[The Hill] Witch hunt or mole hunt? Times bombshell blows up all theories

good points, but I disagree with some of the things you say

I think the whole piece is an argument for adopting a wait-and-see attitude. What we don't know outweighs what we do know. It's far too early to draw conclusions about much of anything yet.

agree in part but disagree in part. Intention matters--it's why we distinguish between premeditated murder and the various lesser forms of manslaughter. You have folks on one end of the spectrum who argue Trump is a Russian agent who should be shot (DD for example on this board). On the other hand you have folks who argue we might cut a break for a non-career politician who is making lots of mistakes. But I agree with you that Trump does not seem to learn from those mistakes.

no real disagreement here, but the essay does make a decent point about considering actual policies that are not necessarily favorable to Russia

I'll disagree that this isn't an important question. We've had two years of chaos and distraction over this question.

no real disagreement here

 

on the "take away the interpeters notes from meetings with russia" topic . . . it has of course been widely reported in the press that Trump "took away" or "grabbed" or "seized" the interpreter's notes of the meeting, as if to suggest Trump was forcibly taking something that didn't belong to him.

A more charitable way of describing the same act (which nobody other than Trump and the interpreter witnessed) might be "Trump asked the interpreter for her notes at meeting's end," or "Trump kept the notes of the meeting after it was over" which as President is of course his right to do (assuming he complies with the Presidential Records Act).

Here again we can see where a slightly over-zealous if not over-the-top style of reporting seems to always put Trump in a bad light when there's a possibility of a less-pernicious reading of events might put him in a neutral light or even a good light.

I don't think anyone has convincingly described Trump's "taking" the notes away from the interpreter. That's just speculative spin.