Sen. Chuck Grassley, Republican, has a fascinating theory for why it doesn't matter if Russia has compromising information on Trump.
“It seems to me that when you go back through the campaign and all the things that Trump said that ought to give him political problems and all the things that were caught on tape — that he would probably just as soon not have the world know about it – it’s kind of improbable to me that anybody who knows anything about Trump — that’s going to end up hurting Trump. And he was elected President of the United States.”
So according to Grassley, the Republican president-elect is already known to be such a perverted, ignorant, crooked, lying pile of crap that there's just nothing else out there that could "end up hurting him." Interesting theory.
Remember back when every Republican was trying to build up their next candidate into the second coming of Ronald Reagan—Reagan being the last Republican president Republicans still feel comfortable mentioning in polite company? Yeah, Trump isn't getting the Reagan treatment. The best the top Republicans in the nation can do is shrug that hell, if he can be this crooked and still get Republican votes, then I guess they'll be sticking with him for the long haul.
It'd be interesting to ask Chuck Grassley if there was anything new he could learn about Trump that would cause him to rethink his support.
The prostitute thing? Having financial ties to the Russian mob? A secret arrangement between the Trump campaign and Putin to stifle Republican support for Ukraine? Is there a single accusation that, if true, Chuck Grassley thinks would render Trump unsupportable not by the Republican base, but by Republican "patriots" like Chuck Grassley?
Because we're not hearing any signals that there might be. Chuck seems pretty clear that whatever the Russians think they have on Trump doesn't matter, because everybody has long been witness to Trump as a vile, disgusting, crooked man—and Republican leaders intend to work with him anyway.