"... 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. If we care about the law — and about holding public figures accountable for their false denials — the impassioned disavowals of collusion by members of the Trump circle mean nothing. Donald Trump Jr.’s utterances to Congress, for example, were 'not denying that he committed a crime,' Mr. Mariotti said. 'Whether his denial is broader or more narrow than that depends on what exactly is meant by "collude" in this statement — which we don’t know.... The term’s elusiveness has also allowed for an easy shifting of goal posts. Back in June, Mr. Trump took to Twitter to say that President Barack Obama was the one who 'colluded' with the Kremlin to interfere with the election. When a reporter pressed the question — 'what evidence does he have that President Obama was colluding?' — the White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, responded that Obama insiders 'knew about it and didn’t take any action.; If that were the standard for collusion, then if people on Mr. Trump’s campaign were aware of Russian possession of stolen emails and did nothing, they’d have no defense against allegations of collusion. But they do — because the term comes with no consensus as to its definition."
Writes lawprof Ryan Goodman in"Can We Please Stop Talking About ‘Collusion’?" (NYT).
Who started the use of this term? Who propagated it? I think it has been Trump's antagonists. If so, it's ironic that it now makes Trump look less culpable. I believe the term came into general use because it allowed everything to count as evidence and to cast a wide net and to generate as much suspicion and doubt as possible and deprive the newly elected President of the power and dignity of the office.
Trump appropriated the term for use against his accusers, and now Obama and Hillary supporters have to worry that the public's sensitivity to "collusion" endangers their side. Sad!
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৮৫টি মন্তব্য:
Sounds like the law prof is mad at Trump for "cultural appropriation."
If not "collusion", what crime is Donald Trump Jr. supposed to have actually committed?
Unkown - JK LOL!
The real word is CONSPIRE to commit a crime. To Collude has no legal meaning. And talking to people who promise to GIVE you some information on a political opponent is not a legal violation.
But the great Dossier caper was Clinton, Inc paying $9,000,000 for false information to be written and packaged as real Russian information and then delivering that package to 17 intelligence agencies who used it as a cover to wiretap Trump.
Yup. The deep state and the MSM were the ones who first used the term as a pretext to start the witch hunt. The whole point was that it was ambiguous. It's pretty silly to now start grousing about because the legal idea of "collusion" is nebulous.
A theorem that has swirled in my head for a long while is the Trump theorem. It has both a strong and a wake form. The weak form is this: Any action or position (not tweets) taken by Trump and described as crazy or out of the norm by the media has been previously taken further by a 'normal' politician. The strong form is that the it had previously been taken further by a politician named Clinton or Obama. I strongly suspect the strong form is true.
I do not think that the word 'sad' is appropriate for this situation.
Instead I prefer the word 'Karma'.
If, as you posit, Hillary and the Democrats are doing such awful things to subvert the peaceful transition of power and distort justice, why would you, Ms. Althouse, be sad that their own maleficent tools turn in their hands and cut them?
What is sad is that they felt so privileged and entitled that instead of accepting a fair loss, they decided to take their scalpels to the body politic in the first place.
Your sentiments remain unclear.
Excerpts from an article by Robert Parry's recent article "Sorting Out the Russian Mess" in Consortium News.
[quote]
... his [George Papadopoulos'] credibility has already been undermined by his guilty plea for lying to the FBI and by the fact that he now has a motive to provide something the prosecutors might want in exchange for leniency. ...
Papadopoulos got to know a professor of international relations who claimed to have “substantial connections with Russian government officials,” with the professor identified in press reports as Joseph Mifsud, a little-known academic associated with the University of Stirling in Scotland.
The first contact supposedly occurred in mid-March 2016 in Italy, with a second meeting in London on March 24 when the professor purportedly introduced Papadopoulos to a Russian woman whom the young campaign aide believed to be Putin’s niece, an assertion that Mueller’s investigators determined wasn’t true. ...
Papadopoulos participated in a campaign meeting on March 31 in Washington at which he suggested a meeting between Trump and Putin, a prospect that other senior aides reportedly slapped down.
But Papadopoulos continued his outreach to Russia ... [At] an April 26 breakfast in London with the professor (Mifsud) supposedly saying he had been in Moscow and “learned that the Russians had obtained ‘dirt’ on then-candidate Clinton” and possessed “thousands of emails.” ...
