US President Donald Trump. Photo / AP
Editorial
EDITORIAL:
Everyone in the United States, and indeed the Western world, ought to be greatly relieved that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has found no evidence that Donald Trump's campaign conspired with Russia, or even co-ordinated its activities with Russia's, to influence the 2016 US presidential election. It is a credit
to the way Mueller conducted his investigation that the word "whitewash" has hardly been heard since a summary of his conclusions was issued by the Attorney General.
It is not hard to believe there was no collusion, if only because it would have involved a degree of organisation the Trump campaign did not appear to possess. It chewed through chief executives at the rate that has continued into the presidency.
He is also an open book. For all his faults he has never bothered to hide them. If he was colluding with Russia he would probably have been boasting about it. He made no attempt to hide his admiration for Russia's President Vladimir Putin during the campaign and cast himself as a healer dealer of geopolitical problems. If he was involved in underhand collusion he would hardly have made a public plea to Russia to release Hillary Clinton's vexed email if they had it.
As a candidate for President he clearly did not care that one or two of his minions were having meetings with Russian representatives who hinted they had helpful material and we now know he was pursuing business interests in Moscow while he was running for office. There were enough grounds for concern to warrant an FBI investigation and Trump did himself no good by dismissing FBI director James Coney early in his term, abusing his first Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, for recusing himself from oversight of the investigation, and constantly attacking Mueller's work.
