Dem Rep Schiff Claims ‘Circumstantial Evidence of Collusion’ Between Trump Campaign, Russia

Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) claimed there is “circumstantial evidence of collusion” between members of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Russian operatives during Russian hacking of the 2016 election.

Partial transcript as follows:

TODD: I want to get to the point of, look, collusion is sort of what hasn’t been proven here between whatever the Russians did and the Trump campaign. In fact, the former acting director of the C.I.A., Mike Morell, who was a supporter of Hillary Clinton, he essentially reminded people, took Director Clapper at his word on this show who said, “There has been no evidence that has been found of collusion.” Are we at the point of, at what point do you start to wonder if there is a fire to all this smoke?

SCHIFF: Well, first of all, I was surprised to see Director Clapper say that, because I don’t think you can make that claim categorically, as he did. I would characterize it this way, at the outset of the investigation, there was circumstantial evidence of collusion. There was direct evidence, I think, of deception.

And that’s where we begin the investigation. Now I don’t want to prejudge where we ultimately end up, and of course, there’s one thing to say there’s evidence. There’s another thing to say we can prove this or prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, or there’s enough evidence to bring to a grand jury for purposes of criminal indictment.

But there was certainly enough for us to conduct an investigation. The American people have a right to know, and in order to defend ourselves, we need to know whether the circumstantial evidence of collusion and direct evidence of deception is indicative of more.

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