However, Mifsud told The Washington Post in an email last August that he had “absolutely no contact with the Russian government” and described his ties to Russia as strictly in academic fields.
In an interview with the U.K. Daily Telegraph after Monday’s disclosures, Mifsud acknowledged meeting with Papadopoulos but disputed the contents of the conversations as cited in the court papers. Specifically, he denied knowing anything about emails containing “dirt” on Clinton and called the claim that he introduced Papadopoulos to a “female Russian national” as a “laughingstock.”
... Mifsud said he tried to put Papadopoulos in touch with experts on the European Union and introduced him to the director of a Russian think tank, the Russian International Affairs Council. ...
[end quote]
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/10/31/sorting-out-the-russia-mess/
6 months of unproven charges and innuendo.
6 months of a needless special prosecutor
And still, no evidence that any crime was committed by Trump or criminal behavior during 2016 Trump campaign.
Shut it down.
“Sad” But fun to watch. And I made a bundle on popcorn futures.
It does seem to be a Trump pattern. He's successfully turned "Fake News" on its head, and will likely be successful with the scary-sounding but meaningless "collision."
Simply because both terms better describe his opponents.
Collusion is like sexual harassment. There's no rule, just disapproval and firing.
Continuing my comment at 10:14 AM
[quote]
... even an article in The New York Times, which has aggressively pushed the Russia-gate “scandal” from the beginning, noted the evidentiary holes that followed from that point.
The Times’ Scott Shane wrote: “A crucial detail is still missing: Whether and when Mr. Papadopoulos told senior Trump campaign officials about Russia’s possession of hacked emails. ... ”
Shane added, “the court documents describe in detail how Mr. Papadopoulos continued to report to senior campaign officials on his efforts to arrange meetings with Russian officials, … the documents do not say explicitly whether, and to whom, he passed on his most explosive discovery – that the Russians had what they considered compromising emails on Mr. Trump’s opponent.
“J.D. Gordon, a former Pentagon official who worked for the Trump campaign as a national security adviser and helped arrange the March 31 foreign policy meeting, said he had known nothing about Mr. Papadopoulos’ discovery that Russia had obtained Democratic emails or of his prolonged pursuit of meetings with Russians.”
If prosecutor Mueller had direct evidence that Papadopoulos had informed the Trump campaign about the Clinton emails, you would assume that the proof would have been included in Monday’s disclosures. Further, since Papadopoulos was flooding the campaign with news about his Russian outreach, you might have expected that he would say something about how helpful the Russians had been in publicizing the Democratic emails.
The absence of supporting evidence that Papadopoulos conveyed his hot news on the emails to campaign officials and Mifsud’s insistence that he knew nothing about the emails would normally raise serious questions about Papadopoulos’s credibility on this most crucial point.
At least for now, those gaps represent major holes in the storyline. But Official Washington has been so desperate for “proof” about the alleged Russian “election meddling” for so long, that professional skepticism has been unwelcome in most media outlets.
[end quote]
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/10/31/sorting-out-the-russia-mess/
You're right, Trump appropriated "collusion" the same way he appropriated "fake news." His enemies try to sling mud at him, and he proves himself more adept at mudslinging than they--and using the very same mud. He's a man of quite limited intellectual abilities, but his streetfighting instincts are impressive.
You start out with a blob of jello with no fixed legal meaning and you throw it up against the wall to see if you can make anything stick; it sounds good; it sounds like somebody did something dastardly.
Lo and behold you find that you can't actually pin anything down with legal jello. Worse yet, when you start wading through that swamp strange creatures emerge--your fellow jello slingers--who learn that, as things are revealed, their mitts are in the wringer.
Way to go Dims.
Winning!
I believe a similar arc is developing with Trump's pussy tape. In it he was merely expressing astonishment at the large segment of women that will gladly go low in the presence of a man with power. And it is true.
The ripple effect of that tape is exposing levels of debauchery that shows Trump is tame. ( check out taibbi's horrifying takes when he was in russia, damn, that is some woman-hating nasty going on there, maybe tops all the others)
https://www.chicagoreader.com/Bleader/archives/2017/10/27/twenty-years-ago-in-moscow-matt-taibbi-was-a-misogynist-asshole-and-possibly-worse
Yeah, I agree with you on this, Professor Althouse. I think "collusion" is a very much non-legal term that has been used almost universally in the anti-Trump media.
