With the approaching final report from special counsel Robert Mueller, it may be useful to consider the current state of the collusion case. After dozens of indictments and filings, there is much that has been disclosed by the special counsel on Russian linkages and contacts. Congress and the media also have disclosed a fair degree of evidence from witnesses called before the federal grand jury and committees on Capitol Hill.
However, the publicly known case for collusion remains strikingly incomplete, if not incoherent. What is uniformly missing from the cottage industry of collusion theories is an acknowledgment of the threshold requirements of an actual crime. There is no crime in “colluding” with Russians without some cognizable criminal act or conspiracy to commit such an act. While some have dangerously stretched the criminal code to incriminate Trump, the most obvious and viable crime remains hacking into the email systems of the Democrats.
Mueller has thoroughly identified and detailed the Russian hacking and trolling operations to influence the 2016 election. Yet, these filings notably lack any link to the Trump campaign, let alone advance knowledge or support for the Russian operation. Indeed, key links have become even more implausible as part of a conspiracy with Russian intelligence.
Indeed, the United States has engaged in hacking not just our enemies but our allies, as well as intervening in the elections of other countries, just as many of those same countries attempt against us. There is nothing “tantalizing” or “mysterious” in such an explanation, because it is more factual than aspirational. The boring truth here is that criminal collusion theories are weaker today than they were a year ago. While Mueller has found ample basis to charge people with false statements, the record of these filings shows more confusion than collusion in the Trump campaign.
