President Donald Trump has a new argument to defend against allegations that his campaign worked with Russia to win the 2016 presidential election. “Collusion is not a crime,” Trump tweeted on Tuesday morning, “but that doesn’t matter because there was No Collusion.” The president’s tweet comes just one day after his lawyer Rudy Giuliani made the same case during various TV appearances on Monday. Let’s be really clear about what Trump is saying now: He and his team didn’t collude with Russia to win the White House — but even if they did, it wouldn’t be a crime. Well, there’s sort of a point to that. Set aside for a moment whether or not the Trump campaign partnered with Russia in some way and let’s focus solely on the “collusion is not a crime” bit. Trump and Giuliani can fairly argue that the US legal code doesn’t say anything specific about election collusion. So one could argue that collusion, on its own, is not exactly a crime. Collusion is not a crime, but that doesn’t matter because there was No Collusion (except by Crooked Hillary and the Democrats)! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 31, 2018 So is Trump off the hook, even if special counsel Robert Mueller concludes he colluded with Moscow in some way? No. Not even close. It’s still possible Mueller will find that the Trump campaign committed crimes that fall under the US legal code, such as a conspiracy to defraud the United States. Working with a foreign power to sway an election would almost certainly qualify under that statute. But that’s not all: There are also laws against election fraud, hacking, and even wire fraud. As Vox’s Ezra Klein noted last year, there’s already tons of evidence pointing in the collusion direction, and it could involve some of these crimes. Here are a few examples: Russia stole Democratic emails. At least one Trump adviser, George Papadopoulos, knew of the theft in advance and lied about it. Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager, was a paid operative of a Russia-linked political party in Ukraine. In June 2016, Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Manafort met with a Russian operative who promised them dirt on Hillary Clinton. In July 2016, Trump publicly asked the Russian government to find and release other emails Clinton deleted. Russians released emails to help Trump, planted fake news and social media bots to help Trump, and tried to hack election systems in 21 states. After being elected president, Trump fired the director of the FBI to try to end his investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 election. It’s unclear if the Trump campaign did any of this in a coordinated way with the Kremlin, of course. But if they did, those accused couldn’t just say, “No collusion!” and be off the hook. Instead, they’d likely have to defend themselves in court — not on TV or Twitter.<doc-sep>Following the lead of his lawyers, President Donald Trump on Tuesday said collusion "is not a crime." "Collusion is not a crime, but that doesn't matter because there was No Collusion," Trump tweeted Tuesday. Collusion is not a crime, but that doesn’t matter because there was No Collusion (except by Crooked Hillary and the Democrats)! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 31, 2018 The tweet, alluding to the federal investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election that includes possible collusion between Trump's campaign and Moscow, came a day after the president's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, in a media blitz, began making the same defense. Giuliani appeared on multiple television networks Sunday and Monday to stress the president's innocence and add that "collusion is not a crime." For months, Trump had insisted that there was "no collusion" between his campaign and Russia. As recently as Sunday, the president went on a tweetstorm, writing that “There is No Collusion!” In an interview with The New York Times last December, Trump repeatedly asserted that his campaign did not collude with Russia, while noting briefly that collusion is not illegal. "There is no collusion, and even if there was, it’s not a crime. But there’s no collusion," Trump said. Now, however, the president and his personal lawyer are doubling down on the idea that collusion, even if it did occur, isn't illegal. In fact, there is no statute covering "colluding" with a foreign power. It is illegal, however, to conspire to violate laws, including ones barring foreign participation in elections. In an indictment this month, special counsel Robert Mueller accused 12 Russian intelligence officers of conspiracy to hack computers and defraud the United States, alleging that people “known and unknown to the grand jury” participated in that conspiracy. Meanwhile, Jay Sekulow, another of Trump's personal lawyers, told Fox News on Tuesday that Mueller's Russia investigation will find no evidence of collusion, before also stating that collusion is not a crime. “There's not any evidence of any collusion here involving our client and the Russians,” Sekulow told Fox, adding that he and his team of lawyers had looked through 1.4 million documents related to the Trump campaign and the special counsel investigation. “Rudy Giuliani was correct — collusion is not a crime,” Sekulow said. “Well, that's not just technically correct. I mean that’s actually the law. But there’s no violation of law, statute, rule or regulation that we have seen after reviewing this case for a year, and I think Bob Mueller will come to the same conclusion.” The evolving argument from Trump and his lawyers comes just a week after Michael