Did the House Intelligence Committee Draft Report Find That There Was No Trump-Russia Collusion? A Lesson in Sneaky Wording

House Intelligence Committee Draft Report; click image for full report

Now, I am no expert in spy stuff, so I reserve judgment as to whether President Donald Trump conspired with Russia during his 2016 election campaign. Maybe somebody knows the truth for sure, but I don't.

Instead, as a scholar of rhetoric – that is, the art of persuasion – I want to focus on one sentence from the House intelligence committee's draft report about Russian interference in the campaign. My point is to show, on the one hand, how people often respond to a message by hearing what they expect to hear, not what was actually said, and, on the other hand, how skilled persuaders often phrase their points carefully to encourage people to hear something different from what was said.

Although the report draws several conclusions, the one that has drawn public attention is this: "We have found no evidence of collusion, coordination, or conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russians:" 

That was very, very careful phrasing. They didn't say there was no collusion; they didn't say that there was no evidence of collusion. What they said is that they didn't find any evidence of collusion. That was not just careful; it was tricky.

Yet, people heard, not what was really said, but what they expected to hear. Let's see how the press has responded so far:

A CNN story by Jeremy Herb and Manu Raju reported the Committee's statement correctly. But the headline on their story reads: "House Republicans Say No Evidence of Collusion as They End Russia Probe."

NBC's Mary Clare Jalonick's carefully written article faced a similar fate, as she gave an accurate report of what the Committee said, only to have this headline appear: "GOP House Intel Report Finds No Collusion with Russia."  The same thing happened to Maya Kosoff's story in Vanity Fair, which was headlined "Nothing to See Here: G.O.P. Abruptly Terminates Russia Probe, Claiming No Collusion." A similar fate befell Mary Clare Jalonick's AP article, which the Star Tribune headlined like this: "House GOP Report Says No Collusion Between Trump and Russia."  A quick Google search will find many similar headlines.


Note that Fox News gave a somewhat more accurate headline:  "Trump touts House Intel findings of 'no evidence of collusion' between campaign, Russia." That's still not right – the Committee didn't say that there was no evidence, just that they didn't find any – but it was better.

For the most part, people didn't hear that the committee found no evidence, which is what the Draft Report actually said; what they heard (what they thought they heard) is that collusion didn't occur, which is a much more dramatic claim.

Let's be clear that reporters don't write their own headlines. Headlines are written by editors. Headline editors read these stories and saw what they expected to see, not what the stories really said. I suspect that many readers reacted as the headline editors did, rather than looking at the actual facts and information.

Why didn't the Committee find evidence of collusion? There are two possible answers: (1) maybe they didn't find evidence because there isn't any evidence, or (2) maybe there is evidence, but they didn't find it because they didn't look for it.

Now, the Democrats complain that the House Intelligence Committee didn't actually look for evidence. Adam Schiff, the Committee's senior Democrat, said that the Republican majority, who controlled the Committee, "proved unwilling to subpoena documents like phone records, text messages, bank records and other key records so that we might determine the truth about the most significant attack on our democratic institutions in history." Schiff's position is that the Committee didn't find collusion because they didn't look very hard. Republicans disagree, of course, but:

Nothing in the Draft Report contradicts Schiff! The draft report's wording was clever indeed. People read that collusion didn't occur, but that isn't what the report said: but some people perceived that the report did say that. All that the Committee claimed is that they didn't find any evidence. This leaves open the question of whether the Committee looked hard enough to find it.

My late colleague, University of Akron Professor James Fee, used to wander the hallways and ask people, "where does persuasion take place?" If you didn't want him to lecture you, you responded quickly: "persuasion takes place in the reciever." Fee would say, "that's right! In the receiver! That's the only place persuasion can occur." The Intelligence Committee's draft report, and the public's response, seems to prove that Fee was right. People persuade themselves!

P.S.: There were some accurate headlines as well, for example, on The Hill. Refreshing!