Significance of Trump/Putin Collusion Saga

I'm not surprised to hear the opinion that the Trump/Putin story is "very old news", and thus presumably not worth discussing.  I feel differently, as here is my understanding of where this story stands.

1. U.S. intelligence agencies began investigating Trump's ties to Russia in 2016.  They did this my using U.S. "assets" (people who work with U.S. intelligence agencies as business partners rather than employees) who pretend to be connected to Putin.  Joseph Mifsud is the premier example of this, but most if not all of the Russian contacts mentioned in the Mueller report fall into this category.
2. The Hillary Clinton presidential campaign hires a firm to collect opposition research on Donald Trump.  The firm employs Christopher Steele who creates a dossier full of lurid tales and shady connections between Trump and Putin/Russia.  We now know that this opposition research was false. This is not disputed by anyone and as a result Mueller's team didn't even investigate the Steele Dossier.
3. The Steele dossier was leaked to the media before the 2016 election as "intelligence".  It was given tremendous publicity and credibility before and after the election by the mainstream media, and was the basis for wiretapping members of Trump's team and warning the country about Russian interference in the election and extensive misinformation from Adam Schiff, Brennan, and other politicians, media figures, and former intelligence agents / employees.
4. After years of investigation, Mueller's team uncovered no sign Russian collusion.  Rather than admit this, the Democrats, the mainstream press, and the involved intelligence personnel accused William Barr of lying about the findings.  They also have implied that there really was collusion but that Trump obstructed justice.
5. Another year has passed, and the debunking of the Trump/Russia collusion narrative has continued as additional facts have come out.   The most important of these was the Inspector General's report in December, but the recent dropping of charges also fits.
6. The Democrats and mainstream media have doubled down on the debunked narrative instead of admitting that mistakes were made.  For example, the New York Times recently (May 9) editorialized on William Barr’s Perversion of Justice.  Quoting:

Last year, barely a month after he was confirmed to his post, he stood before the American people and misrepresented the contents of the long-awaited report by Robert Mueller, the special counsel who investigated ties between the Trump campaign and the Russian government in 2016.
The report itself, at 448 pages, documented extensive evidence of those ties, as well as multiple instances of lying and obstruction of justice by Mr. Trump and other top government officials. Mr. Barr’s four-page summary claimed the opposite — that Mr. Mueller had found no collusion or obstruction of justice. Mr. Mueller protested, and yet weeks passed before Americans could see the report themselves and discover just how much Mr. Barr had twisted its findings to benefit Mr. Trump.

Short version:  Democrats paid intelligence operatives who invented story that Trump was treasonous.  The false stories were leaked to the media before the election and embellished by intelligence figures after Trump assumed the presidency, with continued"leaking" of false intelligence that Trump had been engaged in treasonous behavior.  The Democrats and mainstream media declared the treasonous accusations to be true and engaged in a multiyear investigation of the Trump Administration by the FBI.  When the accusations of treason or any sort of improper behavior with regard to Russia were found not to be true, the Democrats and mainstream refused to admit that they were wrong, but rather blamed Trump for obstruction of justice.  At present, they are attacking the Attorney General for daring to discuss what happened and how this combination of intelligence agencies working with one political party against the other is a threat to our democracy.

We have a constitutional crisis, and the NY Times is using Trump's alleged collusion with Russia (citing the Mueller Report), as evidence against the Attorney General.

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Update:  Email I sent 5/13/2020, with some redactions:

I think you hit upon the real discussion point -- "I worry far more about the real evils of a Trump presidency than the results of a Democrat-driven effort to tar Trump with a Putin brush, however real or exaggerated", and xxxxx has expressed similar views. I wonder, however, whether the Democrats can move forward in this manner without admitting they were wrong about Trump/Putin. I think of the Bill Clinton impeachment. For me, once he admitted he had lied about the Lewinsky affair, I was glad he had come clean and much more eager to support him going forward. It seems the general public had a similar attitude. We all make mistakes!

For the crux of the matter, as I see it, is the rule of law.  Both sides feel strongly that the other side has been abusing the law.  We have a constitutional crisis with the New York Times using Trump's collusion with Russia (citing the Mueller Report) as evidence against the Attorney General.

To me, it seems fairly clear how we got to this point:

1. Trump is an idiot.
2. The intelligence community, with sympathy from the State Department and foreign policy establishment, decided that investigating whether Trump was colluding with Russia, and letting it be known publicly that this was a serious possibility, was a twofer:
1. Discredit the idiot Trump.
2. Raise public awareness about possible Russian propaganda and other types of interference in U.S. politics.
3. There were also financial incentives including the money paid to Christopher Steele's firm for opposition research.
4. The risk of any blowback was extremely low as Hillary Clinton was sure to win the election.
5. This all spun out of control once Trump was elected, as it was widely believed to be true that Trump had colluded with Russia.  Furthermore, mistakes had been made in spreading that rumor and it would take time and effort to clarify who made what mistakes.

So now, people such as you, are pivoting back to point 1 -- Trump is an idiot.  This is a sensible thing to do, in my opinion.  The Russia/Trump connection seemed useful as a tool to limit the amount of damage that Trump could do as president, but it's perhaps outlived its usefulness and now may be counterproductive as we enter a constitutional crisis.

With regard to speaking about these sort of things in a forum such as Elderwise, I will not be doing this.  As our experience shows, these topics are very controversial and can strain even the closest of friendships.  I generally only feel comfortable sharing my views on this matter with close family and friends.