GOP intel chief busts Trump lie: My committee never said 'No collusion'

Trump never tires of telling the “no collusion” lie. But even Texas Rep. Mike Conaway, the Republican head of the House Intelligence Committee’s Russia investigation, won’t go along with him.

Trump made the bogus claim again Sunday morning. And Conaway quickly issued a clear correction during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“Do you now regret trying to draw a conclusion about collusion?” host Chuck Todd asked.

“Well, we haven’t drawn that,” Conaway replied. “What we said … is that we found no evidence of it.”

And he pointedly noted that it’s “a different statement” than what Trump repeatedly insists.

“We found no evidence of collusion,” he repeated, as opposed to a clear ruling of “no collusion.”

Conaway, who took charge of the probe following the ostensible recusal of chairman Devin Nunes, is far from a Trump foe.

He and the other Republicans on the committee released a sham report that contradicted the U.S. intelligence community. And they ended the probe without questioning a long list of important witnesses.

Yet even Conaway is refusing to go along with Trump’s self-serving lie that the committee has shown there was “no collusion.”

Furthermore, this rebuke comes on the same day that two other notable Republican voices have taken a stand against Trump’s behavior. Conaway’s fellow intel committee member Trey Gowdy said that Trump’s lawyer is making him look guilty. And Sen. Lindsey Graham threatened to remove Trump if he fired Mueller.

Republicans have been almost unanimous in their complicity with Trump to date. But as Trump plays with fire by attacking Robert Mueller, their wall of silence is finally beginning to crack.