A few tidbits have come out about the Trump Jr. "Russia" meeting:
1. Trump Sr. may have been told that information was forthcoming about Hillary.
2. Trump Sr. MIGHT vaguely recall a meeting about the orphan issue, but is not sure.
3. There were apparently more "Russians" at the meeting than previously believed--a translator and a member of a Russian family concerned about the orphan issue--i.e., people not actively involved in the discussion itself.
4. Jay Sekulow raised a question about the matter based on an incomplete and incorrect understanding of basic facts.
CONCLUSION: You are seeing how rumors and conspiracy theories get started. People like to think everything is ideallic in how it happens. Even I myself like to try to figure out logical reasons for seemingly illogical actions. But this whole story has forced me to officially cease that effort, because (my words):
Otherwise decent, rational, intelligent people can do indecent, irrational, and/or utterly stupid things.
What we see with the Trump Jr. meeting is probably one of the key events that spurred the politically weaponized Intelligence Community to try to spy on the Trump campaign. Bias and agenda are rampant, but there is usually some kernel of reality in any effort--an anchor on which to chain everything.
Imagine this scenario: Trump Jr. gets the cartoonish email from his flaky friend. And like a good Teabrainer, he generally buys into it and plans a meeting. Trump Sr. hears of some impending receipt of dirt on Hillary, including a reference to "Russia," and in his usual Trump style launches into his "truthful (to his honest understanding) hyperbole" and announces plans for a major address on Hillary's dirt. Soon after, the meeting occurs, where no dirt was uncovered. Trump Jr. doesn't even mention the meeting to his father as it turned out to be nothing., perhaps not putting it together with his father's announcement (if he heard it--remember, Trump Jr. is still focused on running the business). Nonetheless, Trump Sr. may or may not hear about some meeting or other about the Russian orphan issue in connection with someone involved in it. Nothing about it registers with him, and memory of it is only jarred recently by all the attention to that point in time.
Meanwhile, you have someone talking about information about Hillary and Russia, a not-so-memorable reference to a meeting about orphans, and a Trump Tower just filled with foreign intelligent assets, all trying--and they would logically do--to get information about the possible next President of the most powerful country on the planet. They report these vague stories, which means our own (politically weaponized) Intelligence Community (IC) picks up on them. Knowing that their boss the Great Black Hope expects them to conform to his objectives like he was Idi Amin, and being Intelligence--a discipline of which half is guesswork (trust me, I know)--they pursue this whole matter. An attempt to get legal wiretapping authority from the FISA dial-a-warrant court is turned down, but they pursue.
Now, add to this the relatively sudden interest in Russian action in the election at about that time. Somehow someone is getting stories of Russia-Trump "collusion" even then. (In other words, this line of attack by the then-administration is relayed to the Hillary campaign.) The IC continues their efforts, linking what in many cases is probably totally unrelated information to that initial story, and the flawed picture grows. Intelligence analysis, not appreciating the truth of my italized words above, is "fixed" (probably in part by political pressure and bias--I know from personal experience that Intel, even in the military, is much more liberal than one might expect from a "security" agency) around a collusion theory. Confirmation bias sets in, and the story grows. Typical Russian efforts to insert their influence into our elections--which may have been what the Trump Jr. meeting was for the "Russian" side--are interpreted as being received positively and wittingly by the Trump campaign, even if in fact it was actually rebuffed or a failure. After all, they "KNEW" there was collusion, so of course the meeting succeeded. (But for some reason, they never explained why so many different efforts were made by the Russians when there would had to have been an ongoing covert "backchannel.") Any business actions of the Trump Organization--an organization with tentacles in so many things--that in any way connect to Russia are more proof. Any meeting with a Russian present is considered a meeting with Putin, as one anti-Trump member of Congress suggested. Items like the "Trump Dossier," produced by an outfit linked to some of the very people involved in the Trump Jr. meeting--at least by the same standards used in directly linking them to Russian government operations--are inserted into the mix (by an anti-Trump politician who shall remain John McCain), which only add a salacious element and a fanciful roadmap for the pursuit.
These findings and factoids get circulated--especially toward the end of the Obama years of darkness with new allowances put into place--recycled, and used to confirm each others' assessments: Meeting A was bad because Meeting B was bad, and we know Meeting B was bad because Meeting A was bad. Add in a "Deep State" determined to thwart the will of an election and a news media openly working as a propaganda wing of the now-opposition party spreading not only leaks and outright lies, but also some of the same kind of normal, sometimes hit-and-miss rumoring that spread the whole Trump Jr. meeting information in the first place, and there you have the story of the "Trump-Russia collusion scandal."
Human nature and human failings (and a Satanic influence, for the theologian-types in my loyal readership) account for so much of what has transpired in history. Empires have fallen because emperors couldn't keep their you-know-what's in their pants, or empresses couldn't keep their legs together. Total brainfart understandings have created missed opportunities for so much good. The sheer limits of normal human understanding, coupled with the need for a hasty response to a threatening situation, have led to flawed policies and positions. Rumors, propaganda, and disinformation--and simple errors--will often crowd out better information, even if the latter is overwhelming. Prides, prejudices, presumptions, and preconceived notions block stone-cold objective analysis. Natural--and not always improper--defense reactions, like lawyering out every statement or obscuring with broad generalities, to issues sometimes create more uncertainty and problems. Greed and envy, self-will and self-indulgence, all these and more operate in how our species has taken the course of history. (Then add in the Teabrainery phenomenon on top of all of that, wherein people who might otherwise be smart show hick-like ignorance and a lack of due diligence to get their understandings right.)