Cohen, Trump's former personal attorney, asserted that Trump knew in advance about a meeting at Trump Tower in June 2016 between his son Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer. Then-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, also participated in that meeting. A knowledgeable source told NBC News that Cohen is willing to inform Mueller that Trump Jr. told his father about the meeting, contradicting Trump Jr.'s congressional testimony in May 2017. Trump has also asserted he didn't know about the meeting. On Monday, Giuliani, in a series of confusing media interviews, also accused Cohen, as well as Cohen's lawyer, Lanny Davis, of incorrectly describing the attendees of various meetings that involved top figures in the Trump campaign around that same time period. He also appeared to suggest that another meeting had occurred at some point before the Trump Tower meeting, in which participants purportedly discussed "strategy" for the meeting with the Russians, before attempting to clarify later in the day that there had been no strategy session. A source familiar with the secret testimony of key Trump Tower meeting participants to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees told NBC News that none of them ever raised the issue of a strategy session to get ready for the meeting. Neither was such a session mentioned in their testimony to the Senate judiciary committee, which has been made public. Democrats on Capitol Hill criticized Trump and his lawyers for their shifting assertions. "I can't keep up with Rudy Giuliani's theories of defense. And they change almost by the hour," Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told CNN Tuesday. "Collusion at one point never happened, the next point if it happened it's not serious. It goes on and on." Durbin added that the country has to wait for Mueller's investigation to be completed to know for sure. "Whatever his conclusion is on the issue of collusion ,I will stand by it," Durbin said. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said the Trump team is playing word games. "There is credible evidence that the president of the United States has committed obstruction of justice and possibly a conspiracy to undermine our elections," Blumenthal said. "That's simply the facts and the law. And Giuliani is trying to confuse and distract, playing word games, but at the end of the day, the special counsel is going to proceed methodically and meticulously in making the case." He also said that despite Giuliani's attempts to clarify his various comments to the media, the president's team appears to have helped support a case that Donald Trump Jr. committed perjury in his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Blumenthal said he wants Trump Jr. to come back before the committee and clarify his statements. "He either mislead or lied to our committee when he came to be interviewed, according to the mounting evidence from Michael Cohen from others, and from Rudy Giuliani himself," Blumenthal said. Trump Jr.'s attorney, Alan Futerfas, disputed that idea in a response to Giuliani's comments Monday, saying that "we have investigated this matter for over a year and are in command of the facts." "We are fully confident of the accuracy and reliability of the information that has been provided by Donald Trump Jr. in the various investigations," Futerfas said in a statement. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who has been a supporter of Trump, told reporters on Tuesday that he has not seen proof of collusion, but efforts by Trump and his legal team to parse the legality of "collusion" aren't helping.<doc-sep>President Donald Trump stressed there was no collusion between his 2016 campaign and Russia. But even if there was, the president said, collusion does not constitute a crime. | Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images Trump takes up Giuliani's line of attack: Collusion is not a crime President Donald Trump on Tuesday took up his lawyer Rudy Giuliani's line of attack against special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, writing on Twitter that collusion is not a crime. The president stressed there was no collusion between his 2016 campaign and Russia. But even if there was, the president said, collusion does not constitute a crime. "Collusion is not a crime, but that doesn’t matter because there was No Collusion (except by Crooked Hillary and the Democrats)!" the president wrote on Twitter. The comments are his latest bulwark against a federal investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, which he often calls "rigged" against him and a "witch hunt." And as his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort is set to go to trial this week as part of Mueller’s probe, the president is shifting his comments about the investigation. Trump and his adviser are technically right. There’s no legal statute specifically stating collusion is illegal, according to The Associated Press. But there are laws that could hold water if Mueller finds evidence that Trump's campaign cooperated with the Kremlin. Those charges could include conspiracy, fraud and computer hacking, among others, according to the AP. One of Trump’s attorneys, Jay Sekulow, took to Fox News on Tuesday morning to also repeat Giuliani’s stance on collusion. "Collusion is not a crime," said Sekulow. "It is not a violation of any rule, statute or regulation that we have seen after reviewing this case for a year. I think Bob Mueller will come to the same conclusion."