Russia, Russia, Russia

One of the pro-Trump/Republican talking points is to point to the investigation into the 2016 Trump Campaign's connections to Russia as a hoax. They act and talk as if were a proven fact that there was no "collusion" between individuals connected to Russian State Security and the Trump for President organization. They further deride any investigation into Trump's finances, his support for the January 6th attack on the Capitol or any other investigation as "just another 'Russia, Russia, Russia' hoax". In the main they have been pretty successful. Definitely Trump acolytes and other rightists are convinced that Trump was exonerated and that the investigation by Mueller was uncovered no "collusion". But I'd bet that many who have no love for Trump also believe that Mueller's investigation, if not providing a total exoneration, at least uncovered no questionable or unethical actions. But Mueller's report concluded no such thing.

I don't know who among my circle of family, friends and acquaintances has read the Mueller Report. I did. 

To be clear, what the Mueller Report doesn't allege, is that Russia, to use the popular Trumpist term, "rigged" the election, changed any votes, suborned any election officials or otherwise caused fraudulent ballots to be submitted. What it does conclude is that Russian Intelligence was using social media to spread false information about Trump's opponent former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. It also came to the conclusion that Russia hacked into various computer systems, including that of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and provided hacked emails from the DNC to Wikileaks, which subsequently leaked them. Mueller's investigation also revealed that several Trump campaign officials were in illegal contact with the Russian government, and that others met with a Russian operative for the express purpose of digging up dirt on Clinton. Several Trump campaign staffers were indicted and convicted of various Russia-related crimes - pardoned by Trump after his election. Mueller was very clear that many of Trump's actions, before and after his inauguration,  met the legal definition of obstruction of justice. 

There was no indictment of Trump for two reasons:

1. The actions of Trump and his campaign did not rise to the legal definition of conspiracy
2. The Department of Justice adhered to a long-established policy stating that they could not (or would not) seek to indict a sitting president. 

That's it. Despite the way the word "collusion" was thrown about by the media and by the general public, there is no such crime as "collusion". Criminal conspiracy is a crime, but it is very hard to prove. The key component in a conspiracy charge is that there has to be coordination between or among the parties. Despite attempts by the Russians to coordinate, Trump's people were either too incompetent or too lazy to do so, although it was clear that they were quite happy to accept all the help that the Russians were giving.  

Don't be fooled by the gaslighting. The Russians worked hard to discredit Clinton and support Trump. Trump gladly accepted the help. Trump obstructed the investigation. 

Not a hoax.