By David Welch, Hamilton
In a report issued in January 2017, the CIA, FBI, NSA and 14 other agencies and Congressional committees unanimously agreed that the Russia government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in favor of the Trump campaign. Robert Mueller and his team agree and have indicted two Russian shell companies and 13 Russian nationals for their involvement in this effort.
During the campaign, and later during the presidential transition period, members of the Trump team made over 100 confirmed contacts with various officials of the Russian government. These team members included Donald Trump, Jr., Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, Jeff Sessions, Michael Cohen, Michael Flynn and 10 others. Why?
Most of these contacts were not revealed during FBI interviews (e.g. Michael Flynn), applications for security clearances (e.g. Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner) nor sworn testimony before Congress (e.g. Jeff Sessions, Donald Trump, Jr.) If there was nothing nefarious about these contacts, why did they all lie?
In one notable instance – the Trump tower meeting – the nature of the contact (i.e. gathering dirt on Hillary Clinton) was explicitly concealed. This particular example of subterfuge involved the president directly.
Any reasonable person would conclude that there was certainly collusion between the Russian government and the Trump campaign. Collusion in the colloquial sense is not a crime. Do these contacts and cover ups rise to a criminal level of conspiracy and coordination? That question is still unresolved.
What is indisputable, though, is that what the Trump campaign did at every turn is bad. Anyone with even a shred of decency can see this. If you cannot, well, look a little deeper and ask yourself ‘What if Obama and his team had done all of this?’ What would you be saying then? I am pretty sure it would not be ‘No worries!’.