There was no collusion with Russia, as long as you ignore that, and that, and that, and that, and…

Oh. Okay. The recent addition to Trump’s eccentric stable of legal advisers - Rudi Giuliani - says there isn’t a stitch of evidence that Donald Trump colluded with Russia - even though Giuliani hasn’t seen any of Mueller’s information - so on his word, we can take that to the bank. After all, Don Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort’s meeting with at least 5 Russians on June 9, 2016, (in Trump Tower of all places) two of whom had known ties to Russian military intelligence, wasn’t collusion. Rob Goldstone who would also attend that meeting had even written in one of the earliest emails to Don Jr., quote "This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump." unquote. Plus the subject line of the email sent to Don Jr. and forwarded to Jared and Manafort states right at the top “Russia-Clinton-private and confidential,” so 'a confidential liaison with Russians and their government's support proves it wasn't collusion.

Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who met with Don Junior and those other officials in Trump Tower, acknowledged on NBC news Friday, April 27^th that she is not just a lawyer but a source of information for top Kremlin official and confidante to Vladimir Putin, Yuri Y. Chaika, the prosecutor general…but of course, interacting with a self-admitted Russian government informant isn’t collusion.

President Trump concocted a cover-up story aboard Air Force One that Don Jr., Jared, and Paul were just meeting with the Russians to discuss a suspended child adoption program - which fell apart days later when Don Junior released the email chain showing it was a clandestine meeting with the Russians to get dirt on Hillary Clinton - but that doesn’t suggest collusion.

At a Wilkes-Barre, Pa campaign rally in October 2016, Trump quoted almost word-for-word from a supposedly recently recovered Hillary Clinton email regarding the Benghazi attack in 2011 that was posted on the Russian propaganda website Sputnik. The information was discovered to be a false story spun by Sputnik and upon exposure they immediately took it down. Trump never retracted his statement, but naturally, quoting from a Russian propaganda site wouldn’t be an act of collusion.

Michael Flynn violated the Logan Act by discussing the President Obama-enacted U.S. sanctions with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak in several phone calls on Dec. 29, 2016, but that wasn’t collusion. Trump later defending Flynn for that very act and claiming he “didn’t do anything wrong” and “I would have expected him to do it” isn’t remotely collusion.

 Jeff Sessions having at least three discussions during Trump’s campaign with that very same Sergei Kislyak that he initially told a Congressional committee he “didn’t remember” isn't indicative of collusion.

Jared Kushner contacting Kislyak in December 2016 to see if members of the Trump administration could use the Russian embassy’s communications to contact the Kremlin instead of using U.S. services can’t seriously be mistaken for collusion.

Also, Jared having - what the White House described as - a "relationship meeting" with Sergei Gorkov, president of sanctioned Russian bank VEB in mid December 2016 as part of Trump’s efforts to establish a back channel to Putin, could never be confused with collusion.

President Trump meeting in the Oval Office with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and ambassador Sergei Kislyak, then banning any U.S. media from covering the occasion but allowing a TASS photojournalist unlimited access, giving away highly-classified intelligence from Israel to the Russians during that meeting, and bragging about his firing James Comey the day before got rid of “the Russia thing,” would NEVER be misconstrued as collusion.

Felix Sater, a Trump business associate who boasted of connections to Vladimir Putin, sent back and forth emails to Michael Cohen about a Trump Tower Moscow project and that Donald Trump had personally signed a letter of intent for it in October 2015, contradicting his repeated assertions that he has had no business dealings in Russia. But plainly, no one would accept THAT as collusion, would they?

The distinction in Giuliani’s mind is, everyone in Trump’s campaign, transition team, and his administration, DID interact with the Russians, but since Trump doesn’t know what the word collusion means, how can he be guilty of committing it? Besides, he can’t remember doing any of it, or hearing about any of it…ergo...there wasn’t any collusion. Whew, there you have it, the guaranteed "not a stitch" of evidence as Giuliani interpreted it., Everybody's innocent. Case closed.

Watch for the Florida School Shooting to be Blamed on the Russian Probe

Get ready for the GOP and the limited-information Trump supporters to condemn the Robert Mueller investigation and the FBI for ignoring their duty to protect Americans. They will claim the FBI and its agents were too blindsided trying to pin a “collusion” badge on Trump - and in doing so they missed a chance to stop a real crime.

A report has been released that shows the FBI was warned about Nikolaus Cruz in January, but they did nothing about it. 

On January 5^th, over a month before Wednesday’s shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida, the bureau received a warning from someone close to the teenager that they were concerned about Cruz and that he might carry out an attack on the school. The tipster, identified only as an adult who knew the gunman, contacted the FBI public tip line and told “about Cruz’s gun ownership, his desire to kill people, his erratic behavior, and even disturbing social media posts.”

Red flags should have gone up and a warning klaxon begun blaring but the call center never passed on any information, according to a federal law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The bureau knew the identity of the tipster and the tip involved a threat to life, meaning it should have been passed on. The tipster did not describe an attack plan by Cruz with a time and place, but it did provide specific information on him and warning signs that any law enforcement official would have acted on.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, hoping to win back Trump’s trust and loyalty, said he is ordering deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein to review the bureau’s handling of the matter. “It is now clear that the warning signs were there and tips to the FBI were missed,” Sessions said in a statement. “We see the tragic consequences of those failures.”

There’s the set up for - “if the FBI hadn’t been distracted by the probe into Russian collusion, they would have easily connected the dots.” This will play right in to Trump’s hands that if the FBI had not thrown all their agents and staff at the Russian investigation, which everyone knows is just fake news, made up, a witch hunt, a scheme by Democrats to cover up their loss in the 2016 election, and a waste of taxpayers’ money, they would have been able to nab Cruz before he gunned down 17 students and wounded 14 others on Valentine’s Day.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement “We are still investigating the facts. I am committed to getting to the bottom of what happened in this particular matter, as well as reviewing our processes for responding to information that we receive from the public.

But again, the lapse will be blamed on so much of the FBI’s attention diverted to a useless probe into Russian hacking, Russian collusion, those innocent meetings with Russian agents- the Russian ambassador-Russian Bank CEOs-and Russian lawyers by members of Trump’s campaign. When it comes to all the obvious Russian collusion links, Trump and his supporters just say "Move along. Nothing to see here."

It will not be surprising if Trump, his GOP sycophants, or the far-right fringe call for Rod Rosenstein and Christopher Wray (maybe even Jeff Sessions) to step down in light of this FBI failure. Then there will most likely be a demand to end the Russian investigation because Americans are being slaughtered due to FBI negligence from looking into all those false leads about Russians meddling in our 2016 election. It will be much easier in the future to also point to FBI neglect the next time ANY tragedy happens that might have been stopped if only those law enforcement agents had been available to spot the warning signs.

This is how democracy’s head is held under water until it drowns.