It's all one scandal

No matter how many different investigations there are, no matter how many actors move in and out of the story, no matter how many new personal lawyers are involved, no matter how many cabinet members resign, no matter how clutchfans threads get started...it's all one scandal.

In every concern about what is going on with President Donald Trump (beyond ideological policy differences) there are the same two central figures each time.

-In March of 2016, Donald Trump was gearing up for what was projected to be a painful delegate fight in the Republican nomination battle at the convention. He hired Paul Manafort to take over. Manafort worked for free (alarm bells) to help secure the nomination for Mr. Trump. Manafort had not worked in American politics in years, instead working in Ukraine for the Putin backed Yanukovych. Yanukovych now lives in exile in Russia, protected by Putin, after being removed from office and charged with High Treason.

-At the Republican convention, the GOP changed the language on the platform regarding their position on Ukraine. Manafort denied that the Trump campaign had anything to do with it, but this ended up being false as multiple delegates confirmed that it was Trump staffers who gave them the new language to propose. The new language backed off on supporting Ukraine against Putin's aggression.

-We know from the Mueller Report, the IC and the House and Senate investigations that Putin wanted Trump elected and not only worked to spread propaganda to help him, but also propped up Jill Stein as a third party candidate to help steal votes from Clinton.

-In 2019 the Senate approved $300b in aid to Ukraine and additionally put limits on American-Russian relations until Russia freed sailors that Russia had imprisoned as part of its war with Ukraine. Donald Trump publicly voiced displeasure with the aid and in August called for a re-evaluation of the aid saying he didn't think the money would be used for American interests. This was good news for Putin.

-As we later came to find out, Trump was blocking this aid, at least in part, because he wanted an investigation into Joe Biden. According to Bill Taylor, Trump had also made clear that he didn't want to give this aid at all.

-As part of his ongoing attempts to get foreign nations to investigate Biden and the 2016 election, Trump dispatched his personal attorney Rudy Guillani. Rudy, as it turns out, was similar to Paul Manafort in ways we didn't know. He was working "for free" taking no money from Trump. Instead he was being paid more than $500k by a couple of Russian stooges named Igor and Lev who...you guessed it...are tied to Putin and his oligarchs in Russia.

-Lev as it turns out was with the Trump legal team the night that the Mueller report was released and took a photo with them (including Rudy and Sekulow) at a restaurant.

-In the latest Syria situation, immediately after stunning his NSC by ordering the pullout of American troops and despite saying that Russia was unhappy, Putin and Erdogan made a deal to divide up northern Syria between their two nations. A win for...Putin. American troops leaving the area was something Putin had been pushing for over a year.

I'm not getting into names like Kislyak, Kelemnik, Agalarov or Deripaska.

In every Trump "scandal" if you dig deep enough you find one person. Campaign manager works for Trump for free? Turns out he's connected to him. Personal lawyer flies all over the world trying to help Trump and works for free? Turns out he's connect to him. Stunning decisions regarding international security that go against his own NSC? Turns out he's connected. Election tampering? Facebook scandals? Poll data?

She's right. All roads lead to Putin.