This sounds to me like the Mueller team is getting some people rattled.
How do you know when the seriousness of the Russia scandal has intensified? When Donald Trump’s allies discover it’s time to move the goal posts again.
Take, for example, National Review’s Andrew McCarthy arguing on Fox News last week that there’s nothing necessarily wrong with the president’s political operation possibly having turned to a foreign adversary to help win an American election.
“Look, I don’t think that it’s bad if campaigns are turning to foreign governments for dirt. It’s not collusion, it’s not something that’s impeachable, it’s icky. But that’s what this is.”
A day later, The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway wrote, “I don’t have a problem [with] getting dirt on election opponents from foreigners.” She added that relying on the Steele dossier is effectively the same thing.
Fox News’ Tucker Carlson quickly endorsed the line, telling his viewers, “Nobody is claiming that any information changed hands, though, even if it did, so what?”
And Rudy Giuliani is now saying that collusion with a foreign power to win an election isn’t against the law.
The only reason Trump has been so adamant in denying that Russia had any role whatsoever in the election is because he cannot allow anyone to think he didn’t win it on his own. That’s it.
I am hoping that we find out that not only is it against a variety of laws but that the attempt to cover it up is also more criminal than the actual collusion itself.
If I recall correctly, that was the biggest problem with Nixon’s transgressions: the cover-up, rather than the original conspiracy. Nixon resigned, as we all know; I very much doubt the incumbent will do the same. Funny how they all cared so very much about the odd extramarital consensual fellatio, and subsequent fibs, with Democratic President Clinton; and so very little about the current GOP kleptocracy and the Liar In Chief. No one in power even seems to recall it now.