NBC intelligence and national security analyst Ken Dilanian said Friday night just because there wasn't a crime it does not mean there's not a scandal. Dilanian said Trump may have committed "impeachable" offenses "depending on the facts" and what is in the report by special counsel Robert Mueller.



However, earlier this year Dilanian reported the Senate Intel Committee probe found no evidence of Russian collusion in the Trump presidential campaign.





You may recall after the first sentencing hearing for Paul Manafort, Dilanian called Judge T. S. Ellis "disconnected from reality" for the light sentence he gave.



MSNBC host Chris Matthews lamented how he is "unsettled" that the Mueller probe did not result in any indictments on Russian collusion.



"What if the Mueller report finds that the Trump campaign were dupes of a Russian covert operation to manipulate our election and they allowed themselves by their willingness to take meetings with Russians and accept dirt from the Russians?" Dilanian asked.



"They allowed themselves to be manipulated by a very sophisticated Russian operation," Dilanian stated as fact. "That would be a scandal that may well be impeachable depending on the facts. We have to wait and see."



"Just because there wasn't a crime, doesn't mean there isn't a scandal," he added.



"What we can conclude from the absence of any criminal charges is it didn't rise to the level of criminal conspiracy but we can't conclude that the Trump campaign was blameless," Dilanian said of the infamous Trump Tower meeting.





CHRIS MATTHEWS: I am a bit unsettled by the fact that all this investigation has yielded so far no indictments about collusion.



KEN DILANIAN, NBC NEWS: You are asking all the right questions. But there's another way to look at this whole collusion question which is, so there wasn't a criminal conspiracy, that's obvious. There are no conspiracy charges. Natasha mentioned the counterintelligence part of this. What that means is the FBI launched an investigation into the question of is Donald Trump compromised by a foreign adversary, by Russia?



And often the answer to that question is not a criminal charge. If you are a senior government official and you have an affair with a Chinese spy, you don't get charged criminally with espionage. You get fired and you lose your security clearance. What if the Mueller report finds that the Trump campaign were dupes of a Russian covert operation to manipulate our election and they allowed themselves by their willingness to take meetings with Russians and accept dirt from the Russians? They allowed themselves to be manipulated by a very sophisticated Russian operation. That would be a scandal that may well be impeachable depending on the facts. We have to wait and see. Just because there wasn't a crime, doesn't mean there isn't a scandal.

"My only conclusion is that the President transmitted to Mueller that he would take the 5th. He would never talk to him and therefore, Mueller decided it wasn't worth the subpoena fight." @KenDilanianNBC on Mueller concluding his report. #Hardball pic.twitter.com/MjQYCj13AD — Hardball (@hardball) March 22, 2019

Dilanian responds to Chris Matthews complaint that Trump didn't sit down with Mueller and "answer his damn questions." Dilanian said Mueller should have subpoenaed Trump to send a message:"My only conclusion is that the President transmitted to Mueller that he would take the Fifth," Dilanian said. "He would never talk to him and therefore, Mueller decided it wasn't worth the subpoena fight hat would delay his investigation and report for months, going down that road and knowing he would lose."