Why collude?

FBI Director Comey yesterday confirmed once again that Russia aimed to undermine the integrity of the US election process, to disfavor Hillary Clinton, and to favor Donald Trump. With so much already established, it is natural to assume that the Bureau’s investigation will also confirm that there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow.

I wonder. Putin’s objectives were congruent with Trump’s. What purpose would be served by collusion? A wink and a nod might well suffice. While Trump campaign officials like Jeff Sessions, Paul Manafort, and Carter Page (as well as now Secretary of State Tillerson) had clear and suspicious connections to Russia, it is going to be difficult to prove collusion unless there are written records of their conversations with Moscow.

Wire taps are still possible, because the National Security Agency may have been focused on Russians the campaign officials were talking with. Emails or other records of the conversations are also possible. But I wouldn’t bank on it. Russian tradecraft is good enough. They really didn’t need much guidance from the Trump campaign. They had emails they hacked from both the Republican and Democratic campaigns. They had easy access to Wikileaks. It didn’t take genius, or collusion, to know which emails to publicize to favor the Republican candidate.

So what we could end up with from this enormous scandal is an equivocal outcome. Yes, the Russians interfered to favor one candidate over the other. But no one did anything illegal or even immoral on the American side of the equation. All they did was run the best campaign they could under the circumstances. No one is going to fault Trump for that. Russophilia is now so widespread among Republicans that Putin’s enthusiasm for his candidacy will raise few eyebrows among Trump supporters.

What they should fault Trump for is the barrage of lies he has rained from his Twitter account and from the White House spokesman, as well as his deplorable treatment of our British and German allies. No president I can recall has dissed London and Berlin so definitively. Trump accused the Brits of colluding with Obama to spy on the Trump campaign. He refused to shake Chancellor Merkel’s hand and tried to drag her into his petty fantasies by suggesting that Obama wire tapped them both. These are the shabby techniques of a second rate salesman. It is hard to picture a Trump visit to either London or Berlin anytime soon.

Nor is it easy to picture a visit to Moscow or a meeting anyplace with Putin that doesn’t raise more questions than it answers. Until the FBI and Congressional investigations have reached definitive conclusions, my guess is that Trump’s bromance with Putin is on ice. Any deal short of an unconditional Russian withdrawal from Ukraine and Syria (with no quid pro quo) would make us all wonder what Putin got in return, further undermining a presidency that is already foundering.

But foundering is not yet failing. The only people who can do anything about Trump at this point are Republicans in Congress and judges in the federal courts. The latter are already showing their spunk. But the Congress is still lining up to salute the President, who they hope will cut taxes for rich people and regulations on commerce and industry. With some notable exceptions in the Senate, the Republican members care little about Russia. Many even admire Putin’s autocratic ways. You don’t have to collude if your objectives are the same.