Honestly, u would think Trump, just out of a sense of self-preservation, would stop naming Russophiles and sanctions condemners to his team.

— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) December 11, 2016

This is true, which is what has me doing a lot of worrying and headscratching.

I mean, Trump has been openly fondling Putin’s balls for a year and a half. Everything he’s done WRT Russia, NATO, etc. looks like an incredibly clumsy attempt to befriend Putin, or like a guy who’s working for Putin and wants to do everything he can for the boss, regardless of how obvious he’s being. We know he has absolutely no honesty in him, but he also has no subtlety, either. If he’s in Putin’s pocket, he’s not going to do what a GOOD Putin asset would do in this situation, which is to pronounce it very disturbing and insist that he’ll have the Intelligence Community look into it, because by god this is AMERICA! and NOBODY is gonna get away with this! and he’d say that if Russia really tried to win the election for him, then they made a big mistake because he’ll be their worst nightmare!

That’s what SMART asset would do. A DUMB asset would say, “Nah, this is silly! BTW, look what a great friend of Putin I’m considering for State!”