A House Republican who has probed the origins of the Russia-collusion investigation confirmed Wednesday during Robert Mueller’s testimony that there was collusion.
On the part of the Democrats.
Mueller was appointed in 2017 to investigate Democratic claims that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government to win the 2016 election.
Democrats, for more than two years, accused Trump of being a Russian agent, but Mueller concluded there was no collusion.
At the hearing, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., said there “is collusion in plain sight – collusion between Russia and the Democrats.”
As chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Nunes led a team of Republican investigators who found that the Russia probe was advanced by a Hillary Clinton campaign-funded, anti-Trump dossier of unverified claims by Russian sources known as the Steele dossier.
Nunes said that for congressional Democrats, “the Russia investigation was never about finding the truth.”
“It’s always been a simple media operation, and by their own accounts, that operation continues in this room today,” he said.
The Washington Examiner reported: “Whereas Mueller did not establish criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, Nunes said Democrats were colluding with Russia. In a clear swipe at Chairman Adam Schiff, who insists there is ‘evidence in plain sight’ of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin, Nunes said the opposite is true.”
Nunes said that “now that Mr. Mueller is here, they are claiming that the collusion has actually been in his report all along, hidden in plain sight.”
“And they’re right, there is collusion in plain sight – collusion between Russia and the Democrats,” he charged.
“The Democrats colluded with Russian sources to develop the Steele dossier, and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya colluded with the dossier’s architect, Fusion GPS head Glenn Simpson.”
Nunes called the hearing’s Wednesday in Congress the “last gasp of the Russian collusion conspiracy theory.”
He said the Democrats’ claims of Trump collusion with Russia are like “the Loch Ness Monster, they insist it’s there even if no one can find it.”
Mueller, who testified Wednesday before two different House committees run by Democrats, refused to address the Steele dossier.
In a statement, the White House said the hearings were bad for Democrats.
“The last three hours have been an epic embarrassment for the Democrats. Expect more of the same in the second half,” White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement.
Mueller was appointed to investigate the claims after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey.
Associates of Trump have been prosecuted on charges unrelated to the Russia allegations.
