The days of “no collusion” aren’t coming to an end. They’re there.
Rudy Guiliani, the icebreaker at the prow of S. S. Trumptanic, went on CNN on Wednesday evening to talk with Chris Cuomo. While there, he made yet another of those Giuliani-style confessions, the ones that always seem to test the water as Trump admits to something incrementally—or monumentally—worse than the last round. This time Giuliani moved the line way back into collusion territory. Confronted by the latest evidence against Paul Manafort and others, Giuliani paused in the middle off ranting against the media to complete the long slide that’s been underway since the investigation opened.
Giuliani: You just misstated my position. I never said there no collusion between the campaign, or between people in the campaign.
Cuomo: Yes you have.
Giuliani: I have not. I said the president of the United States. There is not a single bit of evidence the president of the United States committed the only crime you could commit here, conspiring with the Russians to hack the DNC.
If Rudy Giuliani had come into the studio wearing a “Trump’s Guilty” sandwich board, he could not have made that point more clearly. For days now, Giuliani has been trying to whittle the Mueller investigation down to whether or not Trump had his fingers on the keyboard when the Russians were hacking the DNC. No one — no one — ever accused Trump of being involved in that action. In fact, that’s just about the only thing in the whole affair where everyone agrees Trump was not involved. Social media coordination? Sure. Distributing stolen information? Of course. Providing the Russians with information to generate maximum damage to America? It’s his forte. But no matter how many times Trump claims to be a technical expert, he does not have a degree in computer science — not even from Trump University.
Not only did Giuliani say that he never said no collusion, later in the interview he claims that Donald Trump never said no collusion.
The actual authorization of Robert Mueller to investigation conspiracy by the Trump campaign says nothing about the investigation being limited to the hacking of the DNC, no matter how many times Giuliani tries to make it seem that was the case.
The Special Counsel is authorized to conduct the investigation confinned by then-FBI Director James 8. Corney in testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on March 20, 2017, including:
(i) any links and/or coordination bet ween the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump; and
(ii) any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation; and
(iii) any other matters within the scope of 28 C.F.R. § 600.4(a).
(c) If the Special Counsel believes it is necessary and appropriate, the Special Counsel is
authorized to prosecute federal crimes arising from the investigation of these matters.
Mueller is authorized to investigate anything concerning coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russian government and to prosecute any crimes resulting from that investigation. Rudy Giuliani just confessed that such coordination did exist.
Mueller may not need to issue a report. Giuliani will probably admit that Trump was a Russian agent long before any report appears — then argue that everything is still fine.