[BITList] Adam Schiff and Trump collusion

[John Feltham]

What We Know About the Trump Campaign’s Collusion With Russia
Look at the public record. Reality diverges sharply from the president’s vehement denials.



Since Adam Schtiff is the Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee and a person who has repeatedly appeared on TV talk shows declaring that his committee is onto evidence of collusion, I was anxious to read the article and understand the case. (For my friends outside the US, "Ranking Member" means that Mr. Schiff, a Congressman from California, is the highest-ranking Democrat on the committee. Because the Republicans have a majority and control the House of Representatives, they have a one-seat majority on every Congressional committee and the Chairman of every committee is a Republican.)

Naturally, I assumed that Mr. Schiff would present the best and strongest case with insights not available to anyone who has not looked at ALL of the evidence.

Anyhow, Mr. Stiff's op-ed piece is reproduced below.

So, this is what I got from the article:

I think it is true that we have seen evidence of willingness on the part of Donald Trump, Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner, to entertain the possibility that someone of Russian origin could provide dirt on Hillary Clinton.

To say there was a conspiracy to undermine the penalties imposed on Russia is a stretch of the truth. What we know is that Flynn had a passing conversation with Sislyak about sanctions but that was AFTER the election. It's not clear how that shows pre-election collusion absent evidence that a deal regarding sanctions had been made during the campaign. As far as we the public know, there is no such evidence.

Schiff then conflates "Russia's covert influence operation" and collusion with the Trump campaign.

Schiff then states "Special Counsel Robert Mueller has secured multiple indictments and guilty pleas." This is a complaint about ostensible attempts to shut the House investigation down. But, so far as I know, there is NO demand by anyone to shut down the House investigation into Russian covert influence.  

And Schiff does not mention that Mueller's indictments of two people and a guilty plea from one, have NOTHING to do with collusion between the Trump campaign and Russians.

Mr. Schiff then disputes Trump's statement that there is no evidence of collusion. His points:

Papadopoulos was approached by the Russians in April 2016. But this statement is speculative if not outright false. Papadopoulos was approached by some unidentified professor who may have had some Russian contacts. Here is an article by Steven Hall who say he ran the CIA's Russia Operations. He spins how a case for collusion could be made. <https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/10/31/russias-outreach-to-george-papadopoulos-went-just-how-spies-would-have-done-it/?utm_term=.b40b92c933c1>
We know that the Russians had hacked Hillary Clinton's emails. NO, this is an assumption, not established fact.
Weeks later, the Russians reached out to Donald Trump, Jr., Manafort and Kushner offering dirt on Clinton. Well, this is half true. As we know, a meeting was proposed with a Russian lawyer. And Manafort and Kushner all too willingly jumped into it. The meeting produced nothing that remotely suggests collusion.
The Russians released the hacked emails and started a social media campaign. Well, we don't know that the Russians hacked or released the emails. We do know that they conducted a social media campaign. It's probably reasonable to conclude that the Russians were in fact responsible for hacking Clinton's emails. But where is the collusion?
Finally "Mr. Trump even publicly urged the Russians to further hack and disseminate his opponent’s emails." The problem with this argument is that as of the date that Trump made a comment that his people claim was a joke (let's assume it was actually serious) there was NO HILLARY CLINTON SERVER TO HACK. Her server had been turned over to the FBI and was not even online.

Unfortunately, instead of focusing on whether the Russians interfered with the election and trying to figure out a way to prevent that from ever again happening, hacks like Schiff are conjuring up imaginary scenarios of collusion.

Trump has colluded with the Repugnicans to pass a horrible tax bill.
Trump has colluded with Repugnicans to repeal the ACA individual mandate.
Trump has colluded with Pruitt to dilute clean air rules, and to encourage more coal burning.
Trump has colluded with cable and media giants to eliminate net neutrality regulations.
Trump has colluded with large energy companies to permit drilling in ANWR and to undo Obama's designation of vast areas of pristine land as protected.

That's the collusion we should be working agains.

Schiff is a stiff.

