Okay... A wild guess how this whole collusion went down.

[DetlefK]

Trump had business-contacts to Russia since the 1980s or 1990s.
My guess is that Russia quickly recognized what a mark he actually is and kept him around as an access-opportunity to the domain of celebrity and business in the US sometime in the future. Not as an agent, but as a mark.

My guess is that Russia does have sexually compromising material on him, but that it's lame compared to the other shit he has done.



When Hillary Clinton ran, it became clear very quickly that Russia did not like her. Russian online-trolls began posing as US-citizens and electioneering against her. Heart of Texas, Jenna Abrams, United Muslims of America... anything to stop her.

When supposedly romanian hacker Guccifer 2.0 hacked the DNC (supposedly romanian because it became clear to language-experts that he's not a native speaker), he gave those emails to Wikileaks, which also wanted to stop HRC at any price. Wikileaks got too greedy and allowed itself to become the tool of a nation's intelligence-service, a colossal error of judgement they have desperately tried to cover up ever since. My guess is, that Wikileaks is not a tool of Russia, but that Russia manipulated Wikileaks as well by using their hatred for HRC as emotional leverage.



But, the only way to seriously stop HRC was by having Trump win, and Trump was to polarizing for a safe victory. That's why Russia began reaching out to his campaign, via Trump's russian business-contacts: Flynn made backroom-diplomacy with Russia, Manafort met with Klimnik, Papadopolous met with secret agent Joseph Mifsud, Don Jr. met with agent of the Russian Ministry of the Interior Natalya Veselnitskaya, Kushner and Sessions met with russian ambassador Kislyak, Carter Page met with his FSB-handler.

In a thousand tiny ways Russia tried to help the Trump-campaign.

My guess is that Trump's campaign was too greedy. When Russia offered them help, they thought that Russia's motive was money. They didn't think that Russia wanted Trump to win for geopolitical reasons.

My guess is that in the fact-free "truth-is-whatever-it-needs-to-be" world of Trump, nobody in the campaign seriously thought that accepting help from Russia could in some way be illegal. Nobody thought or cared that they would be breaking laws. It was all about the money, about Magnitsky and ending sanctions and doing business and Trump Tower Moscow.

My guess is that Trump never consciously colluded with Russia. He knew that Russia was helping him and that his campaign was littered with russian contacts, but he thought that Russia was coming to him because he's such a great guy and such a great business-man. Just like his campaign, Trump thought that the russian contacts were a prelude to future business-contacts.

It is well-known that Trump never really thought that he would win! The whole campaign was just a PR-campaign to him!
That's why he wasn't willing to abandon the Trump Tower Moscow deal!
That's why he wasn't willing to release his tax-returns!
That's why he floated the idea of "Trump TV" if he should lose.
That's why he was 100% unprepared once he got into office!
Trump never expected to win!

My guess is that Trump keeps on insisting "no collusion" and "you're the puppet" because that's what he saw.

He never realized that accepting help from a foreign-government that is attacking the US could be illegal. And even if it were illegal, Trump is not the kind of man to whom laws apply.

He never realized that Russia might have other motives than trying to earn the goodwill of the greatest guy in the world.

The thought of Russia manipulating him never entered his mind! It's ridiculous! How could Russia possibly manipulate a guy who has the best brains and the best words! "You're the puppet!"

The investigations are a "witch-hunt" because whatever Trump and his campaign did is none of your business. It doesn't matter whether it was legal or illegal and even if it wasn't legal, your laws still don't apply to Donald Trump. Who do you think you are for daring to go after Donald J. Trump???





My guess is that Trump never actively reached out tor Russia for help, because Russia willingly already gave him every support they could. That's why it's so hard to find evidence of collusion between Trump and the Kremlin: There never was a deal because there was no need for a deal.
The Kremlin delivered the goods and Trump looked the other way.

[Hoyt]

1. As speculation, agree with a lot of that. Doubt being stupid is enough to remove trump from office.

If it were, he'd been gone long ago.

Those that worked directly with Russia, like in his campaign, some of his kids, etc., will be -- definitely should be-- indicted because they did it for personal gain, using trump as their stooge, just like Putin.

I do not think trump will run in 2020, although he may play as if he is right up until last minute.

[DetlefK]

2. Oh, he will run. Trump hates being President but loves campaigning.

[Andy823]

3. Yes I agree

And at those "hate fest" rallies, he shows his true racist, hateful, narcissistic self.

[a kennedy]

4. and I despise him for those damn rallies

[ChoppinBroccoli]

5. I Don't Give Trump That Much Credit

Here's MY theory:

1. He got so heavily into debt that nobody would loan to him, so he started making deals with the Russian mob.
2. He got so heavily into debt with the Russian mob that they were getting ready to off him.
3. They came up with a better plan than just killing him. They went to him and said, "You're going to run for President. We're going to fix it so you win. We already have the hackers in place to make it so. After you win, you're going to lift the sanctions and do other various tasks that benefit Russia, and if you do all those things, we will consider your debts paid."

It would certainly explain a lot. Like how he knew to go around telling people that the polls were wrong, and how he was going to win States that Republicans NEVER win like Pennsylvania and Michigan. The whole time he was campaigning, he acted as if he didn't have a care in the world. He didn't care who he pissed off or how badly he acted because he knew it wouldn't matter. The vote was already decided.

[albacore]

6. That's tinfoil hat thinking. And I agree wholeheartedly.

The Russians can't win conventional wars... well, maybe with the Ukraine...so they are maxing out their psyops/cyberops programs.
It's much too convenient that trump won the electoral college by a grand total of 77,000 votes spread over key districts in 3 key states.
And his actions since he took office tell us that the Russians own him.

[brush]

7. Good assessment. trump knew the Russkies were helping...

too stupid to know it was illegal, but as you say, what did he care if it was illegal.

I also think trump thought he would get a piece of the Rosneff oil billions if he lifted the sanctions if he won.

He wanted to win, which is why towards the end of the campaign he rushed to the Midwest where his plane was spotted on the tarmac with that of a Russian oligarch's.

IMO his campaign got word to do a last ditch campaign fling in the Midwest to make it look good when he won the manipulated EC vote by 77k votes.

Also Manifort, in deep debt to the Russians too, was inserted into the campaign by the Russkies to make sure things happened in Russia's favor—like in the repug platform and Pence being selected.

[Beausoleil]

8. I think he knows that he is personally indebted to Putin.

His behavior shows it.

He did not have a thing to say about every one of his sycophants lying about contacts with Russia. If he wasn't in on it, why would he be so willing to perpetuate the cover-up?

And why would he stand up in front of the whole world and show allegiance to Putin while throwing the US intelligence community under the bus?

And, finally, Trump is such a micromanager that I don't think anything like collusion happened without his knowledge.

He was in on it. He's also not very smart, but he knew.