Not only is the Trump/Russia collusion narrative “total baloney,” but “physical proof of that” could already have been presented if not for the investigation being conducted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, according to Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.).
In an exclusive interview with Breitbart on Wednesday, Rohrabacher spoke of his August 2017 meeting with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (shown). Rohrabacher said:
By now, everybody knows that this idea that Trump was colluding with the Russians in order to get them to do things — like steal the DNC emails and then to release them through WikiLeaks — the public knows that’s just total baloney, that’s an excuse. In fact, all they’re doing is trying to cover up the fact that they themselves are undermining our Constitution by preventing this president from assuming the authority that was given to him by the voters.
Addressing the method he used to verify that, Rohrabacher said that in August 2017, he visited Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in London:
I knew the one man who could prove that it was all baloney was Assange, there in London. So I went to see him and he confirmed for me that the Russians did not give him the DNC emails. And he had physical proof of that and he was going to let me see that and have that — but only once I found an agreement that he wouldn’t get arrested when he leaves the embassy.
Assange has been holed up in the London Ecuadorian embassy since 2012 because he fears being arrested and extradited to the United States to face charges of espionage due to WikiLeaks’ publication of classified U.S. files, including the Snowden leaks. On several occasions, he has publicly stated that he believes he would face the death penalty. His concerns are not unfounded, given that many — including then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — have called for Assange to be assassinated without any due process.
Rohrabacher — who had hoped he could secure such an agreement — ran into a brick wall: the Mueller probe. He explained:
Unfortunately, this was in the middle of the thing where we have a special prosecutor, [so] any discussion with Trump and myself that mentions Russia will be used as an excuse by that special prosecutor to just quadruple all the areas of investigation into me and into Trump. So it is standing there. I’ve been waiting because I know that we’re not going to give this special prosecutor any more ammunition than he needs to try to destroy this president.
As this writer reported in a previous article addressing Rohrabacher’s visit with Assange:
Assange has long claimed that the DNC e-mails that WikiLeaks published last year — much to the embarrassment of the Democrat establishment — were not given to WikiLeaks by Russians or hackers. Last month, he offered to prove it. But since Assange has lived in exile in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012 due to both criminal charges in Sweden for sexual misconduct (which Assange says were trumped up after he released thousands of diplomatic cables and other U.S. government documents) and fear of being arrested and charged with espionage by the U.S. government, he wants something in return for the evidence: He has asked for a pardon from President Trump.
But on September 23, Trump — who famously stated “I love WikiLeaks” when he was on the campaign trail — told the press he has “never heard” of Assange’s offer to make a deal in exchange for the evidence that would dismantle the Trump/Russia fake news narrative. Rohrabacher says that the information is being kept from President Trump by his own staff. “I think that when he hears that there’s been an offer made, he will insist on knowing about it,” Rohrabacher said.
In an interview with The Hill in August 2017, Rohrabacher said, “Our three-hour meeting covered a wide array of issues, including the WikiLeaks exposure of the DNC [Democratic National Committee] emails during last year’s presidential election,” adding, “Julian emphatically stated that the Russians were not involved in the hacking or disclosure of those emails.” Rohrabacher went on to say that “Julian also indicated that he is open to further discussions regarding specific information about the DNC email incident that is currently unknown to the public,” but that “the rest of the message is for the president directly.”
Now, the reason that deal has not come to fruition is clear: “Any discussion with Trump and [Rohrabacher] that mentions Russia will be used as an excuse by that special prosecutor to just quadruple all the areas of investigation into [Rohrabacher] and into Trump.”
Let that sink in: The one definitive piece of proof that could solve the mystery and answer the question at the foundation of the Trump/Russia collusion issue hasn’t seen the light of day because to even discuss it with the president would give Mueller “more ammunition than he needs to try to destroy this president.”
Anyone else being investigated for crimes would have the liberty to gather information to mount a defense. But President Trump would be perceived as being “guilty as charged” for so much as having a conversation with Rohrabacher about getting his hands on a critical piece of evidence that would destroy the accusations against him and serve to demonstrate his innocence.
That Rohrabacher is correct in that assertion is evidenced by the fact that Trump’s enemies have already applied that tactic. In fact, all it took for them to crank up that machine was Rohrabacher’s visit to Assange. As this writer reported in that previous article:
The liberal establishment used both the occasion of Rohrabacher’s visit to Assange and Assange’s message to the president to continue propagating the myth of a Trump/Russia connection with Assange as the messenger boy. This time, though, they included Rohrabacher in their attacks. Adrienne Watson, the DNC’s deputy communications director, released a statement long on snark and short on facts. She wrote, “We’ll take the word of the U.S. intelligence community over Julian Assange and Putin’s favorite Congressman.” Ah, the obligatory attempt at guilt-by-association. Given the fact that the intelligence community has been caught — time and again — in recent history lying to the American people, it requires something akin to blindness to follow them down the Trump/Russia rabbit hole. Assange, on the other hand, has spent more than 10 years proving his credibility. In that time, WikiLeaks has published literally millions of documents. Not one of those documents has ever been shown to have been manufactured by WikiLeaks.
So as the wheels continue to come off the Trump/Russia collusion cart, the president’s enemies have created a situation — by the appointment of another of his enemies as a special counsel to investigate baseless claims — that keeps him from having access to the single best piece of evidence that would finally lay those baseless claims to rest. Meanwhile, Julian Assange — the man who could (and says he would) provide that critical piece of evidence — remains in exile because he can’t get a deal to guarantee his freedom if he ever leaves the London Ecuadorian embassy.
Photo of Julian Assange: Cancillería del Ecuador
