The conclusion of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation was an unequivocal rejection of the conspiracy theory that has engulfed Donald Trump’s presidency. Mueller’s report found no evidence that the Trump campaign for the 2016 US presidential election conspired with the Russian government’s alleged effort to hurt Hillary Clinton’s campaign through the release of stolen Democratic Party emails. None of the figures, Russian or not, whose interactions with Trump associates were characterised as potential contacts with the Kremlin turned out to be anything of the sort.
Mueller shows that each key plank of the collusion narrative was unfounded: the infamous June 2016 Trump Tower meeting; the (failed) effort to build a Trump Tower in Moscow; the rejection of an amendment to the Republican platform in 2016 about Ukraine; Trump campaign director Paul Manafort’s association with political consultant Konstantin Kilimnik; the (wiretapped) conversations between former general Michael Flynn, a Trump supporter, and the Russian ambassador, and many more. Hence Mueller’s conclusion: ‘The investigation did not establish that the members of the Trump campaign coordinated or conspired with the Russian government in its election interference activities.’
In short, Mueller’s probe showed the Trump-Russia collusion narrative to be a work of fiction. Mueller finished his probe without indicting a single American for conspiring with Russia to influence the 2016 election.
Democrats’ gift to Trump
The Democratic Party leadership now faces the reality that the investigation it has prioritised ‘relentlessly and above all else’, in the words of Clinton campaign senior aide Jennifer Palmieri, has handed Trump a massive gift heading into his 2020 re-election campaign. Trump’s daily mantra of ‘No collusion’ — widely mocked by his Democratic opponents and their media partisans — now carries the endorsement of none other than the (...)
