Way back in November the Huffington Post reported that a Russian diplomat had revealed that his government knew members of the Trump campaign team and in fact had been in touch with some of them. Also in November the Daily Beast ran a four-part series on Trump's Russia connection that's well worth reading.
Then came the allegations that the Russian government had indeed tried to influence the election's outcome in Trump's favor. Trump poo-pooed these claims, and continues to do so. Today he will be briefed by top US intell officials on their evidence of such actions. We common folk will then get a watered-down version of the story. Meanwhile, Congress is showing some interest in the story.
Trump's choice for Secretary of State, the former CEO of EXXON, has been pictured smoozing with Putin. How he will fare on Capital Hill during his confirmation hearings is uncertain at this time. But the hearings are unlikely to be a cakewalk, albeit they have been (strategically?) scheduled for a particularly busy day in the Senate... the so called "Votathon" day, when all proposed budget amendments get a thumbs up or down.
Of course, just as a correlation doesn't prove a cause-effect relationship, these facts do not prove that the Trump campaign knew of the Russian interference, much less solicited or encouraged it. And just because the Russians celebrated Trump's victory, that doesn't mean they helped engineer it.
On the other hand...
This old man is reminded of his salad days in the 1970s, when the Watergate break-in was initially nothing more than an attempted burglary of Democratic headquarters by a few over-enthusiastic, low-level thugs in the Nixon campaign. But in August 1974, Tricky Dick resigned from the presidency in the face of a likely impeachment trial.
Now, consider that, if history repeats itself, the Democrats will win back the Congress in 2018. Should Russiagate gain momentum, instead of going away during the intervening two years, we may see a second historic repeat... Watergate Redux.
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