Seriously, had you ever used the term, “Collusion”, before Putin and 304 Republican electors selected tweeter trump to be the illegal resident in the White House.
Mark Peters wrote an opinion piece for the Boston Globe, July 17, 2017, “When did Collusion become the new Conspiracy", and Peters said,
For all the talk of collusion, it isn’t exactly a crime in the political arena — but conspiracy is. The US criminal code provides an explanation of conspiracy that matches commonplace descriptions of collusion: “If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.”
So why do we talk about collusion rather than conspiracy, when conspiracy is the actual legal term? Maybe because “conspiracy” has been devalued in the public imagination due to the prominence of conspiracy theorists. The word “conspiracy” is associated with fake moon landings, 9/11 truthers, and — brace yourself — NASA enslaving children on Mars. “Collusion” isn’t the right word for a criminal court, but it’s just right for the court of public opinion.
www.bostonglobe.com/…
Ryan Goodman wrote in the New York Times, November 2, 2017, “Can we please stop talking about Collusion?” In Goodman’s opinion piece, he noted,
Within hours after the American public found out that his most senior campaign official was under an indictment that described him as a secret agent of Russian interests, President Trump declared on Twitter: “There is NO COLLUSION!” A forceful statement if there ever was one. But what exactly was he denying so categorically? We have no idea.
For one reason or another, “collusion” has become the term of choice for discussing what the Trump campaign may or may not have done with Russians. Those in the Trump camp use it regularly: “I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government,” Jared Kushner told Congress this summer. “I did not collude with any foreign government,” Donald Trump Jr. said. “I deeply resent any allegation that I would collude with the oppressive Russian state,” the Republican strategist Roger Stone harrumphed.
www.nytimes.com/...
One of the principle strategies of trump’s legal teams has been to deny that they have colluded, and then to deny that collusion is even illegal!
Mr. Trump and his inner circle have benefited enormously from this coalescing around the word “collusion” — a term with a legalistic feel but with close to “no legal meaning whatsoever” said Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor and now a defense lawyer who has written a dissection of every public statement that a Trump associate has made to congressional investigators.
Goodman, a professor of Law at New York University, concluded his article, stating:
If we, as a country, knew a year ago what’s now understood to be an avalanche of well-reported facts, published emails and legal documentation, the behavior of the president’s family and associates would have crossed any reasonable line of what might be meant by an attempt to collude with the Kremlin.
Meghan Kelly discussed the word “Collusion” for ABC News in October, 2017, “Collusion: The Word at the Heart of the Russia Investigation.”
According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, collusion is defined as a “secret agreement or cooperation especially for an illegal or deceitful purpose; acting in collusion with the enemy.”
The reason why the dictionary definition provides the clearest understanding of it is because collusion is not a legal term, according to one constitutional law scholar.
Michael Gerhardt, a constitutional law professor at the University of North Carolina, told ABC News that the vague nature of the term makes it confusing, which can be used to a political advantage.
“It’s not a technical word. It’s actually used in part to actually almost confuse people it’s either used in two different ways: to almost confuse people because there’s no federal statute or code that uses this word, and then I think the other way it’s used is maybe as a catch-all, an umbrella-like term that could encompass everything,” Gerhardt said.
abcnews.go.com/…
The Guardian has an article, April 13, 2017, “British Spies were first to spot Trump’s teams links with Russia.” The article does not use the word, “Collusion”, but a Google search shows the link with this introduction,
GCHQ first became aware in late 2015 of suspicious “interactions” between ... Spicer cited an unsubstantiated report on Fox News. ... but made reference to the fact that America's intelligence allies had provided ... “They now have specific concrete and corroborative evidence of collusion,” the source said.
www.theguardian.com/…
What the quote in the article actually said was:
GCHQ first became aware in late 2015 of suspicious “interactions” between figures connected to Trump and known or suspected Russian agents, a source close to UK intelligence said. This intelligence was passed to the US as part of a routine exchange of information, they added.
Over the next six months, until summer 2016, a number of western agencies shared further information on contacts between Trump’s inner circle and Russians, sources said.
Let’s compare the actual definitions of Conspiracy and Collusion:
It appears that it was NOT the News Media that chose the term “Collusion,” it was the trump administration and trump spokespeople, and the primary reason was that it would confuse the issue and make it easy to deny any illegal acts. Collusion is not a legal term. The actions of the president, his family members, staff members, associates and Republican party officials amounts to Conspiracy to elicit funding and assistance from a foreign government. That is illegal. That cannot be denied and trump should be impeached because of the way that his campaign conspired with foreign governments.