There is no question that Trump is a great manipulator. Like the men he openly admires, Mussolini, Putin, and Duterte, Trump shares the gift of being able to direct the conversation in the direction he wants.
Nowhere is this more clear than in the fact that Trump has managed to boil down his cooperation with Russia to a question of collusion. But, what is collusion? It is not described in any legal statute as having any consequence, so the constant “no collusion” is really a complaint about something that is not criminal in nature. While it may be true that Trump did not insert the term into the conversation, it is Trump who has maintained the term in use. The point of this is that by complaining about not having done something that has no legal consequences, Trump has benefitted from a very low legal bar. Furthermore, to prove collusion, investigators would need to produce documents showing collaboration between Trump and Russians. These documents probably do not exist, and if they ever did, they have been destroyed by now.
What Trump is terrified of, and what he certainly did commit, was treason. Treason is the very act of having collaborated with a hostile power–Russia–to affect the outcome of the US presidential election.
Trump did not simply engage with Russia, Trump committed treason by allowing meetings to occur in Trump Tower where “dirt” on Hilary Clinton would have supposedly have been delivered.
The Trump defense is that, since no such information was provided, there could not have been collusion. While that may be absolutely true, what is also crystal clear is that a meeting to undermine the American political process of electing the president of the United States was held. Treason was committed.
But the American public should not be confused by the peripheral issue of collusion. The real concern is treason, and Trump should be held to account.