Top Democrat suggests proof of Trump-Russia collusion still to come

The top Democrat on the House intelligence committee suggested on Monday that Robert Mueller may still present evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, despite last week’s indictments stating that such connections relating to those cases were merely “unwitting”.

“It’s very clear from this 37-page indictment that this was a massive Russian operation and part of its design was to promote the campaign of Donald Trump,” Schiff said.Adam Schiff, a frequent foe of Donald Trump’s whom the president called “the leakin’ monster of no control” at the weekend, told WNYC he felt that a web of collusion had already been established.

The indictment, he said, “tore any veneer off the argument that the Russians were not involved, and were involved for the purpose of helping him and hurting others.”

The allegations included claims that the Russians’ operations “included supporting the presidential campaign of then-candidate Donald J Trump ... and disparaging Hillary Clinton.”

But the indictment did not allege that Trump’s team had knowingly colluded, only that Russian operatives “communicated with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump campaign”.

Asked if he believed the investigation would claim “witting participation” with Russian by anyone working for the president, Schiff said it was clear that the president was aware of Russia’s hacking and dumping of documents because the intelligence community had said in October 2016 it was being carried out at Putin’s behest.

“Then-candidate Trump used this information on a daily basis to denigrate Hillary Clinton ... and we know there were conversations about getting dirt on Hillary Clinton between very high levels of the campaign, including the president’s own son, son-in-law and campaign manager met in the secret meeting at Trump Tower where the Russians had offered to send someone out from Moscow ... who was part of the Russian government effort to help elect Donald Trump.”
Trump initially greeted Mueller’s indictments with glee, claiming that the failure to charge anyone in his political orbit with collusion was an exoneration. But over the weekend, he launched a multi-target Twitter attack blaming Democrats for Russian meddling and claiming the investigations were playing into Moscow’s hands.

“They are laughing their asses off in Moscow. Get smart America!” Trump tweeted on Sunday.

But Schiff said it was important to realize that the indictments only covered “one facet of the Russian active measures campaign ... the use of social media to try to motive people to get out and protest for or against different candidates.

“There was a whole different vector the Russian used. They hacked democratic institutions, they leaked stolen documents, and that’s not covered at all in this indictment.”

Schiff said there may be good reason why Mueller is choosing to separate aspects of his investigation, if indeed he is.

“The fact that he didn’t allege in one active and willing participation by the Trump campaign doesn’t mean he won’t in the other,” said Schiff.