James Comey, an acknowledged jerk, acknowledged under oath--and out of fear of "tapes" allegedly held by President Donald Trump--that the President, as critical at times of the Russia "collusion" investigation as he has been, indeed wanted an investigation to learn what Trump termed "satellites" may have been doing during the campaign. In a March 31 meeting of a foreign policy advisory committee for the campaign, a certain member raised the possibility of using contacts with Russian officials to arrange a public meeting of Trump with Vladimir Putin. In a discussion of this idea, it was put down by a number of people there, who noted the "optics" of such a meeting, with Senator Jeff Sessions insisting that the idea of such dealings never be talked about again. At some point, a campaign policy was even put into effect barring any campaign employee from traveling overseas as part of the campaign. Hence, the idea of any sort of "collusion" was resolved in Trump's mind--this committee member would not have any contacts with Russia in the course of his campaign work (whatever had happened before), and thus there would be no contacts by Trump associates with Russia in their campaign capacities. Except...
The problem was, it is common in down-and-dirty politics for associates and ancillary figures to do down-and-dirty things that are kept from the candidate or in contravention of campaign policy. And so, while Trump attacked insinuations and assertions that he himself was involved in any such alleged "collusion"--i.e., the "witch hunt"--and noted at times that he himself knew of no such connections made by people in the campaign (seeing as how that March 31 meeting had shut down the idea), he understood that others may have taken actions unapproved by him to make contacts with foreign entities, contacts which some may construe as "collusion" in the current political setting.
And that's where we are now. We are learning, as I predicted in July, that there were indeed contacts between people in the campaign and individuals with at least some connection to the Russian government. The irregularity and even failure in many cases of these contacts, along with post-election events, shows the lack of a so-called "backchannel" of communication. That is, there was no regular, ongoing, "official" (for want of a better word) communication between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, thus discrediting the claim of a hand-in-hand (or hand-in-glove) "collusion."
Satellites are weird things. They generally move in predictable patterns, but sometimes malfunction. And when they are human, they can simply do stupid or wrong things. What we are seeing is that truth in effect. Trump was right to recognize that some of his associates--including at least one at that March meeting--did indeed alter their orbits in disadvantageous ways. What he had thought was a closed-out matter was raising his own concerns at rogue or actions contrary to campaign by members of his campaign. At one level, it's not surprising--save that the apparent connections were failures. (This, of course, is another exculpatory fact for Trump himself--he's usually successful at making contacts.)
Hence, we find the whole "Russia" issue to be this: Did any attempt by Russia--and most of this is clearly at the instigation of the Russian side--actually succeed in passing to the Trump campaign anything of political usefulness? If so, then believers in a collusion could argue they were "technically" right--the Trump campaign got direct help from Russia. Yet at the same time, by Trump's own expression about wanting to know what his "satellites" were doing, the disbelievers would also "technically" be right--no campaign-organized "collusion" or even mutual connection existed (as the failures and fiascos we've seen demonstrate).
Of course, this will all continue. That is actually necessary, as President Trump wants to find out what members of his campaign were doing in this regard. And so, the politics will continue.
Now, I am not in the business of advising the anti-Trump side, so I will only advise the pro-Trump side as to how to proceed: Hold to the President's core position from the beginning--he himself did not collude or know of collusion in the course of the campaign, and it is good to find satellites who may have done so. Don't worry about the ancillary issues--or ancillary people. Criminality is not really in sight here. Take how Andrew C. McCarthy, someone who is decidedly not a steady pro-Trump figure, but one who tries to be objective (even if wrong sometimes), summed up the position in a discussion debunking the "obstruction" charges against Trump as the core point. Too often people get taken off the main objective, and I am no exception to this. Focus on this core.
The more that comes out, the more it shows a lack of campaign effort at a collusion, and why Trump would have no knowledge of any satellite activity in this regard. Yet it shows one more thing--something else I talked about in July: The problems of taking business lawyering into politics. What may be legal and honest may yet be bad politics and problematic in related ways. It's not illegal or dishonest, but it is unwise.
