Joat42 wrote:My thinking was that there was a slight chance that some instances of collusion may have been perpetrated by the staff, but on the whole I thought that most probably the Russians just played them like a fiddle.
I doubt Trump even reflected on the whole thing before it blew up since from his viewpoint, making deals (even dirty ones) to take down an opponent is business as usual, no matter whom you are making the deal with.
Well have to see what the complete report says though.
Well, there are a couple of issues about the collusion:
1) Barr's letter defines collusion very narrowly - such that the actions we know Trump or his associates performed (e.g. the Trump Tower meeting) wouldn't fall under it. That doesn't mean they didn't happen.
2) The letter basically says that there were attempts by Russia to assist in the campaign but they were rebuffed. Now, for one thing, IINM the campaign would have been legally required to report this to the FBI, which they didn't do. But there's also the fact that Trump has been adamantly proclaiming for years that there was no Russian interference in the election, or even attempted interference (remember when he said he believed Putin when the latter said they didn't interfere?) Which means that the Trump campaign/administration has been lying to the public on this issue for two or three years now. And I seem to recall conservatives, including on this very forum, arguing that possibly lying to the American people, even if it was only for a couple of days (i.e. Benghazi), was a massive crime worthy of multiple investigations and impeachment...