Aris,
“I mean are you arguing that these things didn't happen, that they don't show Russia's preference for Trump, or merely that they didn't affect the outcome of the election?”I read through your linked article, and noted among other things that it relies upon the discredited “Steel dossier”, commissioned by the Clinton campaign to a foreign national with a clearly expressed preference for Hillary in the 2016 election outcome.
John McCain is also cited early on for his opinion that Trump;
“... abased himself … abjectly before a tyrant” in Helsinki“. This is the same John McCain who passed Steele’s anti-Trump dossier to leaker James Comey
after the presidential election. By then, Steele had met several times with FBI, but had been terminated as an FBI source because he leaked to the news media.
In his book published in 2018, McCain claimed he had an
”obligation“ to pass the dossier on to Comey and he would even do it again, saying
“Anyone who doesn’t like it can go to hell.”.
Well, no John, and I hope that you are in hell. Pimping a discredited opposition research paper to the FBI is not an act of patriotic zeal, but sour grapes from a loser
“who got caught“. Selling out his country was not a new experience for
“Singing John”, as his Hanoi Hilton co-inmates referred to him.
Second, I noted a reference to a
“company affiliated with a sanctioned Russian oligarch who paid $1 million to Michael Cohen, then Trump’s personal lawyer, for unspecified services after the election.“ We are left to conclude that Trump somehow benefited from the transaction. It is more credible to me that slimy Cohen pocketed the funds in exchange for influence peddling.
In reading the rest of the article I traced innuendo after innuendo until my eyes glazed over, all claiming need for
“serious investigation”... as though the two year, 32 million dollar, Muller investigation manned by the likes of Andrew Weissmann, and a prosecutorial staff composed entirely of democrats, had never occurred.
So, in answer to your opening questions; I am arguing that these “things“ are unsupported, that they showed Russia's tendency to disrupt national cohesion via both the Trump, and Hillary campaigns, and that the effect that this had on outcome of the election was to divide America.
Russia’s actions likely had some bearing upon Trump’s subsequent hardline stance on curtailing Russian economic growth, as related by a source unsympathetic to Trump:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/thehill.com/opinion/white-house/397212-president-trump-is-tougher-on-russia-in-18-months-than-obama-in-eight%3fampIf there is a single quasi-accusation that you believe rises above the level of innuendo, I would be happy to go down that rabbit hole with you.