Throughout 2017, whenever conversations about Trump and Russia have come up, the hard-working staff here at Spoiler Alerts starts recollecting a small scene from “A Few Good Men” that outlines how to open a prosecution:

When I think about what we have learned in 2017, there are three facts that seem both important and undisputed.

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These are some facts of this case, and they are not in dispute.

Maybe there will be more evidence showing a smoking gun of conscious and active collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Maybe the Trump team’s efforts to find something new to pin on the Clinton campaign will also yield fruit. Who knows how the Mueller investigation will play out.

The undisputed facts that we have learned in 2017, however, are still devastating. Trump’s family and the top echelons of the campaign hoped that a meeting with well-connected Russians would yield dirt on Clinton. The Trump White House dissembled on the purpose of this meeting. And Trump admitted that the primary reason he fired the FBI director was because of the Russia investigation.