Fox News Host: ‘What Difference Does it Make’ if Manafort Met Assange or Russians in 2016?

While talking to former White House press secretary Sean Spicer, Fox News host Melissa Francis asked what difference it makes if former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort met with WikiLeaks founder Jullian Assange.

On Tuesday, The Guardian reported that Manafort met with Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London three times — including once around the time he signed onto the Trump campaign. That news was, of course, major, as Wikileaks released the emails hacked by Russian intelligence services to damage Clinton’s 2016 campaign. (Manafort denies ever meeting Assange).

“What difference does it make if anybody met with Julian Assange or Russians, for that matter?” Francis asked on Outnumbered. “I didn’t realize it was against the law.”

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is currently investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians to interfere in the 2016 election. A meeting between the campaign’s chairman and Assange, the man who released the emails stolen by Russian intelligence, obviously raises serious questions about what the Trump campaign knew about Russian election tampering — and if they contributed to that effort.

“I’m not a lawyer,” Spicer responded to Francis. “I think the question has always come back to was there collusion, so I’m not sure what difference it makes if they met with them or not.”

He went on to say the bigger “issue is whether or not” Manafort lied, and explained how Mueller uses smaller charges against smaller fish to get to them to rat on more notable figures in Trump’s orbit.

“To your point, is there anything actually illegal about meeting with someone who says they have information?” Spicer concluded.

Watch above, via Fox News.