Originally Posted by
boost
I'm grunching a bit here, but regarding MMM's question about Russia's motives to make contact with the Trump campaign:
Their motives are chaos. If they can get the Trump team in a room with Russian operatives, it doesn't matter if there is actual collusion or not, the appearance alone will cause absolute havoc. The thing is, the Russians hedged with bread crumbs leading to Clinton as well. And even better, Trump's ties to Russia and the Clinton's past dealings with Trump (however limited) are enough to spin conspiratorial stories about Trump being a stooge meant to weaken the Republican's primary candidates, and if he wins the primary against all odds, he's and easy knock down for Clinton. They just happened to hit the jackpot with Trump winning the general too.
I think this is the most plausible story about the Russians involvement. They sewed the seeds of chaos, and here they are reaping their harvest. If the Trump team did in fact open themselves up to legal jeopardy via collusion, great-- if not, there's still enough to cause an investigation. With an investigation, even if there is no guilt, it necessarily has to dig deep, which means any dirt that is there could be found. This explains an innocent, with regards to Russian collusion, Trump committing obstruction, further feeding the chaos.