Liberals' collusion confusion

Democrats need to remember what the Russia investigation is actually about

President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
(Image credit: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

For more than a year now the American people have been waiting for evidence that Donald Trump knowingly colluded with the Russian government or its agents in the hope of securing victory over Hillary Clinton in an election that took place nearly three Star Wars ago. So far there hasn't been any.

Over the last few days we were treated to two more pieces of non-evidence. The first was the indictment of one Alex Van der Zwaan of London for lying to federal investigators about his work for a law firm in Ukraine that prepared a report in 2012 about a gas deal that the former Ukrainian prime minister had been involved with in, oh, 2009. If that sounds confusing to you, it's because it is. And not in a John le Carré, "man, the complexity of what these Ruskies get up to when they plant a mole is dizzying" sort of way. None of this has anything to do with the churlish individual who is now America's president. It's confusing because it's aimless, pointless proceduralist hand-waving from the most shameless special prosecutor this country has seen since Ken Starr. How far away are we, I wonder, from the Ghostbusters-like crossing of the streams, when it's suddenly revealed that Jim McDougal sold land to a front company owned by a one-time Soviet bureaucrat in 1986 and that the cleaner where the infamous dress would have been taken if Linda Tripp had not convinced Monica Lewinsky otherwise was owned by a Ukrainian immigrant?

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Matthew Walther

Matthew Walther is a national correspondent at The Week. His work has also appeared in First Things, The Spectator of London, The Catholic Herald, National Review, and other publications. He is currently writing a biography of the Rev. Montague Summers. He is also a Robert Novak Journalism Fellow.