The No Collusion Illusion. Yes, Trump Campaign Did Collude With Russia in 2016, and It Continues in 2020.

President Trump in Arizona (The White House)

This column is based on one of the same name that I posted on OpEdNews on April 1 (no foolin’) 2019.  As is widely known, yesterday the Senate Intelligence Committee published a bi-partisan final report of its investigation into Trump-Campaign/Russian cooperation (to put it politely) in the 2016 Presidential Campaign.  Among the new revelations, perhaps previously uncovered by the Mueller Investigation but not yet seen, at least in the redacted, delayed version released by Billy Boy Barr, are: 

·         that Trump likely committed perjury in his written answers to Mueller (recalling that his lawyers would not allow him to talk directly to Mueller for they knew he would lie in that setting); 

 ·         that Paul Manafort was totally tied with up, personally and financially, with a man who was almost certainly a Russian agent;

 ·         that Roger Stone WAS a conduit between Wiki leaks and Trump (and that the release of the DNC emails just after the release of the of the Access Hollywood tape was set up by Stone in advance and Trump likely was aware of that);

·         that Trump, Jr., Kushner, and Manafort went to “the meeting” with the Russians looking for “dirt” on Hillary Clinton, that Trump was likely informed of it, and that there were Russian agents at the meeting; 

·         that there were very good reasons for getting the FISA warrant on Carter Page; 

·         that “The Steele Dossier” was not the reason that the counter-intelligence investigation was begun; 

·         but that from other sources it is known that there may be compromising tapes on Trump in Russian hands.  

·         And etc.  

Despite all this, the Republican members of the Committee issued their own post-script stating that the there was “no collusion.”  Why did they do this?  First, they want to mollify The Boss (as in Mob) if at all possible.  Second, they wanted to toss a bone to Hannity-Carlson et all to chew on, vigorously, so that they could totally ignore all of the above findings (and presumably blame everything on the Democrats anyway, maybe even continuing to call this product of a three-year bi-partisan investigation a “hoax”).  And so, since they all did the “no-collusion/hoax” thing back in 2019, in one of a series of columns that I published over time on various aspects of the Mueller Report, I took a look at dictionary definitions of the word “collusion.”  We are talking a look at it again here. 

In the Random House Dictionary of the English Language, 2nd Edition Unabridged, “collusion” is defined as “a secret agreement, especially for fraudulent or treacherous purposes; conspiracy.” 

According to the Cambridge English Dictionary, collusion is defined as: “1. agreement between people to act together secretly or illegally in order to deceive or cheat someone: 2. agreement, esp. in secret for an illegal or dishonest reason: 3. the act of doing something secret or illegal with another person, company, etc. in order to deceive.” 

In terms of these definitions, then, there is indeed ample, out-in-the-open (maybe that’s the problem with it, it is so obvious) evidence that Trump, members of his family, and members of the Trump campaign committed collusion, in re the Russians, ranging from the famous “Trump Tower Meeting,” to, during the campaign, in addition to the list above, working on a deal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow and lying about it to the public, to Jared Kushner’s attempt to establish a “back channel” connection with Russian officials during the Transition, to various secret connections, at various times, as noted above, between such folk as George Papadopoulos, Mike Flynn, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, and others, and various Russians, some of whom indicted by the Mueller investigation, in absentia.  And of course, Papadopoulos, Flynn, Manafort, Gates, and Stone were convicted 

Now Part 1 of the Mueller Report found that the campaign had colluded with the Russians.  But it also concluded that they did were not able to gather enough evidence of collusion (remember, itself not a crime) to be able to prove conspiracy to commit collusion (a crime) in court, beyond a reasonable doubt.  And so they did not do so.  What is critical here is what definition of “collusion” Mueller used.  According to his charge from then Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, he was to investigate “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump.”  And then “the Special Counsel is authorized to prosecute federal crimes arising from the investigation of these matters.”  Whatever definition of the word “collusion” (not in and of itself a crime) he used, Mueller found a bunch of other crimes committed by Trump people and got convictions, even if he felt that he could not find evidence of conspiracy to commit collusion.  

And we now have a report that goes much further than the Mueller Report did (or at least further than those parts of the Mueller Report that Barr has allowed us to see).  According to early reports of what is in a 1000 page-plus document, it is apparently so damning that the Senate Republicans on the Committee issued a statement claiming that “the Committee found no evidence that then-candidate Donald Trump or his campaign colluded [emphasis added] with the Russian government in its efforts to meddle in the election.”  Of course, we have no idea of what definition of the term was used by them, but it couldn’t have been either of the standard dictionary definitions, above.  It is, nevertheless, being used once again as an escape hatch for Trump, his collaborators (in every sense of that term), and their defenders.

 What’s in a name?  Aye, there’s the rub.