By 
Adam B.. Schiff
Updated Dec. 18, 2017 7:22 p.m. ET
1997 COMMENTS <https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-we-know-about-the-trump-campaigns-collusion-with-russia-1513642489#comments_sector>
Congressional probes into Russia’s attack on the 2016 election have unearthed numerous undisclosed meetings between the Trump team and Russians with ties to Vladimir Putin, repeated Russian offers of assistance, the willingness by the campaign to accept Russian help, the provision of help by the Kremlin, and a conspiracy to undermine the penalties imposed on Russia as a result.

Notwithstanding this progress, or more likely because of it, President Trump and his allies have been pressing Speaker Paul Ryan to bring the House’s investigation to an end, an action that would preclude a comprehensive and bipartisan report to the American public on the full extent of Russia’s covert political influence operation.

The country deserves better. Complex global investigations take time, yet in a matter of months, Special Counsel Robert Mueller has secured multiple indictments and guilty pleas. In contrast, eight congressional committees conducted investigations into Benghazi over more than three years and produced no evidence of criminal wrongdoing by anyone other than the attackers.

In the House Intelligence Committee, our investigation has made great progress, but the Republican majority has repeatedly flouted investigative best practices—rushing in witnesses before we have documents, scheduling others out of state while we are in session and cannot attend, and refusing to bring in dozens of others, and with no witnesses scheduled after Dec. 31.

During last week’s House Judiciary Committee hearing with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Republicans excoriated the FBI and Justice Department. Some called for an end to Mr. Mueller’s work, even as they urged a special counsel to investigate Hillary Clinton. These attacks are a clear effort to lay the groundwork for a rejection of Mr. Mueller’s findings. They do lasting damage to the institutions of our democracy.

With the president continuing to claim that the investigations have produced no evidence of collusion, it is worth examining the public record after nine months of work. Reality diverges sharply from Mr. Trump’s vehement denials.

In April 2016, the Russians approached the Trump campaign through one of its few foreign-policy advisers, George Papadopoulos, someone Mr. Trump touted as an “excellent guy.” They informed Mr. Papadapoulos they had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton in the form of “thousands of emails,” emails which we now know the Russians had hacked from Democratic National Committee servers and campaign officials’ accounts.

Weeks later, in June, the Russians followed up with an approach to the highest levels of the campaign—the president’s son, son-in-law and campaign manager—once again offering dirt on Mrs. Clinton as part of what was described as the Russian government’s effort to help Mr. Trump. The campaign response back to the Kremlin through the meeting in Trump Tower was twofold: We would “love” the help, and we were bitterly disappointed with what you gave us. Given that Russian interlocutors had already informed Mr. Papadopoulos of their valuable cache of stolen emails, the campaign was on notice that the Russians had far better dirt to offer.

Days after the meeting in Trump Tower, Julian Assange of WikiLeaks announced receipt of the hacked DNC emails. The Russians also published stolen emails directly through their fictitious proxies, DC Leaks and Guccifer 2.0. At the same time, the Russians ramped up a massive social-media campaign using an extensive network of fake personas and accounts to help the Trump campaign, vilify Mrs. Clinton and sow general discord.

As the Russians pushed out the stolen materials, Mr. Trump and his surrogates touted the hacked emails on a daily basis. Mr.. Trump even publicly urged the Russians to further hack and disseminate his opponent’s emails.

After the election, when the Russians were caught and subjected to sanctions by the U.S. for this unprecedented attack on our sovereignty, the president-elect’s designated White House national security adviser, Mike Flynn —with the knowledge of other high ranking transition officials—conspired secretly with the Russian ambassador to undermine the effect of the sanctions.

Each of these contacts between the Russians, the Trump campaign, and the transition is now uncontested, yet time and again, the president’s team, and in some cases the president himself, had lied about them. To claim that these facts show no evidence of collusion requires a willingness to avoid seeing what is in plain sight, or to credit the self-serving explanations of the same Trump officials who misled the country about these same meetings.

Now many of the president’s lawyers and allies have retreated to a different argument, that collusion is not a crime.. But collusion is another word for conspiracy, and conspiracy to violate U..S. election laws is a serious crime, especially when it involves a foreign adversary. Whether these facts and others that are not public amount to proof beyond a reasonable doubt is another matter, and will be for a jury to decide if Bob Mueller obtains an indictment—that is, if the Republicans allow him and Congress to do their job.

Mr. Schiff, a California Democrat, is ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee.

Appeared in the December 19, 2017, print edition.
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