After all the rabid pro- and anti-Trump, pro- and anti-Robert Mueller, pro- and anti-William Barr fulminations fade away, one central concern remains. It was the same concern that drove the FBI to begin investigating Russian interference into the 2016 election even before the “Steele dossier” that has long had Trump defenders apoplectic. It is a concern everyone should ponder. It is a concern that speaks very poorly of President Trump.

The concern is embedded in these lines beginning on the very first page of Mueller’s report: “… the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts …”

In the universe that existed, and made good sense, before bumptious Trump scrambled it, no presidential candidate this side of Bernie Sanders would be copacetic with the knowledge that Russia was (illegally) trying to help them win election, and no Russian government (with the possible exception of Boris Yeltsin’s for about two years) would ever favor a Republican presidential candidate.

Every American should object when a presidential candidate with major financial interests in Russia, and who lied or tacitly approved as others lied to hide those interests, would so repeatedly speak so favorably about Russia and the murderous Vladimir Putin, and would so repeatedly voice support as president for policies Putin desired (or, if he did so at several very important times until his own aides pull him back and clean up the mess). Everyone should ask why Putin would so clearly favor Trump, and everyone should ask why Trump would so clearly welcome that favor.

Trump didn’t need to directly collude or conspire with Russians to know that if he lost his race for president, his longtime interests in Russian business would be enhanced by his obsequious compliments for Putin and Russia throughout his campaign. The Russians didn’t need to directly conspire with Trump associates to know Trump would be an easier mark for them than Hillary Clinton, with whom they had a falling-out despite her long prior record of taking positions favored by Moscow.

Trump not only said bizarrely good things about Putin, but he also hired numerous people with ties to Russian businesses and operatives. He also kept his interests in a Trump real estate investment in Russia going right up to Election Day. His business organization, by his son’s own boast, had done copious business in Russia for more than a decade. He repeatedly, and dangerously, thrilled Putin by expressing reservations, both before and after his election, about the absolute linchpin of the crucial NATO alliance, namely the commitment to mutual defense.

He invited Russian officials alone into the Oval Office without ordinary presidential aides present. He invited Russian photographers into the Oval Office while barring American media. He cut his own Cabinet members out of the loop of discussions with Putin. He shared highly classified information with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador. He boasted to Russians that he fired Comey in order to make concerns about his ties to Russia go away. He tried to take steps in Syria, including a precipitous withdrawal of elite American troops, that played into Putin’s hands (again, until his aides pulled him back).

And so on, and on, and on.

In short, Trump didn’t need to secretly conspire with Russia. For whatever twisted reason in his less-than-logical brain, he did Russia’s bidding, probably to the detriment of reasonable assessments of American interests, in plain and obvious sight.