Over the weekend, a Democratic lawmaker appeared to acknowledge that key party leaders were aware the Trump-Russia collusion narrative lacked merit, but still advanced it strategically to undermine Donald Trump at the outset of his presidency.
The casual comment by Rep. Jason Crow (D-WI) on “Fox News Sunday” was pointed out by conservative legal scholar Jonathan Turley, who described the acknowledgment as “damning” considering the “falsehoods” spread by U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and others.
“Rep. Jason Crow just went on Fox Sunday and insisted that the lack of Russian collusion is nothing new since members knew about it for years. That is a particularly telling and franking damning statement since figures like Adam Schiff were out spreading the false collusion claims,” Turley wrote on the X platform.
“That is a particularly telling and frank[ly] damning statement since figures like Adam Schiff were out spreading the false collusion claims,” Turley added.
In a column, the George Washington University law professor described the Trump administration’s effort to tell “the story of the real Russian conspiracy: how high-ranking officials in the Obama Administration seeded this false claim with the help of an eager, unquestioning press corps.”
“Not surprisingly, the media (which spent years repeating the false Russian collusion claims) is doing a full-court press to kill the story. Yet, many of these key figures are retaining counsel in anticipation of the unfolding investigation. Many previously secured contracts with MSNBC or CNN, or book deals, where they doubled down on the false claims detailed in these new documents,” he wrote.
Schiff, who won a Senate seat in 2024, repeatedly claimed during his tenure on the January 6 Committee that he had evidence of collusion, yet he never produced it, even after Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation found no such evidence existed. “The mantra in the media and the Democratic Party that there is nothing to see here is predictable but hardly credible,” he added.
“Many of these same congressional figures were fully aware that Russian collusion was rejected by American intelligence before the start of the Trump term. However, they continued to knowingly spread the disinformation for political purposes,” Turley wrote.
