A prominent Democrat leading the House investigation into potential collusion between Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia, is contradicting his Senate colleagues who say they have found no evidence of conspiracy.
Representative Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said there was “pretty compelling evidence” that there was some form of collusion during that election.
“You can see evidence in plain sight on the issue of collusion, pretty compelling evidence,” Mr Schiff said on Sunday. “Now there’s a difference between seeing evidence of collusion and being able to prove a criminal conspiracy beyond a reasonable doubt.”
The comments came after Senator Richard Burr — the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee — said that his committee doesn’t “have anything that would suggest there was collusion by the Trump campaign and Russia”.
Mr Schiff has pointed to several moments that could present evidence that Mr Trump’s campaign colluded.
One of those was a meeting between Trump campaign officials and prominent Russians in Trump Tower.
Another incident involved former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who spoke with former Russian Ambassador the the US Sergey Kislyak during the transition period. He then mislead officials about that contact.
Yet another incident includes communications between former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos and Russian-linked individuals.
“All of this is evidence of collusion,” Mr Schiff said. “And you either have to look the other way to say it isn’t, or you have to have a different word for it, because it is a corrupt dealing with a foreign adversary during a campaign.”
The House investigation was reopened this year after Democrats took control of the chamber from Republicans. That investigation is one of several looking into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, including the Senate investigation which is run by Republicans like Mr Burr.
