Is NBC News sending a not so subtle message to its viewers and, especially, to its correspondents on the true state of the much touted Trump-Russia collusion investigation? One has to ask this question because, remarkably, NBC News published a column by Loyola Law School professor Jessica Levinson that asked about the possibility of a collusion charge and answered it in Will President Trump be charged with collusion in 2018? Not a chance:
President Donald Trump is right about one thing — he may never be charged with “collusion.” Despite its current use as a sort of catchall term for the Trump administration’s alleged ties to Russian meddling, “collusion” is only a federal crime in the area of antitrust law. In this legal context, collusion occurs when two or more people or entities decide to gain an unfair market advantage and/or secretly limit open competition.
Wasn't Alan Dershowitz making this same point early this year? Too bad NBC News and most of the rest of the mainstream media didn't pay attention to him. Only now it seems that NBC News was at least willing to publish a column putting forth an otherwise unwelcome point of view:
One of the quintessential examples of collusion is an agreement to engage in price-fixing. Or put another way, collusion has nothing to do with the Trump campaign and the Russian government.
So if you’ve been talking about whether or not the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government in the 2016 presidential election, you’ve been saying it wrong. But you’re also in good company. The vast majority of the public and the press routinely, and erroneously, use the word collusion to refer to a host of potential federal crimes. This does not mean the investigation is fake news, but it does mean we have been using the wrong term to describe it.
Include in that number of devout Trump-Russia collusion believers the vast majority of NBC News correspondents as well as MSNBC hosts. You hear that Rachel Maddow? You too, Morning Joe.
And while we are discussing inapplicable crimes, it is worth noting that Trump and his campaign staff and administration will almost certainly not be charged with treason, either. Under the U.S. Constitution, “Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.” Here the word “enemies” means nations with which we are at war. We are not currently at war with Russia, and therefore one cannot commit treason by aiding Russia, even if the aid meant swaying the 2016 presidential election.
You've just sent a major portion of the left, including just about everybody at MSNBC, into a steep depression:
Now that we know which charges we will not see, we must ask which charges we might see as a result of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into potential coordination between the Trump campaign and administration and the Russian government.
Perhaps a lame Patrick Fitzgerald type process crime? Liberals are desperate for any crumb of hope.
Let us begin at the beginning. Before Donald Trump became President Trump, the FBI was looking into connections between the Russian government and the Trump campaign. In May of 2017, Trump famously fired the director of the FBI, James Comey, who was ultimately in charge of that investigation.
That firing in and of itself may be illegal if it amounts to obstruction of justice. The question boils down to whether Trump fired Comey to try to slow or halt that investigation and/or because Comey wouldn’t pump the brakes on the investigation.
Obstruction of justice for a crime that doesn't exist and didn't happen? That sounds much lamer than a Patrick Fitzgerald process crime. Good luck trying to impeach based on that:
...we could see charges brought for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act if Trump or members of his campaign helped the Russians obtain (meaning steal) Democratic National Committee emails or helped them use (meaning release) those emails publicly.
No problem. Just have the FBI conduct a forensic examination of the DNC server and... Oh wait! The Democrats themselves didn't allow that:
The biggest resolved question of 2017 is that the Mueller investigation will not lead to charges of collusion or treason; the biggest unresolved questions are what, if any, charges come next.
Resolved! NBC News correspondents and MSNBC commentators might have wasted 2017 on a big fat nothingburger.
As to other charges... Well, there was that time that Trump jaywalked on Fifth Avenue.
