Why did you not believe this particular theory before? It never seemed like an outlandish idea to me at all that some US politicians could be blackmailed by for

Why did you not believe this particular theory before? It never seemed like an outlandish idea to me at all that some US politicians could be blackmailed by foreign interests. I don’t get this blanket rejection of “conspiracy theories”, it’s like the moment you describe something as a conspiracy theory a large group of self identified intellectuals just dismiss it offhand. It doesn’t make sense as a category, of course people conspire. If I could propose a lesson to be learned, maybe stop categorizing things as “conspiracy theories” and take each theory on the merit of its evidence and how it fits the facts.