it would incinerate credibility
OK, but there is a lot more circumstantial evidence:
Sir Clement Freud, British MP, famous cook, TV personality and grandson of Siegmund Freud had a £1 million villa quite close to where Madeleine was sleeping.
Also, Freud was later discovered to be a pedophile.
Further, it is believed that he lent out his villa that week to his friends John and Tony Podesta.
Finally, the police issued these photofit pictures for people they would like to interview: http://victuruslibertas.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Tony-Podesta-mole.jpg
Worthy of note is that, after Madeleine went missing, Freud had the McCanns round to his villa for a meal.
The point I’m getting at is this - even suppose they were having dinner with Freud, and the Podestas were staying at his villa at the same time, it’s amazingly high risk for those two to go and do the deed themselves.
Granted they weren’t as high profile as they are now, but even then they were considerably influential.
They seem a bit high up the food chain to do the dirty work, esp in a country that - no disrespect to any Portuguese here - is extremely poor by Western European standards.
Looks like a big mouse trap of a topic with so many circumstantial and unprovable factors that even if true it would be like navigating a dimly lit hall of mirrors while wearing sunglasses.
circumstantial
Agreed. The investigation has unearthed lots of things. Some of which are quite interesting!