Dem Senator on Trump-Russia: “No hard evidence”

Over the week, aside from President Trump’s tweets regarding wiretapping, there was another headline that hasn’t made as much news. On Friday of last week, Democratic Senator Chris Coons stated he was aware of FBI transcripts which definitively illustrate Donald Trump colluding with Russian intelligence to alter the outcome of the 2016 election. As of Sunday, however, Senator Coons almost completely retracted that statement.

Report from WDEL:

Senator Chris Coons suggested the FBI has transcripts that might point to collusion between the Trump campaign and Russians. On “Fox News Sunday,” the Delaware Democrat said that’s not what he was trying to say.

“What I was trying to do, and I think is important, is ti draw the American people to what joins us in common, which is the need for us to get to the bottom of this, to get access to what intelligence there is–I am confident that intelligence exists that is relevant to this question,” said Coons.

Coons added he’s seen no evidence of a conspiracy.

“I have no hard evidence of collusion–I think what hard evidence there may be will be discovered either through a full release of President Trump’s financial interests and concerns and taxes, or the intercepts that I believe our intelligence community and FBI have of conversations between and among Russian officials,” said Coons.

In other words, he believes that the transcripts, along with other unnamed evidence, points to Trump colluding with the Russians on the 2016 election. However, when pressed, Coons is admitting there is no such conclusive evidence. You wouldn’t know that from reading most of the stories on this topic which seem to insinuate that routine contact between a Russian ambassador and anyone associated with Donald Trump means they were working together to bring down Hillary Clinton.

Here’s Coons’ full interview from Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xhe6IW7hsUM

The firestorm here is beyond proportion and it’s difficult to get hard truth from one side or the other. However, for Coons to walk back his statement clearly indicates that much of the reporting and controversy over the Trump-Russia connection is overblown at best, or partisan-driven at worst.