When Trump launched his Twitter attack against a TV personality this week, I suspected an effort to distract. But what did he want to distract from, I wondered? Mitch McConnell's healthcare fiasco was already being played out on center stage, so that wasn't it. A story that gets a little too close for comfort, though, that might be something that requires an avalanche of useless media frenzy to cover up. The Wall Street Journal isn't exactly a liberal rag that Trump can afford to label as "fake news" to defend himself. Even today, their opinion page is scattered with columns sympathetic to and supportive of Mr. Trump, so there's a golden baby there that Trump can hardly afford to flush with the news department's increasingly hazardous bath water.

Let's hope that once the long holiday weekend is over, it will be Trump's twitter storm that has lost the media's attention, and that the focus will be on this emerging story.

I really thought this "Russian thing" would fizzle out and turn out to be much ado about nothing in terms of anybody being able to prove anything.

I am reassesing my opinion.

Also, I have to keep reminding myself that "it's not the crime, it's the cover up."

And, that investigations into two-bit real estate deals can uncover unrelated cans of worms. Who knows what investigations into international mega deals might uncover.

All this is certainly a potential breakthrough in the investigation, but I have some concern that Peter Smith, the Republican "activist" who first approached cyber security guru Matt Tait for help, passed away earlier this year?

I do see in Tait's account that Smith was later accompanied in his meetings with Tait by someone named John Szobocsan? Hopefully, Sxobocsan can be interviewed/investigated in Smith's stead.

(Smith sure looks to have been the stranger one, though. According to LinkedIn, the two "activists" were involved together during 2015-2016 in a company called Corporate Venture Alliances (CVA) LLC, where Smith was Chairman and Szobocsan was Managing Director. Take a look, though, at the company website for CVA. Smith's bio there is notably heavy on his "experience" in public affairs and within the Republican party? How is this relevant to the company's purported venture capitalism???)

There are black holes in both Trumps personal and business finances as well as Russian banking and oil interests. The irony is that they seem to intertwine and create a massive conflict of interest and power-grab. They would also create a situation where Putin and Trump could manipulate markets for massive personal gain. As the pieces come together, more and more the "Isn't that odd?" pieces seem to point in that general direction.

I really appreciate your posting this, Mike, as I sure wouldn't have known about it otherwise.

I had either CNN or MSNBC on most of the weekend, but caught no coverage whatsoever of these WSJ stories and the subsequent reports they generated.

CNN, in particular, is starting to gall me with their insipid coverage of just "today's Trump tweet"--while ignoring developments as big as this one?! Grr...