If Trump had "seriously thought", an oxymoron for his cognition, about running for public office he would have taken more care to conceal his dirty doings. Clearly he did not understand, or misunderestimated, the tenacity of investigative journalism. All he would have to have done would be to hire a shop to do a first pass opposition research on himself. Of course he is way too paranoid to trust anyone to compile such a dossier.
I think he just wanted the bragging points and attention and it got out of hand. He never figured he would get this much screwtiny, as who go to the expense and trouble to do deep international background on an early looser in a primary of 17 colorful candidates.
Now there is a desperate, and likely futile, attempt to retroactively cover up all of that large scale, low hanging fruit, much of which is almost certainly highly criminal money laundering for the Russian oligarchs.
RE:
rporter314: Speculating on possible results of connections, we have the most odious possibility Mr Trump would be willing to allow Russian intervention in Eastern Europe without US retaliation.
I am not too worried about this now as I suspect that similarly to his modus operandi of dealing with other contractors, he will simply stiff them. He is a master bait and switch artist. Now that it is exposed his quid pro quo options are severely limited, and he can now earnestly claim to his Rusky friends: I would love to help you all I can, but my hands are tied. They could still destroy him in a flash, but he is betting/hoping that even weakened, they view him as a still useful asset/idiot. The Russians are obviously worried by this unpredictability, that now seems likely worse than the Hillary demon that they knew and understood. What will it take for them to play their high trump card and anoint Prez Pence? Time will tell!
I doubt that Russian golden sexploitation blackmail would worry him, as Pussy-Grabber in chief snatched victory from the jaws of defeat in that scandal, that has immunized him from paraphilia related damage. Even the incestuous and pedophilia angles are shockingly ignored by the true believers. In fact, these otherwise exclusionary characteristic, have strengthened his appeal to the "mens rights" nut/whack jobs, and inexplicably many women have, with sincere so-called Christian values, turned the other cheek.
Tat