they’re intertwined based on the sequence of events last couple days:

‘bounty-gate’ flops after the fact (although it was used as damaging campaign rhetoric against Trump, with biden brazenly saying it was fact during the debates), now even the harris/biden admin has to walk it back because intel still does not substantiate the claims. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1264215

so to counter this, “collusion” is revived by the swamp, basically calling mueller’s all-inclusive 22 month investigation a total sham

and to punish ‘russia’ some weak non-damaging sanctions are passed to make it seem like they’re treating it seriously https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/04/16/economists-us-sanctions-mostly-symbolic-and-wont-trouble-russia.html

What arguments? You didn't post any in the Russian bounties thread... it was just your usual kneejerk reaction defending Russia and strawmanning people who care about their malign actions.

If by original accusation, you mean the implication that the IC had a high confidence assessment on Russian bounties, sure. But that's still ignoring the merit the claim did have, and how seriously some in the Trump administration took it(NSC officials, Pompeo, etc).

It's recycled material. We've known about Manafort and Kilimnik's extensive history with one another for a long time. Manafort lobbied extensively in Ukraine and worked with Deripaska, a Russian oligarch. Manafort lobbied Deripaska for work while he working for the Trump campaign. Manafort had a personal relationship with both men. The collusion conspiracy rests on the assumption that Manafort was engaging Kilmnik at the behest of Trump, and that Kilmnik in turn was working directly for Russian intelligence. As Mueller concluded in his report, there's no evidence for either assertion.



It's not clear whether they're making an assumption based on past reports, or whether they're saying they have additional evidence. If they do, they haven't shared it.

Just moves the goal posts slightly from "Trump colluded" to 'The Trump campaign colluded, to the surprise of nobody, and right under Trump's nose in a way that probably wouldn't have happened to any other campaign in the past 50 years".

You either get Trump is corrupt, or Trump is so massively incompetent he enabled massive corruption right under his nose.

I'm good with either, as both justify the investigation and the suspicion of Trump.

indeed

basically they’re saying the findings of Mueller’s “beyond reproach” investigation were shams, due to ‘bounty-gate’ being completely discredited by the harris/biden admin (didnt stop them from saying it was fact during the election.)