It's a bit naïve to seriously think this story has anything to do with nudes. The real story was about corruption at the highest levels of government, selling influence, etc. The crack rocks and related pornographic content were a convenient if not shocking distraction. Embarassing? Yes. Scandalous? Sure. But it wasn't what made it news worthy at all.

That’s like saying Clinton using a cigar was nothing of importance to politics.

Clinton was impeached for lying under oath, not for his creative use of cigars.

That’s not the point. It could have been left out. But it was not and catapulted the author to the SCOTUS.

It was important for selling tabloids, which are now indistinguishable from mainstream news.

The lurid bits just helped give the story legs.

The only point of the laptop saga is to cast doubt on Biden's integrity and to counter any sort of similar questions about Trump's.

This was yet another October surprise -- a spiced up rendition of Buttery Males v2.

I know the Trump White House made requests for stuff to be taken down via email, (instead of the Report Tweet button), but I didn't see that President Trump requesting a ToS review for some tweets was this kind of corruption.

https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598828932395978752

The pee tape story was completely fabricated, as was the Russian collusion narrative, and that was revealed although carefully subtexted and de-emphasized in the Mueller Report.

The Steele Dossier was acknowledged as "raw intel" from the get go, and the likelihood of some sort of kompromat on Trump is possible and probable.

Mueller also made a point of declaring that his report did not exonerate Trump: https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-ap-top-news-crime-po...

No one has exonerated you either. Shouldn't you get cleared of your crimes before commenting?

> the likelihood of some sort of kompromat on Trump is possible and probable.

What "kompromat" could possibly be a big enough deal to compromise Trump at this point? His enemies are trying to persuade the world that he attempted to overthrow the US government and he is still a top-10 candidate for the presidency in the next election.

How are foreigners meant to compete with that?

Sigh, this is why discussing politics with Americans gets exhausting. It's difficult to get a serious answer out of someone, because all they really care about deep down is making their party look good and the other party look bad.

So often they'll reach for "it's different when my party does it because the other party are nazis/communists/russians/pedophiles/etc." It's just so tiresome and anyone outside the circus can see how unproductive it all is, but people in the thick of it really do see it as Marvel vs Thanos.