<doc-sep>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump again attacked Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russia and the 2016 U.S. election on Tuesday, reiterating that his campaign did not collude with Moscow and saying collusion is not a crime anyway. FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump walks behind his desk in the Oval Office during a swearing in ceremony for new U.S. Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie at the White House in Washington, U.S. July 30, 2018. REUTERS/Brian Snyder Trump commented hours before his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, was due to go on trial on tax and bank fraud charges in Virginia. As the first trial in the 14-month Russia probe, the case throws a fresh spotlight on a federal criminal investigation that has dogged Trump’s presidency. Mueller is investigating whether Trump campaign officials worked with Moscow to try to sway the 2016 U.S. presidential election, something commonly referred to as collusion by the media and public officials. “Collusion is not a crime, but that doesn’t matter because there was No Collusion (except by Crooked Hillary and the Democrats)!” Trump wrote on Twitter. While collusion is not a technical legal charge, Mueller is probing any coordination between the Russian government and the Trump campaign, and could bring conspiracy charges if he finds that any campaign member worked with Russia to break U.S. law. Legal experts said that working with a foreign national with the intent of influencing a U.S. election could violate multiple laws. “Collusion is basically a partnership in crime, which is conspiracy,” said Randall Eliason, a former federal prosecutor and a law professor at George Washington University. Trump has for months denied that the campaign colluded with Russia to try to engineer his victory against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, and he bristles at the suggestion he might owe his White House victory to Moscow. On Tuesday, he echoed his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who said in television interviews on Monday that collusion is not a crime. The strategy may be the latest in Trump’s efforts to strip legitimacy from the Mueller probe, which he has long denounced as a “witch hunt.” Russia has denied the finding of U.S. intelligence agencies last year that it interfered to sway the election to Trump. “The reason the Trump troops are pounding the ‘collusion is not a crime’ drum is because they colluded (better known as conspiracy, or aiding and abetting) and they want to get out in front of the story to control the narrative!” John Dean, President Richard Nixon’s legal counsel, wrote on Twitter. Manafort, 69, faces 18 criminal counts, which center on allegations that he hid much of the $60 million he earned working for a pro-Russian politician in Ukraine in undisclosed overseas bank accounts and failed to pay taxes on it.<doc-sep>
(CNN) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday embraced a line of defense offered by his attorney, Rudy Giuliani, that “collusion is not a crime,” even though he continued to deny any alleged ties between his campaign and Moscow during the 2016 election. “Collusion is not a crime, but that doesn’t matter because there was No Collusion (except by Crooked Hillary and the Democrats)!” Trump tweeted. For months, Trump has insisted that there was “no collusion,” but his Tuesday morning tweet hints at a potential expansion of his defense amid the ongoing special counsel investigation. Speaking to CNN’s “New Day” on Monday, Giuliani said he wasn’t sure if collusion was a crime. The President has repeatedly denied that there was any collusion between his campaign and Moscow, and he told The New York Times in December that “collusion is not a crime.” Legal experts, however, have repeatedly said that anyone found collaborating with Russia on the 2016 election could be charged with other crimes, such as conspiracy, and special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation has not concluded. At a CNN town hall in April, former FBI Director James Comey, whom Trump fired, said collusion “is not actually a thing that exists under the federal laws of the United States.” Instead, Comey continued, the question is whether any Americans conspired with a foreign government to commit crimes against the US, which is a crime. And speaking to CNN in May, Carrie Cordero, a CNN legal analyst and an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, said collusion isn’t a crime “in the literal sense” but that there could be related criminal violations in colluding, such as receiving foreign money in a political campaign or assisting with or being an accessory to computer hacking. Trump’s tweet came hours before the start of a trial brought on by the special counsel against Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman, who is charged with 18 violations of tax and banking laws related to his foreign lobbying work. The charges do not concern Manafort’s work for Trump during the campaign. Over the weekend, Trump and Giuliani launched some of their most personal attacks to date against Mueller, claiming the special counsel personally has conflicts of interest – including an unnamed “contentious business relationship” – that should preclude him from running the investigation. Trump also accused Mueller of bringing on too many Democratic investigators, and the President made a false claim about the origin of the Russia investigation. On Monday, Giuliani called on Mueller to “be a man” and disclose the alleged conflict of interest, though the former New York City mayor said he wasn’t aware of what it was.