My last essay on the subject for now
I must admit, the Papadopoulos plea caught me entirely off guard. I knew that Manafort was effectively lifelong Democrat who had worked for Trump for only two months or so before Trump evidently realised he was (for lack of a better term) shady as shit. I will say that foreign leaders (Particularly of powerful states such as Russia) wanting to converse and meet with presidential candidates is effectively status quo, that alone doesn't prove anything much. It entirely depends on the timeline, but this would also mean the first documented lie in the History of Wikileaks which is something I would rather not have to consider might be the case as I rather admire Assange.
Papadopoulos' recent admissions point to the possibility that Russia was primarily interested in Influencing the Trump campaign, but that Trump didn't reciprocate. Papadopoulos states that he only told the Trump team that he had “some interesting messages coming in from Moscow” - Being very unspecific as to what. I am guessing that Putin's aim was to host Trump and tell him in person, but that meeting never occurred and the wiretapping of Trump tower by the Obama admin, First described as 'Fake news' and 'Delusional Trump' by almost all media outlets but was quietly admitted a few months later, literally found nothing to suggest any fowl play on Trump's part personally.
An updated theory of mine? I think that Trump made grave errors in hiring his team, not realising just how much of the Political establishment where prepared to play dirty and had a history of corruption. Trump, knowing that the establishment was already against him and that anything that could leak, would leak, was probably keen to keep things as kosher as possible hence the fact he fired Manafort so hastily after his serving only a few weeks in his campaign team. And also the fact that the meeting with Putin never went ahead despite Russia claiming they had dirt. Another possibility is that Wikileaks weren't the only ones the disgruntled DNC member gave the emails to, maybe as Hillaries rhetoric about ramping up sanctions (effectively preparing for war) with Russia over the Syria situation was something a Bernie supporter (Remember them chanting 'No more war' at the DNC convention when Hillary first took the stage as the confirmed nominee) detested the idea of so much that he also leaked it to Russian officials. This is the only way that both Assange's statements and Papadopoulos updated testimony could both be true... It actually ties the narratives together quite nicely and would explain an awful lot... Also I am 90% sure that person was Seth Rich, but that is still considered a Kooky conspiracy theory and we are supposed to believe that someone would precisely shoot him three times in the back in a posh neighborhood of DC in an 'Attempted Robbery' but fail to take any of his belongings and apparently this 'Amateur robber' was so good that not a trace of him could be found and there is not a single suspect in the case that they closed straight away effectively. Luckily for him the CCTV in the area wasn't working that night either.
I find this exchange between Podesta and Assange to be quite revealing. It implies that basic security flaws at the DNC where covered up by claims that it was 'Advanced Russian Hackers'. At least from Assange's point of view. If my theory that it was leaked to both Russia and Wikileaks (without any hacking) is correct, it accounts for almost everything actually.