“I feel very badly for Paul Manafort. . . . But if you notice, both his lawyer — a highly respected man — and a very highly respected judge, the judge said there was no collusion with Russia. It’s had nothing to do with collusion. There was no collusion. It’s a collusion hoax. It’s a collusion witch-hoax. I don’t collude with Russia. So, I just want to tell you that his lawyer went out of his way, actually, to make a statement last night: no collusion with Russia. There was absolutely none. The judge, I mean, for whatever reason — I was very honored by it — also made the statement that this had nothing to do with collusion with Russia.”
— President Trump, in remarks to reporters at the White House, March 8, 2019
Michael Cohen “said no collusion. And I said, it’s funny, he lied about so many things, and yet he could have said — he might as well lie about that one, too. But he said no collusion. And everybody said no collusion. Richard Burr, Senator Burr, said no collusion. Senate Intelligence. The House has come up, as you know, the committee, Devin Nunes and all, they said no collusion.”
— Trump, in an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News, Feb. 28, 2019
Don’t take it from me, Trump says. Look at all these other people saying there was no collusion with Russia.
“Collusion,” in this case, isn’t a legal term pointing to a specific crime. Depending on the evidence, experts say, cooperating with another country to influence a U.S. election might be an offense such as conspiracy or taking illegal campaign contributions from foreign nationals.
Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is investigating “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump,” but he hasn’t announced any conclusions. Reporters, meanwhile, have pieced together contactsbetween Russian individuals and Trump family members or campaign advisers. Mueller has revealed through numerous court filings “an elaborate Russian operation that injected chaos into a U.S. presidential election and tried to help Trump win the White House,” as the Associated Press reported.
View the complete March 11 article by Salvador Rizzo on The Washington Post website here.