Well, well. Consider the source.

This will certainly undermine the credibility of allegations of significant collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians.

The infamous Trump/Russia dossier was funded in part by Hillary Clinton’s campaign lawyer

It was Clinton oppo research on Trump.

It’s long been known that research that went into the “Steele dossier” — an infamous document filled with lurid allegations about Donald Trump’s links to Russia that eventually drew FBI interest — was funded by Trump’s political enemies, including some Democrats.

But now, thanks to a new report from the Washington Post’s Adam Entous, Devlin Barrett, and Rosalind Helderman, we’ve learned just who those Democrats were: Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the DNC. (Politico soon confirmed the report.)

Per the Post, in April 2016, lawyer Marc Elias, working on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the DNC, started paying the opposition research company Fusion GPS to look into Trump’s ties to Russia. 

Former British spy Christopher Steele did this work for Fusion, and authored what became known as the Steele dossier, which contained salacious (and uncorroborated) political financial, and sexual allegations about Trump and his top associates.

Before that point, Fusion GPS had reportedly already done research into Trump, on behalf of a Republican client. 

But we don’t yet know who that Republican client is.

But Josh Marshall thinks it shouldn't be seen as undermining suspicions of Trump, at all.

[T]here’s a big effort now to present this as somehow being a scandal in itself, or discrediting Steele’s sleuthing. 

That is ridiculous. 

Is it really a scandal that Democrats helped fund research into Donald Trump’s illicit ties to Russia after Republicans donors decided they didn’t care anymore?

Not really.

And he still thinks Trump is correctly viewed as the Siberian Candidate, as Vlad's man in The White House.

Donald Trump and his campaign knowingly accepted assistance from a foreign adversary power. 

There’s good reason to believe, though as yet no hard proof, that they agreed to help Russia in exchange for assistance subverting the 2016 campaign. 

The President is still actively covering up for the Russian effort, as of this week.

Thing is, accepting aid from foreign sources, even foreign governments, with which one is in genuine sympathy is not corrupt, though for all I know it may be illegal.

And an American politician can thus be in sympathy while honestly serving what he thinks are America's own best interests.

Consider the arguments alleging advantage to America offered in support of our alliances with other powers, or of our participation in every war we've ever been in.

As for the whole America First thing and it's less than bellicose attitude toward Russia, the arguments for that have been made for many years by Pat Buchanan, arguments resting on appeals to our own national interests.

Whatever you may think of those arguments, no one has ever claimed Buchanan is or was a mere paid propagandist out to advance Russian interests against America's, or even in indifference to America's, rather than an honest pundit working for what he believed and believes to be America's good.

And absent proof to the contrary it's entirely possible there was no "exchange" in any corrupt or subversive sense, if Trump welcomed Russian campaign help, if too he all along wanted to dial back Cold War II, anyway.

And that attitude would, quite by itself, explain Putin's desire to help Trump and hurt Hillary, the aggressive NATO expander and strong partisan of Cold War II, with or without Trump's - or his campaign's - knowledge or cooperation.

But Josh Marshall thinks the Steele dossier and public todo about Russiagate saved America, he says, presumably hyperbolically and because he liked NATO expansion, favoring an aggressive stance toward Russia.

Or maybe he wants us to think, with only his assertion to rely on, that he personally and sincerely thinks Trump's plans included doing or allowing such decisive damage to America that stopping them cold literally amounted to saving our country.

In which case I say the fraud is palpable.

He provides nothing to support the idea Trump intended any changes harmful to our interests at all, much less so harmful as that.

And he provides no hint at anything that justifies viewing Trump's relations with Russia as corrupt.

But all the same he is openly charging Trump with selling out his country for a shot at The White House, flat out betraying his country's national security interests in return for clandestine campaign assistance, like some Cold War American passing defense secrets to the KGB in return for money.

Aldrich Ames, for instance.

Whether the execs at top of the Clinton campaign knew about it, Marc Elias may have helped save his country by making the decision to fund this critical research. 

Thank you, Marc Elias! 

I know that sounds a bit hyperbolic but it’s really not. 

Here’s why.

Remember, the Trump plan was to hit the ground running in January with a series of policy pay offs to Russia. 

It was the mounting FBI investigation into Trump’s ties to Russia, helped along significantly by information Steele uncovered, that got into the spokes of the Trump effort during the transition and hobbled the efforts to make the pay off. 

It’s what led to the rapid and chaotic series of events that forced the firing of Mike Flynn, the revelations about clandestine communications between Trump associates and the Russian Ambassador and finally to Trump’s decision to fire James Comey.

The Trump team wanted to deliver for Russia right out of the gate in January, a quick series of accommodations and a ‘grand bargain’ with Vladimir Putin. 

It was the investigation into Trump’s ties to Russia that got in the way and mainly prevented it. 

It’s clear that Steele’s research played a major role in that. 

Remember, the FBI found it so critical it agreed to continue funding Steele’s research. 

Without Marc Elias’s decision, that research may never have been conducted. 

The country owes him a debt of gratitude.