CNN is taking a closer look at how President Trump and his associates either can't – or don't care to – keep their stories straight when it comes to matters related to Russia and the Russia investigation.
Their denials have been debunked, Trump has contradicted his senior aides and sometimes his team has completely flipped its position.
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Public contradictions, walkbacks and flip-flops have become a hallmark of how Trump’s team has responded to the Russia probe, which was launched in 2016 and is now in its third year.
Below is just one of "the most consequential examples of Team Trump changing its story." Click here to read them all.
Did anyone on the Trump campaign collude with Russia?
Then: There was no collusion whatsoever.
Trump has said on several occasions that there was “no collusion whatsoever” between his campaign and the Russians, a blanket denial that seems to cover his entire campaign. (He has also said dozens of times that there was simply “no collusion.”) In an interview with Fox News, Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani said that there was no collusion between the “upper levels of the Trump campaign” and the Russians.
Now: Trump himself didn’t collude.
Giuliani moved the goalposts in January 2019 in an interview with CNN. He said: “I never said there was no collusion between the campaign, or people in the campaign … I have not. I said the President of the United States.” These comments came shortly after unredacted court filings revealed that while Manafort led Trump’s campaign, he gave internal polling data to a Russian with intelligence ties.
Sanders said something similar in January after Trump ally Roger Stone was charged with lying about his ties to WikiLeaks, saying, “There was no collusion. There was no wrongdoing by the President.”
Read more: How Team Trump keeps changing its story in the Russia investigation (CNN)