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Forget conspiracy theories. This is why Trump’s Russian connection is actually a problem.
http://www.vox.com/world/2016/11/1/13487322/donald-trump-russia-agent-hack(emphases my own)
In the past 12 hours, a flurry of stories have come out on Donald Trump’s links to Russia. One such story, at Slate, suggests that a server owned by Trump has been communicating with a Russian bank with ties to the Kremlin. Another, at Mother Jones, quotes an unnamed former intelligence officer claiming that Trump is a Russian operative, one who has been "compromised" by Moscow "for at least 5 years."
These stories are overblown, for reasons my colleagues Matt Yglesias and Timothy Lee explain rather well. Cybersecurity experts believe the server in question is most likely sending spam emails from Trump hotels, not secret missives to Russian handlers, and the FBI has found no credible evidence that Trump has direct ties to Russian intelligence.
The problem with these stories isn’t just that they’re speculative. It’s that they obscure and even discredit the more sober evidence about Trump’s troubling attitude toward the Russian state.
There is basically conclusive evidence that Russia is interfering in the US election, and that this interference has been designed to damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign. There is strong evidence linking Trump’s foreign policy advisers to Russia, and Trump’s stated policy ideas are extremely favorable to Russian interests.
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