Big Trump Problem Hiding in Plain Sight [View all]

[wiggs]

Josh Marshall reminds us not to miss the forest for the trees...that the election hacking Russia problem with Manafort, Flynn, and Cage is big...but not to be forgotten are the underlying dark, myriad connections with Russian oligarchs, mobsters, and government officials (hard to tell the difference) that allowed for election collusion but which also may compromise the current CIC and POTUS in his everyday decisions. A big deal.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/hiding-in-plain-sight--2

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But this assumption has tended to hide an extremely relevant story in plain site: namely, Donald Trump had and continues to have extensive and deep ties and business dependence on organized crime figures in the US, Russia, Ukraine and a host of other countries. If we'd never heard about Russian intelligence hacking of the 2016 election or Carter Page or Paul Manafort or Sergei Kislyak this would seem like an extraordinarily big deal. And indeed it is an extraordinarily big deal.

What that means is that we - as reporters and as a concerned public - should probe these relationships on their own terms just as much as the most logical place to hunt looking for the evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow. Perhaps another way to put it is, let's find that needle. But don't forget the haystack is a huge story in itself. It may end up being the bigger one. That story goes not only to Donald Trump but what US law enforcement and intelligence knew about Donald Trump, his connections to the world of oligarchs and organized crime long before the DNC's and John Podesta's emails started appearing out of thin air to help saw the 2016 election. There is a whole lot there.

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