Know Collusion! Know Collusion!

Boy howdy, must Trump come across INCREDIBLY BADLY in the Mueller Report.  I haven't seen people work SO convoluted hard to keep others from finding the truth since the Wizard of Oz begged Dorothy not to pull back the curtain.

And this is someone who went around prancing that the Report supposedly "completely exonerated" him.  So, to go from that to all the convoluted machinations he and Attorney General William Barr have twisted themselves through, there just absolutely has to be horribly damning, corrupt, unethical information in there.

I don't know what it is -- but Trump clearly does.  A friend said to me last night, "Well, why would Rod Rosenstein be there??  Maybe there's actually nothing bad in it." Of course there's something bad in it!!!  The bizarre lengths that Trump has gone to in order to keep it from being released -- after saying he was all for releasing it and that it completely exonerated him -- can only be because there's "something bad in it."

Is it possible that there's nothing bad in it?  Sure.  It's possible.  But is it probably or likely?  No.

By the way, here's the odd hole that Trump has dug for himself, which I haven't heard anyone mention up to this point.

For the past two years, Trump has been shouting at any opportunity, "No collusion!!!  No collusion!!!  No collusion!!  No collusion!!!  No collusion!!! "  But here's the thing --

"Collusion" is not a crime.  Conspiracy is the crime.  So, what Robert Mueller and his team were looking for was evidence of conspiracy.  And apparently there either wasn't any or wasn't enough to prove guilty within a reasonable doubt, which is the standard to indict.  So, with no "conspiracy" that could be proved, there was no indictment (that,or because Mueller felt a president couldn't be indicted.)  

But -- that doesn't mean there was no collusion.  There might have been massive evidence of collusion -- which isn't illegal, but pretty horrific.  And for all we know, the Mueller Report is full of that.  For instance, meeting with Russians in Trump Tower to get information on Hillary Clinton but not coming away with anything may not be "conspiring" with Russia, and so there was no indictment for it.  But it might well be evidence of collusion, and Mueller might have lots of evidence on that.  Not enough to indict, but plenty to be damning.

(Then again, for all we know, Mueller might have found evidence of conspiracy with that, but felt it didn't fall under his mandate, and passed it along to the SDNY, since the meeting took place in New York...)

Indeed, while there was nothing indictable in the Mueller Report, there could be a great deal of evidence of collusion in it -- which would be of interest to the House for the question of impeachment.  Other example perhaps could be more evidence related to Trump calling out Russia to look into Clinton's emails, or Roger Stone's dealing with WikiLeaks, or Trump's saying he had a big speech to make about the Clinton's when there were meetings set up with the Russians, or Erik Prince (head of Blackwater and brother of Betsy DeVos) meting with Russian operatives in the Seychelles.  And more.  I have no idea.  But the point is that none of these things and others may have been evidence of conspiracy, but could well have been collusion, and if so, there could be a huge amount of evidence about it in the report.

If Trump had been shouting, "No conspiracy!!!  No conspiracy!!!  No conspiracy!!!  No conspiracy!!!" for the past two years, he might possibly have been proven right.  But he didn't shout that.  He intentionally chose the word that he was likely told was not a crime and told that he should use that because it's safer.  And for all we know -- that might be one of the many things that does him in.

No idea.

But I only know people don't go to these massive lengths to keep people from seeing information about them unless there's information they don't want people to see.

And that's something pretty much every human being knows - and learned by the third grade.