But those in their orbit at least tried to exercise some sort of basic tradecraft. And when I say basic, I mean child-like.
The communication between the campaign, Wikileaks, and the Russians at least tried to put some distance between all of them and trump himself. But it was fantastically pathetic. It seems:
-- that they used their own phones and other devices.
-- that they saved everything, or at least to keep Bob Mueller and his troops pretty damn busy.
-- that, with only one exception, they didn't use anyone who wasn't more than one degree of separation apart from the key players.
-- that they made no attempt to conceal their actions.
On reflection, they exercised no tradecraft. Now consider this. The Russians have a pretty good track record at spy tradecraft (as do all major countries). And, yet, they made very little effort to conceal their actions. Maybe they tried to conceal specifics, but they made no effort to conceal the contacts. They sent a Russian woman - Butina - and they used Kislyak from the outset, and all other Russian contacts were oligarchs connected to the Kremlin. It's almost as if they wanted trump to be seen in contact. (That last sentence is sarcasm.)
Flynn was the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Granted, he did not come from the operational ranks, but surely he understood the concept of tradecraft.
But I digress.
Maybe the trumps thought it wouldn't fucking matter. He could shoot someone on fifth avenue and his poll numbers would go up. And everything he's done in the past four years pretty much substantiates this attitude. So maybe they all saw no need for concealing anything. And, yet, the efforts they did use to try to cover shit up was so fucking sophomoric.
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