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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTrump lawyer: Collusion is not a crime
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/362929-trump-lawyer-collusion-is-not-a-crime?ampAdministration
December 02, 2017 - 11:18 AM EST
Trump lawyer: Collusion is not a crime
By John Bowden
One of President Trump's top lawyers told The New Yorker that it doesn't matter if members of the Trump campaign colluded with Russia as long as no crimes were committed.
Trump's attorney told the magazine on multiple occasions that collusion with Russia or another foreign power during a campaign is not illegal, and that no statute would be violated by the campaign working with the Russian government even if such an act is proven by special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.
Mueller's investigation has the authority to investigate any matters that come up in the course of investigating possible collusion between the campaign and Russia.
That includes possible obstruction of justice, which would be a crime.
Trump could be investigated for obstructing justice when he fired FBI Director James Comey earlier this year. He told reporters at the time that the Russia investigation was firmly in his mind when he did so.
Sekulow in the past has claimed that Mueller is not investigating the president himself, despite the scope of Mueller's authority.
"Let me be clear here," he said in June. "The president is not and has not been under investigation for obstruction."
Sekulow also denied in August that the president was considering firing Mueller, a move that Trump's critics have speculated about for months.
"The president is not thinking about firing Robert Mueller," Sekulow told Fox News. "So the speculation that's out there is just incorrect."
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Sorry, Fox News: Legal Experts Say Trump Collusion With Russia Could Be a Crime
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/06/sorry-fox-news-legal-experts-say-trump-collusion-with-russia-could-be-a-crime/
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,706 posts)Lots of whistling past the graveyard here.
Pachamama
(16,887 posts)Those statements from Trump's lawyers are for Trumps base who are too stupid to understand or care.
But in the end, it won't matter what Trump's "Base" thinks....
spanone
(135,838 posts)harmonizing past the graveyard
LastLiberal in PalmSprings
(12,586 posts)Arkansas Granny
(31,517 posts)Mueller is conducting a thorough investigation and is dotting all the i's and crossing all the t's.
DangerousUrNot
(431 posts)If they didnt do anything wrong, let Mueller and his team throughly investigate without the smoke and mirrors. They wont becuase they are guilty!
Angry Dragon
(36,693 posts)ClarendonDem
(720 posts)And collusion probably isn't a crime, but I think he could be impeached for it. He certainly can be impeached for obstruction of justice.
Angry Dragon
(36,693 posts).99center
(1,237 posts)With the Trump campaign. Would it be considered election fraud?
Angry Dragon
(36,693 posts)emulatorloo
(44,126 posts)BannonsLiver
(16,387 posts)Its like a high school football team playing the best team in the NFL.
mnmoderatedem
(3,728 posts)Mike Tyson fighting Pee Wee Herman
oasis
(49,387 posts)underpants
(182,814 posts)EL34x4
(2,003 posts)"Collusion" isn't a crime except in anti-trust cases. When low-info voters who don't spend much time on internet forums devoted to politics learn this, they'll undoubtedly ask, "Then why are we investigating Trump?"
Pope George Ringo II
(1,896 posts)The political consequences of actually openly confessing to collusion with the Russians to manipulate an American election should be utterly apocalyptical. At this very moment Roy Moore is basically proving they won't be, and the idea of the GOP surviving that admission of that wrongdoing in essentially its present state is horrifying.
Wounded Bear
(58,660 posts)SHRED
(28,136 posts)Gothmog
(145,274 posts)Here is some more on why collusion between trump and Russia would be a crime http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2017/may/31/gregg-jarrett/fox-news-hosts-wrong-no-law-forbids-russia-trump-c/
Nathaniel Persily at Stanford University Law School said one relevant statute is the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002.
"A foreign national spending money to influence a federal election can be a crime," Persily said. "And if a U.S. citizen coordinates, conspires or assists in that spending, then it could be a crime."
Persily pointed to a 2011 U.S. District Court ruling based on the 2002 law. The judges said that the law bans foreign nationals "from making expenditures to expressly advocate the election or defeat of a political candidate."
Another election law specialist, John Coates at Harvard University Law School, said if Russians aimed to shape the outcome of the presidential election, that would meet the definition of an expenditure.
"The related funds could also be viewed as an illegal contribution to any candidate who coordinates (colludes) with the foreign speaker," Coates said.
To be sure, no one is saying that coordination took place. Whats in doubt is whether the word "collusion" is as pivotal as Jarrett makes it out to be.
Coates said discussions between a campaign and a foreigner could violate the law against fraud.
"Under that statute, it is a federal crime to conspire with anyone, including a foreign government, to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services, " Coates said. "That would include fixing a fraudulent election, in my view, within the plain meaning of the statute."
Josh Douglas at the University of Kentucky Law School offered two other possible relevant statutes.
"Collusion in a federal election with a foreign entity could potentially fall under other crimes, such as against public corruption," Douglas said. "There's also a general anti-coercion federal election law."
In sum, legal experts mentioned four criminal laws that might have been broken. The key is not whether those statutes use the word collusion, but whether the activities of the Russians and Trump associates went beyond permissible acts.
