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Another day, another news outlet treating the Trump campaign’s “collusion” with Russia as an unresolved question. Here’s why that’s absurd. 
In 1980 someone stole debate prep papers from Jimmy Carter, sent it to the Reagan campaign and Reagan used the inside info to his advantage.
It turned into a big scandal, drawn out years into Reagan's presidency. There were congressional investigations, DOJ got involved, etc.
They called it Debategate. You can even read about it in The Failing New York Times. nytimes.com/1983/07/16/us/…
Twenty years later, something similar happened, when the Gore campaign received videotaped debate prep stolen from George W. Bush.
Except memories were longer then, and so instead of cheating, the person who received the tapes had his lawyer send the package to the FBI.
You can also read that story in The Failing New York Times. nytimes.com/2000/09/14/us/…
The main similarity between the two stories is that Reagan and Gore were judged by what they did with the goods after they received them.
These would have been much different stories if the thieves had approached the Reagan and Gore campaigns in advance...
...and asked whether the materials would be useful.
The story would have be that Reagan aides had connived with thieves to sabotage Carter’s debate performance.
But this is precisely what members of the Trump campaign did on multiple occasions, but with Russian spies.
The spies asked “would this stolen information be helpful to you,” and the Trump campaign said yes. Or “I love it!” if you prefer.
The cooperation could be more extensive and run deeper, but it’s well documented at this point.
So far as we know, the stolen information was only put to “use” by publishing it online.
But that doesn’t negate the fact that it was done to sabotage Clinton, and at Trump’s behest.
It’s easy to imagine other, more involved forms of collusion. But that doesn’t make what we know less definitive.
And that’s why I think media hedges–“possible collusion,” etc.–have outlived their usefulness, and aren’t actually informing news consumers.
The end.
