Any discussion of collusion needs to start with a basic question: why is it assumed the Russians preferred Trump over Clinton ? I never hear or read that question being asked. The notion that Clinton would’ve been tougher on Russia is preposterous. Putin would only need to write a check to the Clinton foundation and Hillary would do as he said.
“Any discussion of collusion needs to start with a basic question: why is it assumed the Russians preferred Trump over Clinton ?”
I know - there has never been such preposterous “theory”.
It’s like a poorly written movie plot where the writer just didn’t bother thinking things through, and hopes the audience is too stupid to notice.
I think what happened was that Trump made those comments about Putin, saying he respected his leadership style and thought they would actually get along fine - Clinton was going to try and use “Trump wants to be friends with Putin” to make Trump out to be weak and naive on foriegn policy.
Then when Wikileaks was threatening to release damaging stuff on Clinton any day about Clinton and DNC screwing over Bernie, they repurposed the Trump/Russia meme. They said the Russians were the source of the damaging leaks, rather than a DNC whistleblower (Seth Rich), knowing a DNC whistleblower source would have tons of credibility, whereas “the Russians” as a source would be discredited as a political hit job.
They forgot their story made no sense, since the Russians would have absolutely no motive to assist Trump.
Then (I think) they were forced to double down by commiting Arkancide on Seth Rich, who was the only person who could expose their cover up as a lie.