Trump campaign collusion with Russia in Monday's news about legal actions

There are people who are not supporters of Trump or the Republican Party who are justifiably worried about various implications of the accusations of collusion between the Trump campaign in 2016 and the Russian government. Particularly the ways that such interference can be used to promote hawkish foreign policy that may not be in the interests of the United States.

And I'm glad they are being cautious in evaluating the reports coming out. I try to do the same.

Still, some of the comments I've seen today from people with antiwar concerns warning that today's news about formal charges against (at this writing) two people, don't show collusion strike me as being overly cautious. It all has to be legally documented and proven in court. But the legal "statement of facts" filing on George Papadopoulos does have to do with collusion with the Trump campaign and Russia (Tom Schoenberg, Ex-Trump Aide Admits He Tried to Coordinate With Russians During Campaign Bloomberg Politics 10/30/2017):

U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, tasked with pursuing collusion between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia, just planted the first stake.

Prosecutors on Mueller’s team revealed Monday that a foreign policy adviser on Trump’s campaign, George Papadopoulos, pursued Russia’s help in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign and sought to open communication lines to the Kremlin.

Even more than the indictments of Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, the case -- showing how Russians attempted to influence key Trump aides -- lays out a blueprint for Mueller’s work as his prosecutors circle other campaign officials.

Schoenberg elaborates these details:

Documents filed in the case against Papadopoulos expand significantly on what had been known about Papadopoulos’s overtures to the Russian government, including that others in the Trump campaign were at least aware of them.

“The Russian government has an open invitation by Putin for Mr. Trump to meet him when he is ready,” Papadopoulos wrote to a senior campaign adviser on April 25, 2016.

The documents referred to an unnamed campaign supervisor and a second campaign official who nixed Papadopoulos’s idea of setting up a meeting with President Vladimir Putin of Russia. The supervisor is quoted telling Papadopoulos in an email that “I would encourage you” and another Trump foreign policy adviser to “make the trip, if it’s feasible.”

The other campaign official forwarded a Papadopoulos email to another campaign official saying, “Let’s discuss. We need someone to communicate that DT is not doing these trips. It should be someone low-level in the campaign so as not to send any signal.”

This is obviously not the final word on the matter. But it does go to collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.