Analysis: The limits of Trump’s claim of exoneration
By Philip Bump Philip Bump National correspondent focused largely on the numbers behind politics Email Bio Follow March 25 at 2:55 PM President Trump's regular refrain of “no collusion” has been matched only by his declarations that the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election was a “witch hunt.” Trailing close behind, though, was the president's repeated insistence that there was “no obstruction” to go along with the lack of collusion.
On Sunday, with the release of Attorney General William P. Barr's letter summarizing what Mueller's probe found, Trump was triumphant. Put another way, there are Russia-adjacent questions which exist, and for which we may never get answers — but one which could certainly still implicate Trump, if not on illegal coordination.
It has always seemed unlikely that Trump did not know about that meeting. The evening the meeting was finalized by his son Donald Trump Jr., Trump gave a speech in which he promised to unveil dirt on Hillary Clinton — the exact point of the meeting, as his team understood it at the time. But Trump insists he did not know.
Speaking of Cohen, he was also involved in perhaps the most immediately incriminating activity by Trump: the two payments to women before the 2016 election aimed at burying stories about alleged affairs. Cohen pleaded guilty to two felony campaign finance charges last year while directly implicating Trump in the crimes. The parent company of the National Enquirer, which made one of the payments, also admitted guilt in the scheme.
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