These have their effect on even the "elites" of society. Now, despite being a Trump supporter, I have, as I've stated before, been concerned about the slamming of such during the campaign. There is a reason they are called "elite," and even if one must reject their conclusions and positions, one ought to at least respect their knowledge and skills. Politicians should early on seek the aid, advice, and education from elites holding the same interests. Had the Trump campaign did that more thoroughly from the start, many of these problems would not be such problems today. That said, even they are impacted by human nature, and even they might miss the obvious for whatever reason.
The Trump campaign in many ways was what I hold to be the ultimate pop-culture depiction of Teabrainery (albeit largely outside of its normal political context): The Beverly Hillbillies. Much like the Clampett clan moving to the big city way out yonder in Caleefornee, the Trump crew--as truly intelligent and capable as they were in business--had no idea what they were doing in politics. Terms had different meanings. Communications tactics sometimes backfired (I do NOT speak of tweeting on that point--I WANT TRUMP TWEETS!). Naivete, ignorance of ethics and laws, and the business inclination to do things on the cheap (even as the Clampetts continued their hillbilly lifestyle despite Jed's millions) created problems and obstructed obvious solutions. "Teabrainers with bank accounts."
[None of this is to take away from the brilliance, beneficial unorthodoxy, total willingness to get down in the mud as necessary, and the utter ability of Trump to withstand seemingly ANY PC attack that got him elected. I have long ago learned not to question Trump's tactics--they got the team in a mansion in Washington--THE mansion of all mansions. But even as I might almost wish for a "Pleasantville" event to hurl me into the TV series so I could help everyone avoid problems, I also am glad to see the Trump team learning--albeit sometimes painfully--the need to mesh Trump style with political experience.]
In short: "Otherwise decent, rational, intelligent people can do indecent, irrational, and /or utterly stupid things."
And that, I believe, is what the whole Trump-Russia collusion matter amounts to. Without discounting the impact of knowingly dishonest and disingenuous activists--e.g., most of the journalism profession--it was of themselves innocuous matters like the Trump Jr. meeting, Carter Page's brief and public conversation with someone some hold as suspicious, defensive lawyering out of statements, and understandable incomplete recollections (like how many people were at the Trump Jr. meeting), plus actions by others to impact the situation perceived through the liberal lens of our IC, that has brought us to where we are.
This is not intended as a "conspiracy theory." Quite the opposite. A conspiracy means all the key component parties conspire, not simply follow influences and a generally common agenda. "Conspiracy of thought," perhaps, but one notable thing WikiLeaks did was show a lack of Godfather-esque coordination. Whatever collusions may eventually be found in these official activities of what has come be known as "The Resistance," it was NOT a singular earthly cabal. It was politics--generally Left-wing politics--taken to a new extreme in the American context.
Was their such a collusion? If so, then why the efforts AFTER the election to create a backchannel? Frankly, that point alone is enough to show no collusion program. If now-Attorney General Sessions' presence at the same place as the Russian ambassador in April was a set-up of a collusion, why the ridiculous Trump Jr. meeting with the even more ridiculous emails? And if the Russians were indeed feeding information about that time about Hillary, why couldn't Trump Sr. give the address he planned to give, at least at some point? Give the Russkies and the Donald credit: They can do this kind of thing. If the Trump campaign had been witting partners in the effort, it would have happened, and we wouldn't be having to listen to "Hillary won the popular vote!" all the time. The information apparently promised regarding the meeting would have come out, and Hillary would be in prison already! The definition of "collusion" keeps getting downgraded, going from active hand-in-glove planning ("Russia told Trump to say, 'Crooked Hillary'!") to, now, the ridiculous Trump Jr. meeting which ended up having no impact on the campaign.
Will "investigators" find more supposed evidence? I'll surprise some of you and guess YES! I'm sure they will find more meetings by Trump people who had no idea they were being subjected to Russian "social engineering" (a term used in Information Assurance). I'm sure they will find Trump Jr.-type Teabrainery leading people to make silly mistakes. (One aspect of my theory about the Trump Jr. meeting is that perhaps it may indeed have been a Russian effort to influence the campaign, but Trump Jr. was too dense to pick up on it, and thus doesn't realize what it was.)
And who knows, maybe they will find some successful Russian effort to insert something beneficial into the campaign (if so, THANK YOU, RUSSIA!), with the recipient Trump "satellite" either too dense to realize what happened or too hit by human frailty to bring it forward in a proper manner (meaning to and, perhaps ultimately, through, the Trump campaign). Will this be the impeachable "collusion" being sought? Nope, just politics by Teabrainery.
[This scenario, of course, presumes the general innocence of the Trump campaign--that is, that whatever efforts--actual efforts--were made by Russia to effectively insert itself into the Trump campaign's operations were either rebuffed or only unwittingly tolerated and not spotted because because certain otherwise small but politically Teabrained Trump campaign people didn't even see what was happening--e.g., the Trump Jr. meeting, presuming it actually was such an effort. To critics of this approach, I say that given the solid bias of their Fake News media allies, given the presumption of innocence, given that the preponderance of evidence is even still AGAINST the claim of a true collusion, and given that I don't give a rat's ass what they think and really don't care if there was collusion--Trump saved us from Hillary, gave us Gorsuch, is stopping illegals, has all but destroyed ISIS, got us out of the Paris Accords, rolled back some gun control efforts, and has generally screwed over the Fake News media and shoved their own actions up their collective ass--I tell them, in uncharacteristically nice terms, to go to Hell.]
