[rayiner]

It’s a huge leap to go from cheering the leak of those emails to alleging that Trump colluded with Russia to “steal” the election. To me that implies manipulating votes. I don’t think releasing information can ever count as “stealing” an election. Certainly that doesn’t justify calling him “illegitimate.” If those emails changed the outcome of the election, that’s only because the information was probative to voters.

To use a legal analogy, I don’t see political discourse as being something where there should be judges excluding unreliable or prejudicial materials. Information is fair game.

[tptacek]

If true, isn't it essentially a recapitulation of Watergate, except that the break-in occurred online and not in a DC hotel? Watergate cost Nixon his presidency.

I was against impeachment (I still think it was stupid), because it was a political stunt with no hope of actually removing the president. But just morally, Trump richly deserved investigation. "Where's there's smoke, there's fire", and Trump's campaign and administration put out a burning oil well's worth of smoke. He lost his National Security Advisor to a foreign agent violation within weeks of taking over. Senior members of his campaign coordinated with Julian Assange. I don't think you can pretend like this was all fake.

(Just to calibrate: I also think Clinton should have been impeached).