Being the direct beneficiaries of Russian ratf*cking, though, can reasonably raise questions whether Putin's patronage came at a price. Already, we know that Jill Stein was present and accounted for at the same table as Michael Flynn and Vladimir Putin in an event honoring Russian propaganda network RT. We also know that RT lavished praise on and served as essentially a campaign mouthpiece for Jill Stein, and to a lesser degree, for Bernie Sanders in their zeal to take down Hillary Clinton. As if the dots weren't already connecting themselves, in the middle of that very campaign - about seven months after the propaganda dinner - Stein openly offered to step aside if Sanders would agree to take the top spot on the Green Party ticket.

Last month, the Senate Judiciary Committee became interested in communications between Stein and Donald Trump Jr., the Trump spawn who met with a Russian lawyer salivating over promised Russian dirt on Hillary Clinton. If the Senate Judiciary Committee is looking into this, chances are Mueller is a few steps ahead already.

Bernie Sanders is hardly even one step removed from Stein, given the aforementioned political love affair and Trump's own crocodile tears for Bernie during the campaign. Bernie bears his own gifts for Putin, though, being one of a lone pair of Senators to have voted against sanctions on Russia. Sanders also hired as his chief strategist during the campaign Tad Devine, a close associate of Paul Manafort's. Among Manafort's numerous connections to the Kremlin is his work for corrupt and pro-Russian Ukrainian politician Victor Yanukovych in the immediate aftermath of Barack Obama's election to the US presidency. None other than one Tad Devine was Manafort's close confidant in that effort. Evidently the two pro-Kremlin American political consultants grew so close that Devine made direct contacts with Manafort during the 2016 campaign in an attempt to set up a Trump-Sanders debate. Yanukovych is currently exiled in Russia and wanted in Ukraine for high treason.

It is entirely possible that both Stein and Sanders received positive Russian press and in one way or another worked to benefit completely coincidentally. It's possible they were innocent bottomfeeders in Putin's scheme to damage Clinton and elect Trump. It's also possible that one - perhaps the one sitting at Putin's table - was in deep and the other was a bystander who benefited from the loot. It's possible that the role that Stein had to fill herself by literally cozying up to Putin was conveniently filled by a high level campaign official for Sanders, just as it was for Trump.

We won't know, until there's a full investigation into both their campaigns. We won't know, until Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein's campaigns are scrutinized in the way Trump's is.