Donald Trump’s morning tweets have made a not-so subtle shift away from the “No Collusion!” he’s been tossing onto messages for over a year. In this latest round, Trump has joined the chorus for that other favorite phrase of the alt-Reich, “Collusion is not a crime.”
Since it became clear that Michael Cohen was willing to testify that Trump had advance knowledge of the meeting between his top campaign staff and Russian operatives, the strategy of Trump’s legal defense has been shifting. Not only did Rudy Giuliani appear on television to provide names, dates, and details of a pre-meeting meeting before he returned to the air to say that the meeting he described “never happened,” he also spread the gospel of “Collusion is not a crime.”
And both Trump and Rudy are right … to the extent that there is no federal crime called “collusion.” However, if they reference just under half of the 132 federal indictments handed down by Robert Mueller’s investigation, they’ll spot something that is a crime: Conspiracy. Specifically “Conspiracy to Commit an Offense Against the United States” in charges against Russian intelligence agents, “Conspiracy against the United States” in charges against Paul Manafort and Konstantin Kilimnik, “Conspiracy to defraud the United States” in charges against Russian nationals and three Russian front companies, and just plain “Conspiracy” in charges against Rick Gates.
Conspiracy. It’s what collusion is called when it comes to court.
All of which Trump’s legal team has known all along. Trump has known all along. Which is why “collusion” has been the go-to word rather than “conspiracy” all along.
And while moving to “okay, there was collusion, but that’s not a crime” might seem a bit of a challenge considering the hundreds of times Trump has piped up with “no collusion!” since the investigation began, it shouldn’t be too much of a difficulty. After all, they’re still managing to pretend that having advance knowledge of Russian theft of documents from Democratic headquarters, meeting with Russians to take advantage of that theft, making frequent private and public appeals to Russian agents for more assistance, and turning the results of Russia’s illegal actions into a cornerstone of the campaign isn’t an issue. But it is. That’s collusion.
But conspiracy is what Mueller will write on the documents.
