Where’s the collusion with Russia?
Ed Rogers, The Washington Post: “Collusion would have to demonstrate a clear back-and-forth between someone from the Trump camp and a Russian figure with the authority and intent to come to the campaign’s aid. The campaign official would then have to accept the Russian’s offer and perform some act in furtherance of the collaborative effort to in fact collude. Marginal players offering derogatory information, unreciprocated overtures from nameless Russians pursuing ‘synergy’ and encounters such as a one-off handshake with the Russian ambassador hardly meet that threshold. ... Frankly, the fact that President Donald Trump couldn’t secure a real estate deal in Russia while many other hotel brands had done so suggests that the Russians were in no hurry to help or entrap Trump.”
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Jill Abramson, The Guardian: “The rogues’ gallery exposed in Robert Mueller’s court filings last week make the Watergate burglars look positively classy. ... His most recent filings make clear that considerable evidence touches the president himself. ... What a tantalizing pile of clues. Surely, we will soon know where they lead. During the Nixon years, a famous journalist, Jimmy Breslin, wrote two books. One was a novel about the mafia called ‘The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight’ that I thought about as I watched Paul Manafort et al trot across the television screen last week. He also wrote a book after President Richard Nixon resigned about the politicians who helped restore honesty and dignity to Washington. It was called ‘How the Good Guys Finally Won.’ That one deserves a sequel.”
Conrad Black, National Review: "The revelations of the last few days are, though disguised, the crash in ignominy of the Robert Mueller putsch. ... An optimist could at least celebrate the end of this malignant idiocy of impeaching Trump for collusion with Russia, but there is something about the Trump phenomenon that is only now becoming clear: His support is irreducible and his enemies are inexhaustible, so, in the worst imaginable application of the tired phrase, the show must go on. His enemies hate him so fanatically, they cannot accept the absence of evidence against him."
Al Cross, The (Louisville, Kentucky) Courier-Journal: "Mitch McConnell spent most of his career aiming to be leader of his party in the United States Senate, and now he’s held the job longer than any other Republican. But he surely didn’t expect that he would have to deal with a president who has hijacked and transformed that party, makes falsehoods a regular part of his utterances, regularly displays disregard for the rule of law, and makes McConnell’s job more difficult. ... McConnell is a lawyer who didn’t like practicing law and was always bound for politics; now he may be in the most critical position to defend the rule of law against a president who often sounds more like wannabe fascist dictator than a republican leader. Or a Republican leader."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Where’s the collusion with Russia?
