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One of the central theses of this feed has been that Trump had a legal obligation to do nothing to aid/abet Russian cybercrimes after August 17, 2016, when he received his first classified briefing as a candidate and learned of Putin's cyberwar. Today we learned he did just that.
2/ Today we learned that Trump was discussing unilateral sanctions relief with the Kremlin (via Sessions) *and* floating the idea of a gifted $50 million penthouse in Moscow for Putin (via Cohen and Sater) *and* negotiating a massive Trump Tower Moscow deal post-August 17, 2016.
3/ The focus of the collusion conversation has always been exclusively conspiracy. In Proof of Collusion I argued that two dozen crimes could be collusive; then, once Ben Wittes said obstruction could be collusion, everyone took note. Well aiding and abetting is *also* collusion.
4/ Remember that what we call the Trump-Rozov deal (the 2015 Trump Tower Moscow deal, as opposed to the 2013 Trump-Agalarov deal) was being negotiated *with the Kremlin*. You *cannot* learn that Putin is in a hot cyberwar with America and keep negotiating a deal with the Kremlin.
5/ Remember that, as of August 17, 2016, Donald Trump was one of the few civilians in the *world* with a legally cognizable level of certainty that the Kremlin was engaged in a hot cyberwar against America. His obligations from then on were therefore *special* and *justiciable*.
6/ The only reason Giuliani was willing to admit today that Trump was negotiating with the Kremlin up until Election Day is that media has so doggedly (but wrongly) said that conspiracy is the only collusion charge relevant to Mueller's probe that Trump's team came to believe it.
7/ I think the problem that we're going to have now is that media is so invested in this grave misconception of how to use the term "collusion" in discussing Mueller's work that there's a chance the full import of what Rudy confessed to today will be missed and not reported upon.
8/ The important thing is this: if Giuliani is willing to say this publicly, it means he's either certain Mueller already has this information from another source, or sure that information at *least* this bad about the Trump-Kremlin negotiations is certain to come out eventually.
9/ Incidentally, I think readers of this feed understand that when I say "today we learned" I don't actually mean "today we learned." Readers of this feed and readers of Proof of Collusion already knew about Trump's aiding and abetting. What I mean is "today all America learned."
