[RachelF]

With option 1, it will be hard for the new administration to unravel it without confirming the bias that they are in the pay of Russia. However this level of subtlety may be beyond Trump.

Perhaps Obama is trying to make Trump's new administration look illegitimate?

[cmurf]

Option 1's problem is far less anyone in the new administration is in the pay of Russia, but that the GOP for more than a decade has been claiming government is totally incompetent, cannot be trusted to do anything, should not be trusted, and could not investigate itself. This is hardly any different than the surveillance state, creating that infrastructure puts it right into the hands of political adversaries when the political winds change, and now creating distrust in government generally rather than just political enemies means the distrust is inherited when political winds change. It's deeply damaging to have this concept of "saying things makes them true/untrue" rather than appeal to facts.