voting machines

* Snowden fiasco took place

* Russians stole NSA data using Kaspersky (despite which fact, US government government proceeded to continue using Kaspersky software until very recently)

* Russians got the source code for Pentagon cybersecurity software

* There were many major hacks

* Hillary's security problems

* DNC server security breach and repeated attempted attacks on various Republican presidential candidates and entites

* The Congressional Pakistani IT staffer scandal is set in place with thousands of unauthorized access units to emails and servers, not to mentioned stolen equipment, various frauds, etc etc.

So we get a Russia probe exploring Donald Trump's connections to Russia, but no probe on poor security protocols promoted by the Obama administration, and in place to this day. Why is that? Inquiring minds want to know.