Was there illegal or at least shady dealings in the repub's platform committee?

[Hortensis]

4. Donald had representatives observing in the room as

the committee worked, according to what I read about this. This was appropriate as he was becoming the head of the party and entitled to have input.

Where it goes very bad is that, according to people who were there, the ONLY intervention by Donald's people was when the statement about U.S. involvement in the Ukraine came up. Then they got involved, resulting in changed wording that favored Putin's aims for the region.

Reportedly, they expressed no interest in the wording of any other plank to the platform.

Since at least 3 members of Trump's inner circle at the time had ties to the Kremlin and/or to Russian "oligarchs" with close ties, most believe this change in the Republican Party's platform to favor it over the U.S. occurred through Russian manipulation.

Only temporarily -- not because of Trump or party leaders, but because it was a very strange change that couldn't go unnoticed.

I've read a couple experts on Russia and Putin who believed Putin was mostly just having fun jerking us around and is far too intelligent to expect much beyond humiliating us from this. Trump in the White House would be a very different matter, and apparently there is growing evidence of Russian attempts to influence the election itself.