I’m rather amused at everybody clasping their pearls and pretending to be shocked – shocked, I tell you – over news that Clinton’s campaign paid for the questionable Russia dossier on Trump.

HOW DARE YOU DO OPPOSITION RESEARCH ON AN OPPONENT DURING AN ELECTION!!

Oh, wait…

Yeah. It’s kind of how it’s done. Add that to the fact that for months now, the narrative has been that it was originally commissioned by a Republican opponent in the primaries, dropped, and then picked up by Democrats and nobody with a reasonable grasp on reality or an even passing interest in honesty should pretend to be shocked by the revelation.

But Susan… what about the FBI paying for it?

If they were investigating members of Trump’s campaign team for involvement with the Kremlin, and may have suspected Trump of being in a position to be blackmailed by Russia, if nothing else, then it’s not all that unusual.

If anything, all this new, earth-shaking-only-to-those-desperate-to-defend-Trump information proves is that there was enough out there to raise eyebrows about Trump’s involvement with a hostile foreign power.

Before all the dainty ladies get their petticoats in a knot, however, let’s just remind everyone that Trump isn’t the most upright, noble, above reproach leader the world has ever known, no matter what he tells you.

Didn’t he ask WikiLeaks, an anti-American hackers’ haven, to “find” Hillary Clinton’s lost emails?

He did.

But Susan… He was only joking!

Maybe not.

According to a recent report from the Daily Beast, Trump’s campaign data firm, Cambridge Analytica, reached out to WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, asking to help in finding Hillary’s emails.

The head of the firm, Alexander Nix, wrote in an email last year of his efforts.

Nix, who heads Cambridge Analytica, told a third party that he reached out to Assange about his firm somehow helping the WikiLeaks editor release Clinton’s missing emails, according to two sources familiar with a congressional investigation into interactions between Trump associates and the Kremlin. (CNN later reported Cambridge backer Rebekah Mercer was one of the email’s recipients.) Those sources also relayed that, according to Nix’s email, Assange told the Cambridge Analytica CEO that he didn’t want his help, and preferred to do the work on his own.

The interchange between Nix—whose company made millions from the Trump campaign—and Assange represents the closest known connection between Trump’s campaign and Wikileaks.

But Susan… It wasn’t Trump! It was the head of Cambridge Analytica!

It was the head of the firm working for Trump doing the same thing those working for the Clinton campaign did, that is now being excoriated by the Trumpidian faithful.

Assange confirmed that there was a proposal to find those 33,000 emails, but that he refused their help.

Those 33,000 messages were a central focus of Trump and his allies during the campaign. At least one Republican operative tried to recruit hackers to obtain those emails, according to The Wall Street Journal. And at a press conference on July 27, 2016, while the Democratic National Convention was underway, Trump—then the Republican nominee—said he hoped the Kremlin would recover those emails.

So what’s worse? Hiring someone to gather opposition research or trying to recruit somebody to hack into an opponent’s email?

There’s no doubt about Trump’s love for WikiLeaks. He openly professed his love on the campaign trail.

Since the election, however, the RNC has tried to downplay the involvement of Cambridge Analytica in the actual campaign. Unfortunately for them, FEC reports show the campaign paid over $5 million to the firm.

I’m fairly certain that $5 million wasn’t a donation from the RNC to Cambridge Analytica. They got something for their money.