Evidence that Trump Colluded with Putin

I believe the legitimacy of the November 8 election hinges in part upon whether Donald Trump colluded with the Russian government in order to win the election. There are many pieces of circumstantial evidence that he did.

Trump's July 27 Press Conference

On Wednesday, July 27, Donald Trump said, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing”. He started that same press conference by saying, “so it's been 235 days since crooked Hillary Clinton has had a press conference, and you as reporters who give her all these glowing reports should ask why, and I'll tell you why”. Ironically, that July 27 press conference is his most recent.

Inviting Russia to hack Secretary Clinton's email was unquestionably a misstep, but by Trump standards it was only a moderate gaffe if you assume that Trump had no knowledge or involvement with the DNC hacking. Remember that this was the same candidate who picked a fight with the Khan family, attacked a Miss Universe contestant for her weight, called for jailing Secretary Clinton, hinted that second amendment advocates could assassinate Secretary Clinton, and mocked a disabled reporter. In that context, half-jokingly calling on Russia to hack into Secretary Clinton's email would hardly be noteworthy if he had no communication with the Russian government.

If Trump was colluding with the Russian government to break into Secretary Clinton's email, this was a huge blunder — big enough to warrant making it his last press conference of the campaign. He did exactly that.

The Third Debate

On May 27 Trump said (48:28), “I spoke directly and indirectly with President Putin, who could not have been nicer”.

Five months later at the third debate (47:16) Trump made the statement, “I don't know Putin”. Neither the moderators nor Secretary Clinton implied that he knew Putin. It is highly suspect that Trump felt the need to deny knowing Putin when no one said he did.

The Wisconsin Rally

At the Wisconsin Rally of his thank you tour, he said about Dr. Jill Stein, “she got less than one percent but she thought she was going to catch us”. Dr. Stein was only asking for a recount, not a criminal inquiry. Yet Trump used the phrase “catch us” as if Trump had something to hide.

Trump's Conspiracy Theory

On October 13 Trump said, “we've seen this firsthand in the WikiLeaks documents in which Hillary Clinton meets in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty in order to enrich these global financial powers, her special interest friends, and her donors”. Ignore the fact that the WikiLeaks documents reflect no such thing. At the time this seemed like an absurd accusation to make about either candidate.

Based on Trump's alleged relationship with Russia, his increasingly apparent conflicts of interest, and his absurd choices of cabinet nominees, it is clear that this accusation was an exhibition of one of his narcissistic tendencies: projecting his own motives onto his opponent.

Conclusion

Our intelligence agencies undoubtedly have much more knowledge about the existence of a Trump-Putin relationship than we do, but these events combined make it seem very likely that Trump colluded directly with the Russian government to illegally win the election.