Logic fail on your part. Avenatti told Nike he would "hush" for 25.5 million. He wasn't in this to expose them. He was in this to get payola for keeping quiet.
Fussy fussy. "Fall guy" - if that satisfies your yearn for proper usage.
Comey is a dirty cop. You didn't get to the top of FBI without being a dirty cop (not under the established political order, which Trump is successfully disrupting). Comey was Clinton fixer for years.
People would be shocked to learn how corrupt the government is. That's why all the elected officials are so adamant about proclaiming the government is capable of self-regulating itself to near zero corruption.
The DEMs and their media workers are shifting the threshhold from "criminal" (which is the only thing Mueller did not find) to non-criminal cooperation with foreign agents in order to benefit himself and detriment the country.
Choice of the legally meaningless word (in any context but antitrust) "collusion" was deliberate. They will claim collusion exists, and if it isn't illegal it is impeachable.
Another effect is to just drag out the clock, to tire people of the issue. Notice the call to "move on," and casting righteous investigation into being falsely accused as "revenge."
Short version - the approach the DEMs apply is "presumed guilty"
Graham is chair of Senate Judiciary. He's going to run some show hearings. To what effect, who knows. If there was criminal activity, that is dealt with by DOJ and the courts. The Congress is totally out of the loop.
Graham's number one priority is Graham. He's pretty open about that. He's in the business of politics, and it pays pretty good.
Smollett got trouble because he made what was ostensibly a credible report TO THE POLICE. The government demands that all reports to it are honest, and the government enforces that demand at gunpoint.
Making false accusations against somebody, TO THE PUBLIC, is regulated by libel law, with the legal cause of action belonging only to the person accused. The public needs to learn to NOT TRUST the press. It's the only rational approach to that particular messenger. If you pay attention (dig and understand the totality of any press report), you find that the press lies and misleads continuously. Literally nothing it tells you is an accurate presentation of reality.
That's always been a statistical question. You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time.
Shilling for McCain, depending on one's view. Graham figures "turning the dossier to the FBI and not the press" makes McCain a good guy.
I figure it makes McCain complicit in laundering an obvious falsehood into legal action and (because the FBI is leaky) press harassment against Trump.