Trump is a narcissist who learned to play social media. At his core he’s a grifting and attention seeking slimeball. Everything else is sausage thumbs posting to social media and gauging what gets the best reactions.

There’s no cynical intelligence to this, but something worse: chasing the worst of mankind who revel in his boorishness. The very act of remaking himself every second to seek that attention is what makes him who he is, and it’s why he’s so hard to replicate.

Don’t believe it? Pay attention to his speeches when he’s talking about others. You can see him testing nicknames for opponents, watching the crowd to see how strong the reaction is. Watch for the satisfaction on his face when he finds the one that gets the reaction he’s looking for.

It’s quantifiable and expected threat by a known entity, versus nebulous threat by a unknown entity.

The records will be scrutinized. The FoIA requests will happen. The hack of their private infrastructure might not ever happen, and even if does, the foreign actors are not necessarily going to leak the records back to the US constituents: the real perceived threat.

They’ll gladly risk operational security for less paper trail. Every. Fucking. Time.