[mseebach]

You basically outline why that's an unsatisfying answer. It didn't prevent Trump from entering the political arena. The "Access Hollywood" tape surfaced a month before the election, why not during the primaries, when he was more vulnerable? Does anyone really believe that someone with purportedly the full power of the US intelligence community couldn't find more on-the-record dirt on him, or his senior staff? What about the stuff in the Russian dossier (the golden shower stuff)? Again, appeared days before the election, too late to do proper damage, and if that's the best the US intelligence community can do, they're mind-bogglingly inept.

Assuming the conspiracy theory that the US IC "effectively control the population" is true, the only rational explanation is that they wanted Trump as president, not the opposite.