Suspicion abounds but still little evidence
A partisan study tries to prove Trump colluded with Russia to win the election,
For Donald Trump’s most fervent supporters, not even a memo from the American president to Vladimir Putin thanking him for winning the election for him would persuade them that claims of collusion are anything other than ‘‘fake news’’.
Trump’s many detractors take the opposite view. That there was collusion, and that Trump was party to it, has become an article of faith. They are certain he is guilty and that the facts will emerge to support their conclusion.
The Guardian journalist Luke Harding falls firmly into the second camp. He began work on Collusion in January (the month Trump took office) and the book’s title proclaims his predetermined verdict. Unfortunately, while suspicion abounds, he does not come up with the evidence to prove that any of Trump’s campaign team colluded with Russia, never mind the president himself.
Though the book is a useful primer, there is, therefore, a core problem here of overreach and the sense throughout that Harding is not a dispassionate voice. Again and again the Russia inquiry is compared with Watergate. A tone that at times borders on sneering will cheer those who loathe Trump, but few on the fence will be persuaded.
This is a shame, because Harding is a brave, assiduous and energetic journalist. A former Moscow correspondent who was expelled from the country in 2011, he is well placed to offer an important perspective, though he has never been based in America.
The central figure in Collusion is Christopher Steele, the former MI6 officer who compiled the notorious 35-page dossier containing a slew of startling allegations of links between Russia and Trump.
Steele is quoted as saying that his dossier is ‘‘70-90 per cent accurate’’, but we are offered little to substantiate this claim. Quite why Steele became obsessed with bringing down Trump (presenting the ‘‘opposition research’’ he had been paid to gather for Trump’s enemies to MI6, the FBI and journalists) is not examined.
So far, special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation has brought four indictments and counting. But none has been for colluding with Russia. As Alan Dershowitz, the eminent American lawyer has commented, Mueller’s allencompassing approach echoes that of the Russian secret police chief Lavrentiy Beria, who told Stalin: ‘‘Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime.’’
Trump, with his paranoia and rampaging Twitter tirades, is his own worst enemy. If he is ever charged by Mueller, obstruction of justice after the fact seems the most likely offence. To that extent at least, he probably needs no help from Putin.
– The Sunday Times, London