Donald Trump Tweets There Is “No Smocking Gun” Of Russia Collusion

On Monday morning, President Donald Trump blasted Democrats in a pair of tweets for their continued pursuit of two controversies tied to him: alleged collusion with Russia and Michael Cohen‘s hush money payments on Trump’s behalf.

The president appeared to cite a Fox News segment when he tweeted that Democrats had failed to find a “smoking gun” that revealed coordination between his campaign team and the Kremlin, although he misspelled the phrase, which is used to refer to an object or fact that essentially serves as conclusive evidence for a claim in a legal case.

“Democrats can’t find a Smocking Gun tying the Trump campaign to Russia after James Comey’s testimony. No Smocking Gun…No Collusion.” @FoxNews That’s because there was NO COLLUSION. So now the Dems go to a simple private transaction, wrongly call it a campaign contribution,…

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 10, 2018

Subscribe!

A week of political news in your in-box.
We find the news you need to know, so you don't have to.

Trump then accused Democrats of shifting their attention to his former personal lawyer Cohen’s payments to women with whom Trump had extramarital affairs simply because they couldn’t find any hard evidence of collusion with Russia. The president said Cohen’s payments were “a simple private transaction,” rather than a “campaign contribution” as Democrats had labelled it.” In August, Cohen pleaded guilty to multiple campaign finance violations tied to these hush money payments, and he implicated Trump directly in the transactions.

SLIDESHOW: DONALD TRUMP’S 30 CRAZIEST TWEETS

….which it was not (but even if it was, it is only a CIVIL CASE, like Obama’s – but it was done correctly by a lawyer and there would not even be a fine. Lawyer’s liability if he made a mistake, not me). Cohen just trying to get his sentence reduced. WITCH HUNT!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 10, 2018

“Cohen just trying to get his sentence reduced,” Trump wrote. “WITCH HUNT!”

Trump’s latest tweets come just days after special counsel Robert Mueller dropped a series of memos and other public hints that his team is closing in on Trump and his associates as part of their investigation.

The president mentioned his predecessor, Barack Obama, in his tweet likely because he was referring to Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, which included missing filing deadlines for contributions and led to his team receiving a hefty fine. Trump seemed to be trying to argue that the charges against Cohen are identical to those Obama’s 2008 campaign team received.

Cohen will be sentenced in New York on Wednesday. Prosecutors recommended a “substantial” prison term of roughly four years for Trump’s 52-year-old former “fixer.”