Gothmog
(145,274 posts)President Obama's attorney has some good articles on this. Here is just one https://www.justsecurity.org/42387/collusion-russia-crime-part-iii-aiding-abetting/
It is well understood that established aiding and abetting principles have wide, elastic application. The abettor is not required, of course, to have been in on it from the beginning. In Learned Hands classic formulation in United States v. Peoni, the law requires only that he in some sort associate himself with the venture, that he participate in it as in something that he wishes to bring about, that he seek by his action to make it succeed. The courts have defined in various terms this association, but what is required is some affirmative conduct designed to aid in the success of a venture with knowledge that [the]actions would assist the perpetrator, the principal of the crime. United States v. Cowart, 595 F.2d 1023, 1031(1979).
Note that the assistance constituting aiding and abetting does not have to be substantial. The accomplice liability provision of the federal campaign finance law, focused on substantial assistance, is, in that sense, stricter. ,So federal prosecutors proceeding on an aiding and abetting theory may have the latitude to reach a broader range of Trump campaign conduct in support of the Russian program.
It would not be the first time that Prosecutors would have enforced campaign finance law with an aiding and abetting charge. And they have evidence in the Trump/Russia case with which to work.
Gothmog
(145,274 posts)Here is another good analysis on this issue https://www.justsecurity.org/41593/hiding-plain-sight-federal-campaign-finance-law-trump-campaign-collusion-russia-trump/
This view is flawed. It fails to consider the potential campaign finance violations, as suggested by the facts so far known, under existing law. These violations are criminally enforceable.
It would not be the first time Congress wrestled with these questions of foreign interference with the US electoral process. Following the 1996 elections, the Republican Party concluded that the victorious Bill Clinton had benefited from foreign intervention in his election. Its Senate majority organized hearings, chaired by the late Senator Fred Thompson, who opened them with the declaration that high-level Chinese officials had committed substantial sums of money to influence the presidential election. The ensuing investigation, which included a parallel criminal inquiry, did not live up to Senator Thompsons most dramatic claims, but Congress later amended the law to tighten the long-standing prohibition against foreign national spending in federal elections. On this point, there was bipartisan unity: that the law should stand clearly and without gaping loopholes against foreign interference in American elections.
Then the issue made a dramatic return in this last presidential election, but with a major difference. This time, there is no doubt that a foreign state, Russia, devoted resources to influence the outcome of the 2016 election. But unlike 1996, the manner of this interventionthe hacking of emails, the dissemination of fake newshas directed much of the legal discussion to computer security and espionage statutes. The controversy has not had the feel of a classic case about political spending. It has come across in press reporting and public discussion as a tale of 21st century cyber-crime and foreign intelligence service skullduggerymore sophisticated international intrigue than Watergates third-rate burglary and associated cover-up. Unlike the Watergate investigation, which began with a break-in, the New Yorkers and CNNs Jeffrey Toobin has written, it is not immediately clear what crimes may have been committed. And even if there might be criminal wrongdoing somewhere in this Trump campaign-Russia relationship, commentators have tended to doubt that there is yet sufficient hard evidence of it.
Gothmog
(145,274 posts)Here is more of this analysis https://www.justsecurity.org/41795/campaign-finance-law-collusion-crime-part-ii/
Some of the questions would be:
What do the records of the campaignand the sworn testimony of campaign aidesestablish about the strategic importance to the campaign of these Russian activities?
Did the campaign decide that it would not denounce the Russians, either on its own initiative or in response to press queries, because it did not wish to discourage them from continuing on their course?
Was the message intended for Russia discussed during preparations for the presidential debate, which would explain Mr. Trumps special care in refusing to assign direct blame for the hacking to the government or to reject any assistance from the hackers?
What were the specific plans for active messaging around the hacked emailsin the press, in the preparation of surrogates for media appearances, and in the remarks prepared for or by the candidate for rallies and his own press interviews?
If there is evidence of this kind, it would match up with the known campaign and Trump handling of the Russia issue and answer any question of intent. The presidents open praise for the hacking, his stated love of Wikileaks, his refusal to condemn any state interference in the elections, could not be passed off as Trump being Trump, as the candidate just playing with the issue and relishing the coverage that came with it. Instead these actions, together with other evidence of intent that may still come to light, would represent the execution of a very specific campaign strategy to provide substantial assistance to the Putin regimes program of intervention in an American presidential election.
uponit7771
(90,343 posts)moondust
(19,984 posts)"that means it is not illegal." Right, Dick...er...Donny?
Corgigal
(9,291 posts)A whole bunch of federal legal terms for us to try out.
NotASurfer
(2,150 posts)It's a crime
It's accurate
It can carry the death penalty
Works for me
spanone
(135,838 posts)DetlefK
(16,423 posts)It's illegal for an election-campaign to accept something "of value" from a foreign entity.
Wikileaks supplied Trump's presidential campaign with talking-points, tactical information on Never-Trumpers and a hacked password. And Don Jr. accepted these.
Russia supplied Trump's presidential campaign with a strategic advantage by the hacking of the DNC and with electioneering grassroots-support by praising Trump on their fake social media accounts masquerading as US accounts.
beachbum bob
(10,437 posts).....karma, lock him up, throw the switch
former9thward
(32,012 posts)But if you want your own definitions and laws that's cool.
beachbum bob
(10,437 posts)if the facts prove that trump and his people solicited and received russian aid in swinging the election to him, its pretty much treason.
former9thward
(32,012 posts)One of the only crimes that are. It has nothing to do with "criminal disloyalty to one's government".
DFW
(54,387 posts)Russia is a hostile foreign power. Fox is a hostile domestic power.
There may be no statues against colluding with Fox, but there are statutes against colluding with Putin's Russian Empire.