[siosonel]

To me, it's definitely not the "most credit-giving way" or the "most childish thing". The Russia angle is a really big deal, it goes to the core of the legitimacy of Trump's presidency. Not only that, it demonstrates the direction his authoritarian tendencies is likely to lead the country into, with his open admiration of strongmen and inexplicable questioning of the historic goodwill within the NATO alliance.

His guilt over Russia involvement can be inferred by his constant obsession and attempts to discredit typical law enforcement investigation practices. It is a big deal to have a sitting president acting similar to how a guilty defendant would with (1) a video inviting computer hacking, (2) documented lies or rewrites of "official" statements about a Trump tower meeting of senior Trump campaign officials with the representatives of the invitees, (3) an announcement of an upcoming press briefing about contents (emails) of the hacking target made at the time of the meeting, (4) news reports of surveilled increase in hacker activities at the time of the hacking invite.

All of the above are not credit-giving or childish. At the same time, an alternative of explaining government policies and trade numbers would likely not get through the electorate, and in my opinion unlikely to change hardened or media-saturated minds.

[liberte82]

Why do you think Trump spent so much time attacking Hillary for being "crooked"? It was to muddy the waters so that when Trump's own crooked actions came to light, the average person would just throw up their hands and say "they're all bad".