Despite all this interest in Page, a peripheral figure in the Trump campaign who served as a foreign policy adviser for half a year, he was never charged with a crime. Two other Trump associates, former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and former campaign consultant George Papadopoulos, have admitted lying to the FBI about direct or indirect contacts with Russian officials. But the contacts themselves were not illegal.

Neither was Donald Trump Jr.’s June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer who claimed to have dirt on Hillary Clinton. Although former Trump strategist Stephen Bannon called that meeting “treasonous,” it clearly did not meet the legal definition of treason, which involves giving aid and comfort to an enemy at war with the United States.

Some of President Trump’s opponents argue that by agreeing to the meeting, Donald Jr. knowingly solicited a campaign contribution from a foreigner, which would be illegal. That seems like quite a stretch.

It is even harder to see how the president’s role in crafting a misleading public statement about the meeting with Veselnitskaya—a subject in which Special Counsel Robert Mueller reportedly has shown a keen interest—violated any laws. If lying to the public were a crime, Trump would be eligible for a life sentence.