Let‘s Not Jump to a Collusion Conclusion on Michael Flynn’s Guilty Plea Just Yet (from December 4, 2017 – for The Daily Nerv)

ffDIA Chief: Transparency Builds Public Trust by Claudette Roulo

Last Friday’s news of former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn pleading guilty to lying to FBI agents about his apparent interaction with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak brought quite a dramatic end to the week. Along with the indictment of Paul Manafort, who was once Trump’s campaign manager, things seemed to be picking up in the Trump-Russia probe.

With this major break in the ongoing investigation of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, guess who was not shaken or worried about Flynn’s plea deal?

President Trump showed no signs of being nervous of Flynn cooperating with Mueller’s investigation and has said as much. He has asserted before that he believed the investigation to be a witchhunt and he still says that there was no collusion. Plus, he has added in a Twitter post that he actually does not believe Flynn to be guilty of anything but lying to the FBI and Pence, which was the very reason that Flynn was fired earlier this year and early from Trump’s team anyway.

I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 2, 2017

Even after his former campaign manager, his former adviser, his own son, and son-in-law have spent time recently as breaking news stories, Trump is still quite confident is his own innocence. House Democrats may be trying to push a vote forward for his impeachment this week, but they will have to go forward without having any strong facts revealing the President colluded with Russia on their side.

There may be more that we are to learn in the coming weeks from Flynn or the Mueller inquiry overall, but we cannot predict the future, take creative licenses with stories, or make erroneous statements to imply something that is just not there in actual evidence. As the suspension of ABC News’ Brian Rossand his statement on Twitter show, error cannot be allowed to make its way through media as truth, therefore, it should never be taken lightly. It is quite possible that Ross made an honest mistake on live television. However, ABC cannot afford to be guilty of purposely peddling false information, especially with a Commander-in-Chief who is not afraid to call a news organization out on being “fake news.” Besides, anything that looks like evidence in support of actual wrongdoing by Trump himself better be properly vetted by everyone, which obviously means journalists and lawyers.

My job is to hold people accountable and that's why I agree with being held accountable myself.

— Brian Ross Investigates (@BrianRoss) December 3, 2017

Even if Flynn’s guilty plea looks like Trump is being boxed into a corner, remember that looks can be quite deceiving, especially when there can be different interpretations (from those on the Left and on the Right) of the same news cycle. So, no matter how much those in “the Resistance” and others who consider themselves “Never Trumpers” desire to see Trump’s presidency come crashing down, collusion cannot be willed into reality if collusion had never been an actual reality.

If there is a truth to be told about any collusion involving Trump, then it will come, and yearning for it will not bring it a moment sooner. Sometimes, the old proverb — “where there is smoke, there is fire” — really is true. Nevertheless, one does not just accept that there is a fire due to the smoke they see, but in addition to the smell of the smoke that they inhale and eventually the fire that they literally see. It is a collection of evidence that causes one to accept that there really is a fire.

This analogy can work for the belief of any Trump-Russia collusion scenario as well. It cannot be knowledge of a few people, who are connected with Trump and with Russia, alone that makes an illegal collaboration between the two parties true. It must be an assortment of people, places, and things, exceptionally documented and analyzed without prejudice, that all point to what many are thinking and craving to be true.

But, in the end, a collusion conclusion may not be the actual finale to our current White House drama.

Originally published on The Daily Nerv – December 4, 2017

For more of Jerome’s writing, please check out his website. Then, follow him on Twitter and/or like his Facebook page. His Project 21 Black Leadership Network National Advisory Council member page is here. YouTube channel here.