Rudy Giuliani and his worsening collusion contusion

| 1:57 am EDT August 1, 2018
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This week began with Rudy Giuliani, personal attorney to Donald J. Trump, appearing on television show after show, touting the notion that collusion is not a crime. Giuliani stated, “I don’t even know if that’s a crime, colluding about Russians. You start analyzing the crime – the hacking is the crime. The President didn’t hack.”

The only concession to Giuliani, who should know better, having been a prosecutor of the Mafia for many years in New York and using RICO and other conspiracy charges, is that he is correct – there is no crime that is called “collusion.” But if you look up the word “collusion” in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, synonyms listed include “complicity” and “connivance” and “conspiracy.” Collusion is shorthand to avoid having to say that Trump participated in a “secret agreement or cooperation especially for an illegal or deceitful purpose” by complicitly conspiring with Russians to hack the 2016 presidential election.

Furthermore, and built into the definition of collusion and conspiracy, it is a federal crime for anyone to aid and abet or procure a felony. Trump went on television in June 2016, asking the Russians to release emails. That was probably a pre-arranged signal for the Russians to release the information that Trump knew to be hacked already. WikiLeaks noted that he was ahead of the plan.

So, when Rudy Giuliani says he doesn’t know if colluding is a crime, rest assured that the activities surrounding it, if proven by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and other prosecutors, would be criminal. In addition, the comment that “the hacking is the crime” is naïve at best. It would be akin to saying, “I don’t even know if that’s a crime, receiving stolen goods knowingly. You start analyzing the crime – the robbery is the crime.” In any event, what Giuliani and Trump appear to be doing here is preparing the base for some very bad things that they expect to happen in the coming days.