Scandalous

Philip Bump lays out what we currently know about illegal efforts by Donald Trump to win the election in 2016. We know that he broke campaign finance laws in his efforts to squash stories about Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougall.  We know that Russians hacked into the DNC to obtain whatever embarrassing information they could.  We know Russians roiled the internet with fake news spread by fake Americans.  The question of "collusion" is simply whether we can prove that Trump and his campaign coordinated with Russia on the last two.  It is hard to believe that they didn't.

Bump hedges his bets at the end, by noting that we can never know if it made a difference one way or another, while also noting that the election was decided by a tiny fraction of the votes cast.  We know that Clinton was well ahead of Trump before the Comey letter came out.  If Trump benefitted from this illegal activity it wouldn't need to make much difference to make all the difference.

Let's take a moment to observe that this is only the corruption involved in the election.  Trump has undoubtably violated the emoluments clause of the Constitution, he has enriched himself off public office and his Cabinet is full of a variety of crooks and charlatans.  Wilbur Ross, in particular, remains a cesspool of illegal dealing.

However, the troubling fact remains that Trump used illegal methods to tip a very close election (made closer than necessary by the Comey letter).  That casts every action of his presidency under a cloud of illegitimacy.  Some of the damage - to the budget, to the environment - is more or less permanent.  The appointments to the Supreme Court will do years and years of damage. 

Thanks, Republicans.