http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/01/mueller-investigating-trump-russian-asset.html?fbclid=IwAR1082AxM5eAAUBte9FlUWwSKukRP29lcuDuxSrocKvlLgFhdn29K4warbc
"A somewhat related issue is the question of whether Russia has some kind of backchannel to shape Trump’s thinking. Trump has met with Russian officials since 1987. It was after his first trip to Moscow that he first contemplated running for president. It is well within the realm of possibility that Russians used blackmail, bribes, or perhaps just simple flattery to help shape his thinking on world affairs. It is hard to understand how else some of the idiosyncratic and bizarrely Russpohillic ideas he routinely spouts have found their way into Trump’s brain. His warning that tiny Montenegro is a threat to attack Russia, or his claim that the Soviet Union was right to invade Afghanistan in 1979, are not notions Trump would pick up from his normal routine of binge-watching Fox News. Much of the public focus on the Mueller investigation has centered on campaign collusion. Russia worked to help elect Trump, and Trump and his campaign at minimum welcomed its help, and at maximum, actively participated. (Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort gave polling data to a Russian oligarch, the most likely use for which would have been guiding Russian social media efforts.) But campaign collusion is a relationship with a fixed endpoint: November 8, 2016. After Trump won presidency, any secretive or suspicious mutual interest between him and Vladimir Putin would conclude. Having succeeded in helping to elect the friendly Trump (and block the unfriendly Clinton), Putin could now operate with his chosen candidate on a normal president-to-president basis. The Times report tells us that collusion is only part of the story. The relationship between Trump and Putin did not merely rest on their mutual interest in the Trump campaign defeating Clinton, but indicates some deeper connection. From the very beginning of this story, pundits have underestimated the full extent of Trump’s ties to Russia and how much deeper the story might yet go."
