Part of me thinks he might be bringing up the opposition research angle to play into the Steele dossier. If he thinks the only reason there were FISA warrants and a special council investigation appointment is from that foreign document, he may try to say both sides were using foreign aid. He may be trying to create a false equivalency of the two things. One is state sponsored. The other was actual opposition research originally paid for by the GOP during the primaries and was handed over to DOJ and then the Dems. He may try to say that his oppo research yielded nothing while the Dems was a book of lies. Point being, everybody's doing it. I don't know if this is his plan all along, but I could see him trying to play this angle.