Canadian Politics Today

We know (for example) of the following links between Russia and various people within Trump's organization:
- Flynn lied about contacts with Russian officials
- Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort was a business partner of several Russian businessmen
- Eric Trump admitted that they don't get funding from American banks, but they get the financing they need from Russian banks
- Meetings between Trump's son-in-law and adviser Kushner and Russian banks and Russian officials prior to Trump being sworn in

We also have multiple U.S. intelligence agencies stating that the hackers involved in the U.S. elections were based in Russia.

Now, none of that is concrete proof of collusion. However, it is enough to sustain investigations. Which is the whole point... to build on evidence to see what crimes may have been committed.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/03/connections-trump-putin-russia-ties-chart-flynn-page-manafort-sessions-214868
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/06/15/mueller_reportedly_investigating_kushner_s_financial_dealings_with_russia.html
http://nypost.com/2017/05/07/eric-trump-said-dads-golf-courses-were-funded-by-russia/

Now, as for Trump himself: As I pointed out, the main issue isn't whether Trump himself colluded with the Russians, but whether Trump attempted to influence the investigations into the other people. (Trump may himself have been involved but that doesn't appear to be the main problem right now.) So what evidence do we have that Trump may be guilty of interfering with the election? We have:

- Comey's testimony and memos. (Yes, its not hard proof, but the fact that he wrote things down ahead of time gives his testimony more weight than just a simple claim after the fact.)
- The fact that Comey himself was actually fired, along with conflicting claims about why he was fired. (If Trump couldn't keep his story straight, it kind of affects his credibility.)
- Reports that people like NSA chief Rogers and Director of Intelligence Dan Coats were asked by the whitehouse to make statements about how "the president was not under investigation". (Now, part of that information comes from 'anonymous sources'; however, they were reported in fairly respectable mainstream publications.)

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/5/22/15678342/trump-russia-probe

It just smells completely fishy. Why do so many people around Trump have connections to Russia?   You didn't even mention Carter Page or Robert Mercer.  Then you have crazy-person Roger Stone bragging about his "back channel" to WikiLeaks.   Then you have Trump's insistence on Michael Flynn being in his cabinet, even after he was told Flynn was compromised. And what's with Flynn and Sessions and Kushner all having secret meetings with Russian officials? What in the fizzityuck is going on?

Given all this stuff, and the ongoing investigation, it creates the unavoidable appearance that Trump meddled in the investigation because Trump was worried about what the investigation would find.

 -k