Given the Russians did not hack the DNC, and given that the level of 2016 Russian Government / Intelligence Internet-based election influence was less then negligible, why, on 29 December 2016, were 35 Russians declared Persona Non Grata, given 72 hours to leave the country and two diplomatic facilities closed?

(Also on this timeline of attempts to declare someone persona non grata for collusion with then candidate Donald Trump, were the calls by Director of National Intelligence Clapper and Secretary of Defense Ash Carter for the removal of then Director / National Security Agency Adm Mike Rogers for his 17 November 2016 visit to Trump Tower in NYC, you know, the same day Trump moved the transition team over to Bedminster in New Jersey.)

An analysis based on Occam's Razor (of two competing theories, the simplest is preferred) and on Nguyen van Phred's Maxim ("The secret bombings in Cambodia were no secret to the Cambodians.") poses some interesting potentialities.

Apply Occam's Razor to the proposition and the simple theory floats (like a duck) that the Russia Hoax plotters (Obama/Comey/Brennan/Clapper) wanted to amplify the smear effect of claiming massive Russian Government / Intelligence pro-Trump election interference at the same time forcing a poison pill down the throat of any possibility for there to be anything approaching normal U.S. / Russian government-to-government relations. Not bad for a two-fer.

It would also taint any effort made public by the Russian Government / Intelligence to be proactive providing information antithetical to the Russia Hoax narrative, as it would be proof positive of a pro-Trump position. So its more a hat-trick than a two-fer.

However, with a hat tip to van Prhed, it seems prudent to take into account. that not only did the Russian Government / Intelligence know that they did not hack the DNC, they knew exactly what their level of " election interference" was.

Additionally, it would also seem to be prudent to factor in that the Russian Government / Intelligence were well aware of the active measures that the DNC, in coordination with rouge elements of the U.S. Government, were engaged in both independent and coordinated aspects of the Russia Hoax (i.e. the various and numerous ways the Steele dossier was insinuated into the State Dept, the Intelligence Community, the House and the Senate, to the MSM, etc).

"The Russia Hoax was no secret to the Russians" and they had/have the capability to know a great deal about what was going on. Its not like they had to go to a FISA court to get a warrant to monitor communications of American government officials in the United States, and more importantly... what the hoax plotters were up to when operating in Europe.

This "little" side show of the greater Russia Hoax deserves serious scrutiny.

It is as interesting a topic as a theory I read some time back on some thread somewhere, that kicking the Russians out was a pretext to prompt Russian Ambassador Kislyak to make that call (priming the pump so to say) to National Security Advisor designate Gen Flynn, knowing that the call was going to be intercepted, and then claiming there was a compromising conversation between Kislyak and Flynn (Logan Act set up), and then being able to withhold the actual transcript (the proof) of the recording due to protecting "sources and methods."

Same Chinese finger trap as above, well poisoned, and any attempt by the Russians to set the record straight would only have been proof of collusion and coordination.

There is another theory floating around the internet that there was actual collusion between Putin and Trump... but it involved the Russians monitoring Hillary, the Clintons in general, the Clinton Foundation's overseas criminal activities (pay to play influence in ripping of America), and collecting intelligence on the joint Clinton-Obama / DNC (they are one in the same, are they not) Russia Hoax smear operation.

And it was this activity, this information provided by the Russians to Trump, that is what the corrupt deep state feared, and was trying to taint, so that if it was ever revealed it could be dismissed as Russian disinformation. If true, this Putin to Trump information pipeline would be a very similar technique to the parallel collection/spying technique used for decades (at least back to 1938 as far as I have been able to dig up) by the FBI to obtain otherwise illegally gathered information which is then used to authorize legally sanctioned collection/spying (under a warrant) or if not, simply to be used as blackmail material during investigations to intimidate whoever is in the crosshairs.

Its a little Tom Clancy, but then again, Clancy dedicated The Sum Of All Fears (book / 1991) "For Mike and Peggy Rogers, a sailor and his lady --"

Now there are two lines of bearing it would be interesting to "track." Clancy publishes Hunt for Red October in 1984... Mike Roger's Navy Officer Designator changes to 1610 in 1986... book dedication in 1991.

I love the smell of fresh rabbit hole dirt in the morning.

Wow! Everyone should READ THIS ARTICLE IN ITS ENTIRETY! This is bombshell stuff and it's jam-packed with significant findings!

Durham is said to be using the long-hidden report, which runs 50-plus pages, as a road map in his investigation of whether the Obama administration politicized intelligence while targeting the Trump campaign and presidential transition in an unprecedented investigation involving wiretapping and other secret surveillance.

Durham's road map to the baddies? Sounds like it.

“It wasn’t 17 agencies and it wasn’t even a dozen analysts from the three agencies who wrote the assessment [who supported the conclusion that Putin interfered to support Trump]," as has been widely reported in the media, he said. "It was just five officers of the CIA who wrote it, and Brennan hand-picked all five. And the lead writer was a good friend of Brennan’s.”

Misrepresentations all over the place! They really didn't think Hillary would lose and that caused them to be careless.