The smartest people I know -- no fans of Trump -- have been saying all along "I am going to wait for the Special Counsel's investigation to run its course. Until then, I don't have a lot to say." Which doesn't make for any news, it doesn't open avenues for tv appearances and it doesn't offer up many ripe topics fro blog posts.
When scandals collide:
Apparently David Corn of Mother Jones, who was the only journalist to take the bait on publishing the dossier story during the campaign, is being accused of sexual harassment.
"now Obama and Hillary supporters have to worry that the public's sensitivity to "collusion" endangers their side. Sad!" Correct.
The interesting thing about this episode in the politico-culture wars is that progs appear to be miscalculating. The collusion narrative was specious to begin with, ginned up by Hill and her minions right after her loss. They thought they could get Trump on something, anything, hence Mueller. But since the only actual collusion was between Hill and the Russians -- $145M to the foundation, $500K to Bill, money for Fusion and Steele to collaborate with Russians on dirt-digging--the narrative is backfiring. Hence the need to change the terms, and the new prog complaints. But as in the case of the sexual harassment witch hunt, it's not so easy to restore prog control.
Yet again, Trump has outsmarted the Loony liberals.
So much sanctimony and virtue signaling that has been revealed as projection. It's quite amusing.
Those who would like to throw collusion on the fire with fake news, can't. The Donald is not merely Teflon that things slide off of, he's a racket. Anything you hit at him, he hits back. He's going to be in for 8 years. Sad.
Collusion and conspiracy have nearly the same meaning, although conspiracy has a worse connotation.
Collusion: secret agreement especially in order to do sth dishonest or to deceive people
Conspiracy: a secret plan by a group of people to do sth harmful of illegal
What are we to make of the choice of words used, i.e., collusion over conspiracy, in this blog post and in the media in general about Trump's people possible involvement with Russia to steal the election?
"They conspired to commit murder" is what is said, not "They colluded to commit murder." So we know what the stronger word is.
Bergdahl has now been freed by the judge because he is "mentally ill."
Corruption continues apace.
"What are we to make of the choice of words used, i.e., collusion over conspiracy,..." Good point. But (IANAL) conspiracy has a strict legal definition. You need to take action, not just talk, not just agree. That won't do here. It doesn't even seem that they actually agreed on anything either.
So make up a new term.
Schadenfreude ist nicht "sad".
Wait a minute. It's not a crime? Haven't I heard for a year that it's TREASON?
Try criminal conspiracy instead.
Unknown said...
Try criminal conspiracy instead.
Yes!
Hillary Clinton conspired to rig the democrat primary and did.
Not only that, but they have also managed to turn "Russia" into a kind of science-fictional menace.
Didn't Inga coin it?
"The smartest people I know..."
Everything's relative.
Funny how wwww so desperately wants us talking about something else, anything else. "Do not turn over that rock! Nothing to see! Nobody voted for Hillary! She is not the droid you are looking for!"
"Mr. Trump might have won anyway without Vladimir Putin’s help."
In that alternate universe where Billary won like she was supposed to.
Apparently Putin paid some (non-politician) comedian to hold up a sign telling people they could vote by texting something-or-other on their phones.
Hillary paid how many millions to Fusion GPS and Putin's spy? Not a criminal conspiracy because shell corporations!
“If so, it's ironic that it now makes Trump look less culpable. “
No actually it doesn’t
"I'll have more flexibility after the election."
Proven collusion.
Hillary lost anyway, despite Putin funneling 150 million to her political slush fund and activist holding tank.
“Wait a minute. It's not a crime?”
Criminal conspiracy is a crime, which includes collusion. It’s interesting that Trump sycophants don’t understand this.
"No actually it doesn’t"
Because it would be hard 2 look less culpable with the evidence as it stands.
Try criminal conspiracy instead.
You mean like selling State Department approval for a $500,000 speaking fee and then covering it up?
Althouse said..."I believe the term came into general use because it allowed everything to count as evidence and to cast a wide net and to generate as much suspicion and doubt as possible and deprive the newly elected President of the power and dignity of the office."
I think this is exactly right. If they actually found something that would have been bonus points, but that wasn't the real goal.
I think that setting up 32 shell companies in different states to evade campaign contribution limits sounds more like a criminal conspiracy, but it isn't because shell corporations!
