How was it possible that the FBI got into the oppo research business on political opponents?

Mollie Hemingway, at The Federalist, makes some good points about the somewhat confusing new Russia story.

...In any case, get your acts together, journalists. You can’t push a Russia collusion narrative for a year and then go soft and silent just because it turns out Russians paid a shady opposition research firm that just so happens to employ a bunch of your close friends. Sometimes stories evolve in ways you don’t anticipate. You can’t breathlessly hype every instance of a Russian looking in the general direction of a businessman that may have once met Trump and then ignore stories like this. And you can’t pretend to be shocked to learn the story exists at the same time you’re fighting people’s reasonable attempts to discuss Fusion GPS’ attempts to keep hidden information about their work products.

Read more here.