Criminal Justice & the Rule of Law Executive Branch Intelligence

Of Course There’s Evidence Trump Colluded with Russian Intelligence

Jordan Brunner, Quinta Jurecic, Benjamin Wittes
Friday, April 7, 2017, 11:53 AM

It has become a kind of mantra in the defense of Donald Trump on matters related to L’Affaire Russe that there’s no evidence, at least not yet, of “collusion” between the Trump campaign and the Russian active measures operation with respect to the 2016 election.

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It has become a kind of mantra in the defense of Donald Trump on matters related to L’Affaire Russe that there’s no evidence, at least not yet, of “collusion” between the Trump campaign and the Russian active measures operation with respect to the 2016 election.


During the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence’s open hearing on Russian election interference on March 20th, for example, Representative Chris Stewart (R-UT) read out a statement by former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper that he was aware of no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. When asked by Stewart whether Clapper’s comments were accurate, FBI Director James Comey answered that Clapper had correctly characterized the contents of the intelligence community’s report on the subject. President Trump’s official Twitter feed, @POTUS, promptly tweeted out a clip of the exchange—implying that Comey’s statement was exonerating of any wrongdoing:



Jordan A. Brunner is a graduate of the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University, and was a national security intern at the Brookings Institution. Prior to law school, he was a Research Fellow with the New America Foundation/ASU Center for the Future of War, where he researched cybersecurity, cyber war, and cyber conflict alongside Shane Harris, author of @War: The Rise of the Military-Internet Complex. He graduated summa cum laude from Arizona State University with a B.S. in Political Science.
Quinta Jurecic is a fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution and a senior editor at Lawfare. She previously served as Lawfare's managing editor and as an editorial writer for the Washington Post.
Benjamin Wittes is editor in chief of Lawfare and a Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of several books.

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