Try criminal conspiracy instead.
What crime, exactly ? Usurping the throne from its entitled heir ?
Trump and cohorts May have committed Criminal conspiracy. Collusion is a descriptive term, not a legal one.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/collusion-is-not-a-crime-by-itself-here-are-the-charges-mueller-could-be-exploring/2017/10/31/eb2b516e-be59-11e7-959c-fe2b598d8c00_story.html?utm_term=.473dbbf6b02a
“The conversation about emails is possibly a critical piece of evidence, legal analysts said. That is because one charge that investigators might try to substantiate against those higher in the Trump campaign is a conspiracy to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
If Mueller can find evidence that members of Trump’s team conspired in Russia’s hacking effort — by directing it or aiding in another way — they might face criminal charges, legal analysts said. Papadopoulos’s plea says that he discussed some of his efforts to broker a meeting with the Russians with other, more senior Trump campaign officials — although some seemed to treat him warily.”
It’s interesting that Trump sycophants don’t understand this
It's more interesting that two law professors don't. But now that the term is bearing down on Hillary...
Of course it was Trump's "antagonists" who started it, and for exactly the reason now being complained about--it has almost no meaning in law. It could therefore be used as a media and political club to justify investigation, opposition, and impeachment or censure regardless of whether any laws were broken.
Opposition, impeachment and censure are more political than legal, so that makes some sense. But focusing on it does tend to muddy the legal waters for everybody. And using ":collusion" as a shroud to make political opposition appear based on legal issues is dishonest.
So, what else is new?
I think it has been Trump's antagonists. If so, it's ironic that it now makes Trump look less culpable.
I'll rely on lawyers and former law professors to tell me whether or not collusion does or does not have a legal definition or whether it is a merely a scary word used to con the simple-minded (e.g., Unknown at 11:19). But the further the digging goes, the worse Obama and Hillary Clinton seem to be not merely colluding with Russians but conspiring with them.
Lol, plenty of weasel words there, Unkown.
Does Burge's Law apply to NYT stories about impeachment?
A correction:
Earlier, above, I wrote about a "similar arc" this theme is taking that i also see in the pussy-hat/#metoo theme.
It is not an arc. It is a boomerang!
How winning is all this for this presidency?!
(May NKorea find that all their missives and missiles against trump boomerang on him, too)
The article's conclusion is: "The issue is that the behavior of Mr. Trump and his associates amounts to a deep offense against the public’s sacred trust. We need to reckon not only with that fact, but also with how as a nation, we’ve almost lost the sense to recognize it."
What I don't see in this article or elsewhere is a clear statement of what specific actions amount to a deep offense against the public trust. I would like to see either a clear admission that "yes Democrats, including Obama and Hillary also committed these same types of actions" or a clear explanation about why "Trumpian actions were a deep offense, but Clintonian actions were not a deep offense."
Trump associates did meet with Russians who arguably had connections to the Russian gov't, and who promised, but (as far as I can tell) did not deliver information that would be harmful to Hillary. Hillary associated financed an investigation that met with Russians who arguably had connections to the Russian gov't and who did deliver information that would have been harmful to Trump.
And Obama facilitated the use of US gov't mechanisms to try to use that information to harm Trump. And Russia paid (and caused to be paid to) the spouse of one candidate lots of money which could be used to self-finance campaign activities.
This is not "what-about-ism". This is a request for a clear set of rules for what behavior should be acceptable, and what behavior should be unacceptable. And it is a challenge to Trump detractors to come with such a clear set in which Clinton and Obama actions are in the acceptable category while Trump actions are in the unacceptable category.
Organizing for America also gave money to to Fusion GPS.
Looks like someone is walking the dog back home.
It is obvious, isn't it, why the left is now writing about the problems with the collusion meme???? Surely it doesn't take a genius to figure this out, right???
The problem for the left is that "collusion with Russians" is pretty well understood by anyone with an IQ above body temperature, and the simple fact of the matter is that the only verified example of actual collusion with Russians during the election was the Trump Dossier bought and paid for by Clinton and the DNC. The revelation of this killed the Collusion Meme almost instantly. So, now, the meme the left itself started, as Ms. Althouse pointed out, has to be changed to something else.
