You really don’t have to look far in the Mueller Report to find why the Special Counsel did not find Trump guilty of collusion. It’s all in the definition of terms . Apparently the fact that Mueller found extensive evidence of cooperation and sharing of information in pursuit of a shared strategic interest – shared with a hostile foreign power- does not amount to the Mueller definition of collusion. Not even when the Trump Campaign team knew about and encouraged the Russians to interfere with US electoral processes . Or steal emails from DNC and leak them through Wikileaks .

Alan Dershowitz, often controversial, struck a strident and dissonant note early on . He predicted that Mueller was unlikely to find anything that reached the high bar of evidence of conspiracy.

He went on that the much bandied about term ‘ collusion ‘ did not have legal definition or weight .

I think it would be generally accepted as unsurprising that Mueller found that Trump stopped well short of sending a letter to Putin like this :

‘Dear Vlad

I would like to join your criminal conspiracy to secure my election as President of USA using the full resources of the GRU and other state agencies under your control to spread misinformation, interfere with the electoral process and actively undermine the campaign of Hillary Clinton who should be locked up ……’

However although no such letter was written in practice that is the support and assistance that Russia provided .

Mueller chronicles extensive contact between Trump’s Campaign and the Russians . However he concludes this falls short of active coordination. Trump’s campaign knew what the Russians would do – Trump even , allegedly in jest , asking them to steal more of Clinton’s emails . The Russians knew what the Trump Campaign wanted them to do . And did it . And it worked .

Frankly you have to apply very strict terms to the definition of collusion to say that none of the above qualifies. The claim that there was no collusion flies in the face of the evidence. And common sense .

Trump is the very definition of collusion