The Russian collision or 80+ examples of futility

I know, I know, it might become an obsession. So I have done two things to alleviate the issue: the intentional typo in the headline and a nice masthead picture that has (almost) nothing to do with the subject. But what can I do, with my unhealthy predilection to spy stories of all kinds, especially where a good juicy conspiracy theory is involved? If it goes on, I will be considered a Trump supporter soon, my pledge of neutrality notwithstanding...

It so happens, that many of my FB friends, those of anti-Trump persuasion, happily disseminated a link to this article:

TRUMP’S RUSSIA COVER-UP BY THE NUMBERS – 80+ CONTACTS WITH RUSSIA-LINKED OPERATIVES



Apologies for the upper case, but one has to experience reality. Anyway, the article was provided by a group that is called "The Moscow Project" and bills itself as:

The Moscow Project is an initiative of the Center for American Progress Action Fund dedicated to analyzing the facts* behind Trump’s collusion with Russia and communicating the findings to the public. The Moscow Project’s team employs a multi-disciplinary approach towards its work, leveraging a unique combination of experience and expertise gained on Capitol Hill, at the State Department, and in private industry to examine this complex and sprawling series of events stretching back decades.

(*) On the same page the formula appears again but is modified a bit (emphasis mine in both cases):

The Moscow Project is an initiative of the Center for American Progress that is dedicated to uncovering the truth about Trump’s involvement in Russian attacks on our democracy.

As promised, the article really lists 80+* cases of supposedly suspicious (at best) and possibly criminal/traitorous at worst, contacts between various VIPs related in this or another way to Trump's campaign.

(*) On the day of posting this, the list really contained only 80 items, so I am holding my breath for that +.

I shall skip the list that starts with "The Trump campaign issued at least 15 blanket denials of contacts with Russia...", after all denial ain't a river and all that, let's go directly to the meat, why don't we? So, number 1 (one) in the list of traitorous contacts (I hope you are holding fast to your armchairs):

November 2015: Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen spoke with Russian athlete Dmitry Klokov, a former Olympic weightlifter, while trying to advance a Trump Tower Moscow development deal. This conversation reportedly took place after Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump, who was previously acquainted with Klokov, put the two men in contact with each other.

If the sheer scale of the traitorous intent behind this act hasn't caused a shock yet, the 3 (three) following items in the list of 80+ are dedicated to further development of this exciting weightlifter affair (believe it or not).

But enough with sarcasm, really. I am tired of it myself. I suspect that you, my rare reader, must have skipped the rest of the discoveries, after seeing the first one. I am built of more stout material, so I read all 80 of them, and may deity be my witness! There are several pearls that only "a unique combination of experience and expertise" could have uncovered, such as:

April 29, 2016: Papadopoulos emailed the Female Russian National about a potential trip to Russia. [#24]

May 21, 2016: Donald Trump Jr. dined with a Russian central banker at the NRA national convention. [#31]

July 7, 2016: Manafort emailed Kilimnik about offering private briefings on the campaign to Deripaska, who claims that Manafort owes him at least $19 million. [#39]

September 2016: Gates was in contact with an unnamed individual who the FBI assessed had ongoing ties to Russian intelligence. [#52]

October 12, 2016: WikiLeaks contacted Trump Jr., urging him to ask his father to tweet WikiLeaks links (which he did). WikiLeaks contacted Trump Jr. several other times, although he stopped replying to the messages. [#61]

October 13, 2016: WikiLeaks replied to Stone’s earlier message, telling him not to claim an association with WikiLeaks.[#63]

January 17-20, 2017: Anthony Scaramucci met with Dmitriev at the 2017 Davos World Economic Forum; after the meeting, he criticized U.S. sanctions on Russia in an interview with a Russian news agency. [#80]

Collusion, collision, collection, collective delusion - you name it, but... This article doesn't leave me many options, only this reference to Dostoyevsky (who, in turn, referred to an old English proverb, which I couldn't find):"From a hundred rabbits you can’t make a horse, a hundred suspicions don’t make a proof." Much as I would like to see some dramatic developments (see my hobby mentioned above), if this is similar to the material collected by the Mueller's team, the latter endeavor will not end with a bang, barely a whimper...

Too boring.