The left simply doesn't get it- they aren't going to be able to get Trump impeached over this because there is no there there.
>What I don't see in this article or elsewhere is a clear statement of what specific actions amount to a deep offense against the public trust.
It's boilerplate stuffed in even if the article can't support it.
Hillary's Joint Fundraising Agreement with the DNC....
She had the ability to control where the money went? Seriously? Money contributed to the DNC (way beyond what an individual could legally contribute to her campaign) got re-funneled into Hillary's control (and away from the state races to which it would have/could have gone).
Where's the FEC?
Drain the swamp!
For those new to prosecutor fishing expeditions, a tip: it’s never the original pretext. Bill Clinton’s troubles were supposed to be about a real-estate deal in Arkansas, not dress stains. Trump will likely be impaled on some tax anomaly and not on anything having to do with “collusion.”
the professor purportedly introduced Papadopoulos to a Russian woman whom the young campaign aide believed to be Putin’s niece
Needs more P's.
the professor presented Papadopoulos to a person, purportedly Putin's parents' progeny's pride and joy.
If Mueller can find evidence that members of Trump’s team conspired in Russia’s hacking effort — by directing it or aiding in another way
That's it. Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, Lieutenant Colonel in the KGB and President of Russia, wanted to hack into Democrat servers, but he couldn't find anybody in Moscow who knew anything about computerin', so he sought guidance from Donald Trump's presidential campaign.
Ever notice how much collusion sounds like delusion?
Now, as for corruption investigations/ charges of Obama or Hillary: shit or get off the pot.
These things take time, new stuff comes to light every week. I am sure that you are more than happy with a system that charges Republicans with prison crimes for minor infractions and lets Democrats skate on egregious and direct violations of the law. That's what has to change, and losing an election doesn't make that issue go away.
I am sure that if Trump had detected 30 thousand emails and records of meetings with foreigners, many of whom gave him large sums of money, you would not be bothered, "Elections over. What difference does it make at this point?!"
"deleted 30 thousand emails." but you knew that. Fucking Safari thinks that it should slip in "corrections" without asking.
Imagine if Putin had funneled him 145 million fucking dollars and he had destroyed records of meetings around that time.....
FBI didn't think that this was worth looking into. Even though they knew about a spy ring that was trying to influence her, and that the Russians were funneling her money:
Sorry if you guys had "scandal goalies" installed as Attorneys General for the past eight years, and political operatives as heads of the FBI.
Clinton has admitted to destroying “private personal emails” as secretary of state. But Abedin’s admission that she used so-called “burn bags” — a container that material is placed in before it is destroyed — for some of her schedules is the first time anyone close to her has disclosed destroying public records.
The exact circumstances surrounding those destroyed records will likely come under intense scrutiny, critics said.
A former State Department official told The Post it was unprecedented for a diplomat to destroy a schedule like this.
“I spent eight years at the State Department and watched as four US ambassadors and two secretaries of state shared their daily schedules with a variety of State Department employees and US officials,” said Richard Grenell, former diplomat and US spokesman at the United Nations.
^^^^ Actual criminal activity, ignored by Comey.
You all want her in your life. Forever and ever and ever.
Yes, and she has become a major liability to the effort to impeach Trump, so you want her good and gone good and quick. Sorry, she ain't going away as long as the Democrats have this effort to remove Trump based on stuff that there is only proof that Hillary did. I can imagine it's painful for you. Sorry. There were two lefties here advocating for dumping Hillary prior to the election, Toothless Revolutionary, and Robert Cook. All others were on board pushing her onto an America that didn't want her, like Kevin Spacey on a teenage boy.
Had she had the good sense to slink away, and the Democrats had accepted the election outcome and maybe done some soul searching, all would be probably in the past. But Hillary announced the "resistance" and practically every Democrat has gone along. The movement lives, Hillary is not gone.
Money Talks. Hillary Walks.
tcrosse said...
Money Talks. Hillary Walks.
There's video from the 9/11 memorial service that says otherwise...
I'm happy to not think about her or Obama. Many people couldn't give 2 craps if she's investigated or not.
Right, just keep up the attempts to impeach Trump on the stuff that she is guilty of, but don't talk about it. Clear enough what you want, a partisan prosecution of your political enemies, and let's just let bygones by bygones with your friends. There are other blogs, you could go to, or you could read a book, watch a movie. But you come back here time after time saying to lay off of Hillary...
