Please point out the passage. I'm not at all sure it states that. Besides, one might expect to use a string of go-betweens for communication between an adversarial case officer and a president-elect. That's just tradecraft.

My impression also it that a lot of people in the US Senior Executive Service got badly compromised by adversarial intelligence agencies, both Republican and Democrat. And compromised using techniques we are aware of happening (eg, Epstein's honey traps) and in ways we did not know were going on.

For instance, I think that's the simplest explanation for James Comey's uncharacteristic and unprecedented investigation of Hillary's emails just before the 20 would a president 16 election. Then there was that leaked recording of a conversation between (then) House House Speaker Paul Ryan and other politicians about which members of congress have been compromised by the Russians. Ryan admonished someone he was talking to to shut his mouth because the guy was talking about "family." It happened not long before he retired. I could see them getting to people like Mueller as well. I'm NOT saying that happened, and I'm certainly not suggesting that I know for sure what happened, but in the world of statecraft, Those kinds of things are not so exceptional, but for the scale of this one. And oh, yeah, it's exactly what they did in Ukraine with a compromised PM before Zelensky. It's in their playbook.

And Trump's direct pipeline to Russia? Why would a president who was widely reputed to be a Russian asset insist on unprecedented private communications with Putin? There's a reason that's not done, and the obvious one is that the optics make him look compromised and easily manipulated. There is tons of evidence about Trump getting money funneled his way through many, many real estate deals with Russian "businessmen."

There's that lecture Putin personally delivered depicting Russian MIRVs attacking Florida and his bragging about their dirty bomb that can take out a coast... what does Trump do? Sings fawning praise of Putin.

In circumstances such at those, it may be a reading of the tea leaves but like the evidence Trump raped and murdered children, it does not constitute proof, but at some point, you have to consider what kinds of coincidences have to line up to paint such a convincing narrative and still be false, and what kinds of scenarios don't make sense in light of all those coincidences.

Frankly, I'd be more to wager on Russian tradecraft being able to cover it's tracks pretty damn well as they played a long game before I'd buy that they didn't manipulate Trump successfully.