President Trump echoed his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, arguing Tuesday that “collusion is not a crime,” and then accused Hillary Clinton and the Democrats of colluding with Russia.
In a tweet, Trump repeated Giuliani’s words from a day earlier about collusion not being “a crime,” but said it ultimately doesn’t matter because his campaign did not collude with Russia. He then repeated his claim that any collusion during the presidential campaign was between Clinton, the Democratic Party and Russia.
Collusion is not a crime, but that doesn’t matter because there was No Collusion (except by Crooked Hillary and the Democrats)!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 31, 2018
In television appearances Monday, Giuliani said his client did not collude with Russia, but even if he did, it wouldn’t be a crime.
“I have been sitting here looking in the federal code trying to find collusion as a crime,” Giuliani said on “Fox and Friends.” “Collusion is not a crime.”
In a later appearance on CNN, Giuliani said the hacking of computers and email accounts owned by the Democratic Party and Clinton’s campaign was the crime, not collusion, if there was any.
“Colluding about Russians, I’m not sure that’s even a crime,” Giuliani told CNN’s “New Day.” “The hacking is the crime. The president didn’t hack. He didn’t pay them for hacking.”
Trump’s 2016 campaign is being investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller for possibly colluding with the Russians.