But, but, Collusion is a really big word and using it makes me sound smart. So like lay off Dude.
wwww said...
When something is over for me, it's over. You loose a job, you win a promotion, You win or you lose or whatever -- but the past can't be unwritten and you move on.
I don't want Hillary (metaphorically) hanging from a lamppost because of what she did in the past, or even what she is doing in the present. I want her (metaphorically) hanging from a lamppost because if she is allowed to get away with what she did/is doing, others will attempt the same thing in the future. And what did/is doing is far more harmful to our democracy than anything Trump has been alleged to have done.
It's not personal, Sonny. It's strictly business.
Try criminal conspiracy instead.
You can 'try' anything you want, Princess Sky Screamer.
You still got nothin'.
You all want her in your life. Forever and ever and ever.
No. I don't.
That corrupt bitch has been in 'my' life for more than 25 years and she still won't shut her mouth and simply go away.
She could die tomorrow. I would get drunk for a week, sober up and then get drunk for another month.
So, sell it somewhere else. I want her gone. Permanently.
wwwww forgets that his side has been obstructing justice:
Section 371 is for less serious conspiracy cases. Using it for money laundering — which caps the sentence way below Congress’s intent for that behavior — subverts federal law and signals to the court that the prosecutor does not regard the offense as major. Yet, that is exactly what Rosenstein’s office did, in a plea agreement his prosecutors co-signed with attorneys from the Justice Department’s Fraud Section. (See in the Hill’s report, the third document embedded at the bottom, titled “Mikerin Plea Deal.”) No RICO, no extortion, no fraud — and the plea agreement is careful not to mention any of the extortions in 2009 and 2010, before CFIUS approved Rosatom’s acquisition of U.S. uranium stock. Mikerin just had to plead guilty to a nominal “money laundering” conspiracy charge. This insulated him from a real money-laundering sentence. Thus, he got a term of just four years’ incarceration for a major national-security crime — which, of course, is why he took the plea deal and waived his right to appeal, sparing the Obama administration a full public airing of the facts. Interestingly, as the plea agreement shows, the Obama DOJ’s Fraud Section was then run by Andrew Weissmann, who is now one of the top prosecutors in Robert Mueller’s ongoing special-counsel investigation of suspected Trump collusion with Russia.
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/452972/uranium-one-deal-obama-administration-doj-hillary-clinton-racketeering
Conflict of interest, defined.
Conspiracy + illusion = collusion [dialect. Once common in Democratic circles, now obsolete - see Brazille]
I agree with everything you wrong except the last word. Sad? No, the Democrats have been playing scorched earth since George W. Bush won in 2000 and they truly deserve everything they're getting right now, including their Hollywood mouthpieces being exposed for the frauds they are.
So, Mueller's investigation is now veered into looking at K Street and the fact that the JD had not enforced FARA, and the majority of firms have stopped bothering.
As a reminder, even though HRC clearly violated the law (on the "negligence" standard), Comey said that "no reasonable prosecutor would have brought the case," so he gave her and her team a pass. As an aside, I still don't get how destroying evidence under subpoena isn't obstruction, but whatevs.
But, even though JD hasn't enforce FARA, now Mueller, alone, has decided that it should.
The other point is that the Ds have decided that speaking to Russians is a crime, but that it's ok to use Russian disinformation to sway a FISA court or to smear your political enemies as long as you launder it thru a 3rd party.
Althouse wrote, "Sad!"
If by "sad" you mean "pathetic", yeah. But my basic reaction is "BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA"
"If not "collusion", what crime is Donald Trump Jr. supposed to have actually committed?"
Existing.
unknown said: "Criminal conspiracy is a crime, which includes collusion." but there must be an underlying crime. If I get together with my friends and "collude" to hold a surprise party for my wife, it is a "conspiracy" but not a crime. Collusion in the absence of a crime is a nonsense word. Some people imagine that talking to foreign governments as a private citizen while conducting a campaign is a crime, but it is not. Taking money from foreign agents for your campaign is against campaign finance laws, but that has never been even alleged here (and of course Clinton DID get foreign money). Manafort among his charges is accused of "conspiracy against the united states" but there is no such statute--he may be guilty of not registering as a foreign agent for lobbying purposes, and of being a sleezy character, but not of espionage.
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