Fox’s Chris Wallace challenges Nadler on whether no more indictments means no ‘criminal collusion’

Fox News anchor Chris Wallace on Sunday challenged House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) over whether the conclusion of the special counsel’s investigation means there was no collusion between the Trump 2016 campaign and Russia. 

Wallace pressed Nadler on the reports that Robert Mueller will not issue any more indictments in his sprawling probe, noting that the revelation would “seem to clear the president” on the issue of criminal collusion. 

{mosads}”The special counsel is not recommending any new indictments. That means that no one has been or will have been charged with collusion with the Russians,” Wallace said on “Fox News Sunday,” just days after Mueller submitted his final report on the Russia investigation to the Department of Justice.

“President Trump clearly couldn’t do that himself. So, in effect, isn’t it a logical assumption that the special counsel did not find any criminal collusion with the Kremlin?” Wallace asked. 

Nadler pushed back on the argument and added that investigations into the president in the Southern District of New York and the Eastern District of Virginia could still potentially lead to indictments. 

“We do know, remember, in plain sight, of a lot of collusion,” Nadler said. “We know, for example, that the president’s son and his campaign manager were present at a meeting with the Russians to receive information which they were told in the invitation was part of the Russian government’s attempt to help them in the election.”

“We know that the campaign manager gave targeting data, political targeting data, to an agent of the Russian government,” Nadler continued. “Maybe it’s not indictable, but we know there was collusion. The question is to what degree and for what purpose.”

Wallace responded by noting that White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. and Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort were not charged with conspiracy over their meeting with Russians in 2016. 

“So it would seem there was no criminal collusion among them. So it would seem to clear the president, wouldn’t it, on that issue?” Wallace said. 

Nadler noted that counterintelligence investigations often do not lead to criminal prosecutions, whereas other investigation do. He concluded by repeating his demand for Mueller’s report to be fully disclosed to the public. 

Mueller delivered the findings of his nearly two-year investigation to Attorney General William Barr on Friday. Barr could deliver a summary of Mueller’s findings to Congress as early as Sunday. Democrats and some Republicans have called for the complete findings to be made public.

Trump has yet to publicly comment on the Mueller investigation since the delivery of the report. The White House said Sunday that it has not been briefed on the report.