ABC: Our Hugely Damning Report About Trump And Flynn Earlier Got One Tiny Detail Wrong

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ABC: Our Hugely Damning Report About Trump And Flynn Earlier Might Have Gotten One Tiny Detail Wrong



That clip rocketed around the news world this afternoon because of one word: “Candidate.” If Trump told Flynn to talk to Russia before the election, as a candidate, that’s a big deal. Not necessarily criminal but possibly criminal. It could be evidence of collusion between the campaign and the Kremlin to defeat Hillary. Or it could be evidence that Trump was working against Obama’s foreign policy as a private citizen, before he’d been elected to anything. The Logan Act has never been used to prosecute someone successfully but if you’re desperate to make a case for it, a major-party candidate going behind the president’s back to negotiate with enemy regimes during an election, without having won anything yet, is potentially fertile ground.

But if Trump told Flynn to talk to Russia after the election, well, that’s no big deal. He was the president-elect, he’d be sworn in within two months, he wanted to make sure the outgoing administration didn’t do anything to royally screw up relations with a foreign power before he had the chance to properly introduce himself to them. It’s awkward when you have a sitting president and a president-elect both trying to conduct foreign policy but it’s inevitable in a system where the winner of the election doesn’t immediately take power on election night. No one’s going to jail over it.

So the “when” is crucial. And yet ABC apparently botched the distinction when Brian Ross told their audience today that “candidate” Trump ordered Flynn to chat with Russia. That suggested contact with Moscow was made before Americans voted, which would be the strongest evidence yet that Trump himself was interested in collusion, a revelation that might potentially imperil his presidency. The stock market plunged on news of it.

And now?

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