The leaked dossier on JD Vance is revealing in all the things it doesn’t say | Moira Donegan

The 271-page file overlooks almost everything that average voters, especially women, might find distasteful about Vance

The public got a peek into the inner workings of the Trump campaign last week, when the independent journalist Ken Klippenstein did what major news outlets refused to: he published the opposition research dossier on JD Vance's electoral vulnerabilities that was written by the Trump campaign in the lead-up to the VP announcement.

The dossier, which was obtained in a hack thought to have been perpetrated by Iranian state interests, would have been compiled by Donald Trump's camp as part of a routine vetting process as the Republican campaign surveilled possible VP picks and assessed their strengths and weaknesses. It is thorough: at 271 pages, it contains a robust and factual accounting of the vice-presidential candidate's public statements and associations going back years. As such, it offers a unique perspective into how the Trump campaign views the race - and how they understand the controversial man who is now in their No 2 spot.