Update below:

In a very news heavy time, sometimes the big story goes under reported, or just under appreciated.  But Russia’s (read Putin’s) connection with Trump is more than just a conspiracy theory wet dream.

The FBI suspects that Russian government hackers breached the networks of the Democratic National Committee and stole emails that were posted to the anti-secrecy site WikiLeaks on Friday. It’s an operation that several U.S. officials now suspect was a deliberate attempt to influence the presidential election in favor of Donald Trump, according to five individuals familiar with the investigation of the breach.

The thing about this is that it’s not hard to understand at all.  Nor is any of it any sort of reach. It actually explains some things that kind of confound explanation otherwise.

Why would Trump’s people work to water down a GOP plank in favor of arming the Ukrainian forces against Russia?  Well, this answers that.

Why would an American candidate for President say anything nice about a murderous strong man like Putin?

Why would said candidate break with 70 years of tradition and question our commitment to our NATO partners sending all the previous presidents, living and dead, spinning?

Could it have something to do with Paul Manafort’s connections to Putin and Putin supporters?

Would it be hyperbole to say that this is how deals with the devil get done?  Ask Paul Manafort, who has made plenty of deals with devils.

Just for example, when Manafort worked for Reagan, he went to the Philippines and made deals with Marcos.  He denies it now, but he had told a story where Marcos gave him a suitcase with $3M in cash for Reagan, which would have been an illegal contribution. So Manafort just kept the money. Problem solved.

After largely disappearing from the U.S. political spotlight for the past 20 years to build to a portfolio of foreign clients, Manafort reemerged in late March as a key adviser to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. He was quickly promoted to chief strategist and chairman, and has been working to put his international affiliations behind him (when POLITICO asked him to describe his relationship with Marcos, he laughed and said, “I’ve got to go”).

Suffice it to say, this is all quite disturbing.  The FBI is now investigating the hacking of the DNC, took them long enough to get to that. It will be interesting to see where that leads.

On MSNBC Martin O’Malley made the connection between this electronic robbery of the DNC and the break in of the DNC offices at the Watergate Hotel way back when.

With regard to the hacking, the burglary, albeit a digital burglary, of the DNC, let’s be really clear here. Virtually all of the experts who look at this say that this was, that these were not just leaks obtained by, or rather, e-mails obtained by Wikileaks. This was the intentional act of the Russian government, if we want to call it a government, of Vladimir Putin, who is trying to affect the outcome of this race and embarrass the Democratic nominee on the eve of our convention.

That, frankly, Thomas, outrages me far more than any petty chatter that was going on between DNC staffers. Look, they never write the rules in ways to make it easier for challengers in either party, but this is outrageous. This hasn’t happened since Watergate, that the DNC headquarters and communications have been burglarized, and this time it happened, not by people domestically, but it happened by the Russians, and it happened to affect the outcome of this race for their lapdog boy, Donald Trump.