If you're surprised, you're SO not paying attention: From the "DUH!" file
So [Redacted] and his henchweasels installed their tools in the various investigative agencies, and then tasked those tools with gathering dirt on all and sundry: "Enemies" (Democratic pols, donors, leaders, etc.); "Friends" (GOPpie pols, donors, leaders, etc.), and probably even the coffee vendor cart employees outside the Secret Service garage?
And you're surprised by this?
Oh my sweet, naïve friends and fellow-citizens. Just take a moment to think, and answer these questions:
What, in the well-known, copiously-reported history of [Redacted] and his family for three generations, his business practices, his "personal" business practices, etc., would lead you to believe that he would eschew the gathering of dirt for the purpose of achieving and applying leverage?
What, in the well-known, copiously-reported history of the GOP since the time Nixon connived with Anna Chennault to spike the Paris peace conference and subsequently sent "burglars" to gather dirt on Daniel Ellsberg and various other "enemies", would lead you to believe that the GOP would eschew the gathering of dirt for the purposes of grabbing and holding onto power?
What, in the well-known, somewhat-copiously reported history of America's various investigative/intelligence agencies would lead you to believe they would virtuously draw their metaphorical skirts about them and make a principled stand against the gathering of dirt on this, that, or the other for any reason at all?
And finally--
Did you not know that [Redacted] has been a tool of Vladimir Putin since forever, and WHAT is the standard playbook for Vlad and his Kremlin alumni "security" apparatus besides the gathering and application of "kompromat" to control allies and opponents alike?
And you are shocked, shocked! to find out that this has occurred. Probably shocked and grieved. It must be an aberration, right?
What are you asking Santa for this year, a new unicorn?
No, no, my friends. The thing to be learned from recent "revelations" is not that ::gasp:: dirt-gathering was occurring! Horrors!
Take a moment to adjust your hazmat suit, and follow me into the reeking sewer beneath "the halls of power", while I explain the what, of NOT "how dirt is gathered" or even the WHY of same, but more importantly HOW and WHEN gathered dirt is used.
"Surely," you are murmuring, "if dirt-gathering were occurring on such a scale, and anything really shocking was found, we would already know about it, right?"
::sigh::
We DO. Draw nigh, friends... beyond this door slither and writhe the ball of beslimed eels and snakes that serve as the "brain" of your average intel pro. Listen as they slobber and hiss their accumulated wisdom and experience for you:
Dirt has the most power before it hits the disinfecting influence of "the light". Therefore, to maintain maximum leverage you follow this protocol:
1. Hint that you have dirt, whether you have it or not. This makes the guilty nervous and can result in them leading you to payloads of dirt. It can even make the comparatively innocent nervous, since they're probably aware of your ability to manufacture dirt from thin air. If that isn't enough...
2. Hint vaguely at the nature of some particular dirt you have. If that provides insufficient leverage, go to...
3. Provide specific hints as to the nature some particular dirt, without actual evidence - but imply by the nature of the hint that such evidence exists, and you may in fact have it. At this point, your strategy may bifurcate. For those in the "friends/potential friends/allies/tools" category, you follow a protocol that may involve promises of your silence, promises of keeping any actual evidence you have out of unfriendly hands, etc.
For opponents/enemies, there is a different protocol.
No, not "release the kraken" (expose the dirt/supply the evidence/etc.) That were the action of an honest whistleblower/reformer. No, no indeed. You never do that, except perhaps as a Final Threat or a Sampson-in-the-Temple suicide bomb. (I suspect Jeffrey Epstein's untimely death was arranged to prevent just such an event.)
Instead, you use the dirt you have gathered very carefully, to achieve one of a cascade of strategic outcomes. First and most desirable of course, is to turn them. To use some of the same techniques used on "friends/allies" to make cracks in the opposition. You don't ask much. Small things. Little cracks. You can hammer in the wedges later, as needed.
Failing that, you use the Twilight Bark. This is the system of using backstairs gossip, social media, pet media outlets, patsy reporters, etc., to start rumors, and escalate them into unfounded but credible accusations by shadowy sources, building an increasing weight of belief in "something wrong" that will impair the enemy/opponent's effectiveness.
Then you use tiny bits of peripheral evidence to boost the potential credibility of such accusations, and draw in non-complicit media outlets, reporters, other sources, etc. You dangle the possibility of access to actual relevant evidence in front of them like a carrot, leading them further and further in the direction of "established fact" that your enemy/opponent is dirty AF.
Eventually this may produce leverage to take you back to "turning" them, by promising that no confirmatory evidence will ever see the light of day. Or perhaps not. It makes a nice shiv to keep in your back pocket and keeps them off balance and makes them less effective.
Blechhhh... you may step into the decontam unit now. We will leave that "brain" behind for now. But don't forget that it exists - not in the singular, either. In the myriad, in actual intel agencies, contractors, etc., in consiglieres and 'fixers', in corporate security offices, in the back rooms of gang hangouts, oh, all over this sad, sad world.
I hope you've learned a few things from our brief and unsavory foray, including:
The fact that there is no evidence currently visible/accessible neither confirms nor denies the existence of same.
The fact that no one is talking about it neither confirms nor denies that the dirt has been dug.
The fact that a possible target is not admitting to that leverage being used in any way against them does not mean they are not in fact a target.
There is, in essence, only one really reliable (but alas, unverifiable by actual evidence in the vast majority of cases) way to determine whether a particular individual has been a target of dirt gathering, by whom, and whether leverage has been applied to them:
WHAT THEY DO, AND WHO BENEFITS FROM IT.
Here endeth the lesson.
pedantically,
Bright
= new reply since forum marked as read
Vivisection of a worm has always left me unsettled.
Nice flow graph, too.
I don't think i've ever read every word of a post that long. 
