I'll bet Putin has tried this kind of thing before.
He might regularly send out feelers offering help to various influential politicians in the hopes he could trap one who would then be under his power because Putin's connection must be kept a secret.
Any experienced politician would know this and just say no or ignore the advance but Trump's team were all newbies and didn't realize it was a trap so they took the bait.
Putin must have been over the moon to have snared a potential US president! He knew he had a class A imbecile on the hook and now could play him out as long as he wished.
So then he seriously invaded the election in order to get his patsy elected and it worked. He might not have even had specific goals. Having the US president compromised so deeply and completely would be a great first step. What he would do with that power could be worked out later.
But the connection leaked out because Trump's people are still newbies and don't know how to manage this kind of thing. Putin probably became frustrated and realized this connection wasn't going to pay big dividends and might even cause damage.
He waited until the G20 to talk with Trump in person but now he knows the whole effort will probably be a fiasco so he would be planning an exit strategy. Perhaps the leaking info in the last few days was the beginning of Putin pulling out of the whole mess.
Just my musings on the situation.
Any thoughts?
= new reply since forum marked as read
pulled back a bloody stump. Putin is 100X the man Donnie Dim-Wit is. Ex-KGB.....they have ways of dealing with things like that. 
