Trump Jr.’s Meeting With Russian Lawyer Doesn't Prove Collusion, US Voters Say

The percentage of Americans who believe President Donald Trump colluded with the Kremlin to win the 2016 election barely budged following revelations that Trump’s son took a meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, according to a July Washington Post-ABC poll.

In the ongoing witch hunt to tie Trump’s presidential campaign to evil Kremlin spies, mainstream media outlets like Time Magazine have claimed Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya was the long-awaited “smoking gun” to complete the collusion story once and for all.

But the number of Americans who believe Moscow tried to influence the 2016 election outcome ticked up a mere 4 percent since April, poll data show. And, a number of factors could have contributed to the bump. James Comey’s ouster in early May and the appointment of Robert Mueller as Special Counsel to investigate links between Trump and Russia, for example, could have also influenced public opinion on the subject.

A majority of survey participants did find Trump Jr.’s meeting with Veselnitskaya to be “inappropriate.”

University of Pittsburgh School of Law Professor Dan Kovalik told Radio Sputnik’s Loud & Clear last week that while Jr’s meeting may have been ill-advised, it wasn’t obviously in violation of the law.