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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThis Loophole in Federal Law May Have Saved Trump Campaign from Conspiracy Charges
This Loophole in Federal Law May Have Saved Trump Campaign from Conspiracy Charges
https://www.newsweek.com/mueller-report-trump-conspiracy-charges-loophole-technicality-1409735
At the heart of the Mueller Report is a law enforcement dilemma that no one seems to have noticed.
The Report suggests to me that the reason no one in the Trump campaign was charged with conspiracy is because our federal criminal laws cannot deal with a high tech crime like the staged release of the documents the Russians hacked from the Democratic National Committee in Washington, D.C.
The Mueller Report acknowledges in footnote 1278 on page 176 that it could not prosecute anyone from the Trump campaign for the release of the documents stolen from the Democratic National Committee because the federal criminal code does not outlaw trafficking in stolen computer data. This footnote, which appears to be right in the middle of a discussion on Roger Stone and the staged release of the stolen data, states that the post-hacking sharing and dissemination of emails could constitute trafficking in or receipt of stolen property, but for the fact that the relevant federal criminal statute on trafficking in stolen property does not apply to intangible property, namely computer data. In other words, but for our antiquated federal criminal law, members of the Trump campaign might well have been indicted for conspiracy to traffic in stolen property.
<<snip>>
The Mueller Report also reveals that our new high tech global world made it far more difficult to investigate the involvement of the Trump campaign in the staged release of the stolen data than it was to investigate the Nixon campaigns involvement in the Watergate break-in. For example, the Mueller Report acknowledges that its investigators were unable to uncover communications between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians because of the use of applications that feature encryption or do not provide for long-term retention of data or communication records. The Report acknowledges that this technological barrier meant that the special counsel was not able to corroborate witness statements or to fully question witnesses about statements that appeared inconsistent with other known facts. In Watergate we had no such constraints and were able to gather evidence the old fashion way through paper documents, such as telephone records that reflected connections between and among suspected conspirators and where people were located at any given time.
That problem coupled with the fact that the special counsel faced practical limits on its ability to access relevant evidence with numerous witnesses and subjects living abroad. The hacking was perpetrated by Russians located in Russia, and the stolen documents were released into the United States by Wikileaks from another location outside the U.S. That was not a problem in Watergate. Everyone involved lived in the territorial United States. The burglars and those who organized the burglary were all Americans and physically perpetrated their crime in Washington, D.C. All relevant witnesses were subject to subpoena power and the jurisdiction of the U.S. Courts.
In the final analysis, Trumps claim that he and his campaign were exonerated from a conspiracy charge rings hollow when the reason Mueller did not charge anyone in the Trump campaign with conspiracy boiled down to the technicality that the campaign was trafficking in stolen computer data as opposed to tangible paper documents. This technicality can easily be remedied by Congress. New York State, for example, makes it a felony to possess stolen computer data. Federal criminal law does not. Congress needs to deal with making it easier for law enforcement to investigate high tech crimes in our new global order.
dlk
(11,569 posts)Computer crimes, nepotism, emoluments crimes... There is much work to be done.
uponit7771
(90,347 posts)... use them without negative recourse?
No, ... not at all
mr_lebowski
(33,643 posts)Bill steals CC numbers.
Bob says 'Hey, Bill, you should give 'em to Steve!'.
Steve is found in possession of stolen CC numbers.
Bob, under Federal Statutes, isn't going to jail.
Bill would. Steve probably would. Bob would skate. And Bob's employer ... even more so.
uponit7771
(90,347 posts)... aiding and abetting or accessory after the fact?
tia
mr_lebowski
(33,643 posts)Per the article. Physical stolen goods, yes. Stolen electronic data, no.
uponit7771
(90,347 posts)... and letting people who do so when it comes to CC numbers seems like its wide open.
I don't see a regular person doing what Bob did in this hypothetical being let go
mr_lebowski
(33,643 posts)created for to protect ... that 'docs from the DNC' would not have.
Here's a much more equivalent situation:
Bill hacks into Gmail and steal's uponit7771's Letter to Aunt Bee
Bob's long-time friend, Frank, tells Bob he should tell Bill that Bill should post uponit7771's Letter to Aunt Bee, on Instagram
Bob says 'Hey Bill, I hear you have uponit7771's Letter to Aunt Bee, you should post it on Instagram!'
Bill posts your email to Aunt Bee on Instagram
So ... Trump is Frank in this situation, obviously ... you think Frank's going to jail for this?
uponit7771
(90,347 posts)... the aiding and abetting would be and the accessory after the fact is lying for the Russians.
mr_lebowski
(33,643 posts)To the best of anyone's knowledge, neither Bob nor Frank encouraged Bill to steal your email, only that Bob, with the encouragement of Frank, encouraged Bill to post your email to Aunt Bee to Instagram, AFTER becoming aware that Bill was in possession thereof.
So I ask you again ... you think ANY prosecutor is going after Frank ... in that situation?
I don't. I don't even think they're going after Bob ... unless Bob lied to investigators, in which case he's in trouble for lying. Not for encouraging Bill to do what he did.
Bill, in fact, is the one who's done the criminal shit. And Instagram, if they knew Bill stole your email and posted it anyway.
uponit7771
(90,347 posts).. after Red Don's invite IINM, 5 hours later after the invite.
Then after the Russians attempted the hack Red Don's crew was coordinating the discrimination of the hacked emails with wikileaks.
But all of this started or continued with Red Don's invitation and encouragement to commit the crime of hacking into emails.
mr_lebowski
(33,643 posts)If it were, you'd have a point.
The DNC-hacked stuff, their docs & emails, plus Podesta's emails, were already stolen by Russia, BEFORE the Trump Tower meeting in June 2016. In fact the DNC stuff was already stolen before Papadopolous was told about 'the dirt', which was I believe April of 2016.
The stolen DNC docs began to be released by DCLeaks (run by Guccifer 2.0) in late June 2016, and then Wikileaks began releasing them in July 2016 (after having received them from Guccifer).
But the infamous invitation by Trump to 'find Hillary's Emails' occurred in August 2016. The whole reason it 'came up' was because of what was already going on with Wikileaks releasing stolen emails from the DNC, and people already suspecting Russia was behind the theft.
And there's no evidence the 'hacking' that Trump encouraged ... produced anything of value, it was just an attempt at hacking.
uponit7771
(90,347 posts)... more of the crime is aiding and abetting and that's illegal.
Then they were accessories after the fact by helping the narrative from Russia that it wasn't them etc
NewJeffCT
(56,828 posts)via subpoena?
dajoki
(10,678 posts)NewJeffCT
(56,828 posts)my daughter was a victim of some online bullying and we were told that the only way deleted messages could be retrieved is if the police had a court order to retrieve them from whatever online social media app it was (Instagram, Snapchat?)
mr_lebowski
(33,643 posts)Depends on how the 'host' of the data ... handles the information.
It's unlikely that if the situation were of the utmost importance to national security that an NSA-type agency wouldn't be able to retrieve the information (that would only be true if the physical drives that at one point held the information were thoroughly destroyed, AND the NSA didn't at some point capture and store the information itself while it traveled across the intertubes), but it could take a while for it (days to month's I'd guess) for it to be decrypted IF the only available copy was an encrypted one, esp. if using high-level encryption.
But Mueller wouldn't have had NSA-level resources available, one would assume.
A very good read.
So much to be done ....... let's never succumb to "so little time"