Fully embracing his lawyer’s defense that collusion is “not a crime,” President Donald Trump tweeted on Tuesday morning that it doesn’t even matter that collusion “is not a crime” because there was none.
Collusion is not a crime, but that doesn’t matter because there was No Collusion (except by Crooked Hillary and the Democrats)!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 31, 2018
While Trump has said that collusion isn’t a crime in the past, it’s notable that he is seizing on his lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s talking points, especially given how muddied Giuliani’s message on the topic has been the past two days.
Trump’s legal team is publicly denying the illegality of collusion around the same time as it negotiates with special counsel Robert Mueller about a potential presidential interview. Trump’s lawyers reportedly have told Mueller’s team Trump would be willing to testify if they kept their questions limited to the collusion case, and not touching issues associated with obstruction of justice.