Even if true, Lanny Davis' accusations don't amount to a crime
They don’t even add up to proof of the non-crime of “collusion.”
On July 26, CNN dropped its “bombshell” story that Michael Cohen was going to testify to Robert Mueller that he was present when Donald Trump was told his son would meet with various Russians. The Washington Post and the NY Post claimed they had “confirmed” the CNN account. Now, both papers have retracted their confirmation and admitted that the anonymous source was Cohen’s own attorney, former Clinton lawyer, Lanny Davis. https://theintercept.com/2018/08/28/cnn-credibly-accused-of-lying-to-its...
All these corporate media have left out a much bigger side of the story from their coverage. Mueller can’t use what Michael Cohen has to say to indict Trump, even if it were true, for two reasons:
First, what Davis describes — a meeting between Russians and Don Jr. — is not, in itself, a crime. Without anything further, there is nothing about the Trump Tower meeting to form a criminal indictment.
Second, and specifically, evidence already obtained does not show the materials handed over by the Lady Lawyer were represented to have been illegally obtained. This point is important, but has been obscured so many times in the media that much of the public now believes that the Russians gave Trump Hillary’s emails. That may actually be the point. In fact, a copy of stolen emails — or anything else stolen or illegally obtained — wasn’t even promised. On another level, the documentary record related to the Trump Tower meeting simply doesn’t contain proof of “collusion,” a much murkier term, or even sustain a conclusion that there is irrefutable evidence of intent to collude.
NOT EXACTLY
Legally, whether a charge of Conspiracy sticks in this case boils down to whether the offered “dirt” — as it has been called after the fact in the press — was acquired illegally, and evidence held by the Senate Judiciary Committee shows that it wasn’t. All that CNN, the Washington Post need do is go back and read the Committee exhibits that are posted on-line, here, as we review them below: https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/press/releases/materials-from-inquiry-i...
There can be no Conspiracy charge for either Trump, Jr. or Sr., unless there is some other evidence that both took concrete acts in furtherance of an actual crime, or at least they intended to. Michael Cohen’s claims, even if corroborated, don’t come close to proving that. Sorry, nice try Lanny and CNN.
The Elements of a Federal Conspiracy Charge that Must be Proved
It really comes down to proving that Don Junior thought the materials dangled before him as bait to obtain the Trump Tower meeting with the Russian Lady Lawyer on June 9, 2016 were illegally obtained. The Donald, Sr. would also have to intend to further a criminal act, and know that it was a crime, for a federal Conspiracy charge to stick to him, and that would have to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. There have to be “two or more guilty minds” in a criminal conspiracy. See, https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/conspiracy.html
It is not one bit clear that a criminal act took place. The documents offered by Rob Goldstone to Don Jr. were not described as the fruits of an actual crime, and it is not clear the Trumps even thought they were. As in any “sting” operation, the bait didn’t have to be real contraband (in this case, purloined Hillary or DNC emails), but the prosecution has to prove that the defendant thought they were.
Furthermore, there are a lot of steps in proving a federal Conspiracy charge, and they don’t all seem to be there in this case.
The Missing Evidence
Here’s what we know at this point.
June 9, 2016 — Veselnitskaya meets with Glenn Simpson, owner of Fusion GPS, just before and then has dinner with her after her Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump, Jr., Paul Manafort, and others in the candidate’s inner circle. “In an interview with NBC News, Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya says she first received the supposedly incriminating information she brought to Trump Tower — describing alleged tax evasion and donations to Democrats — from Glenn Simpson, the Fusion GPS owner, who had been hired to conduct research in a New York federal court case.” https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-dossier-firm-also-supplied-in...
In another version as confirmed in court documents released by the Judiciary Committee last November, the Fusion GPS materials brought to the Trump Tower meeting was in “the form of a four-page memo carried by Veselnitskaya. She also shared Simpson’s work with Yuri Chaika, the prosecutor general of Russia. Simpson told the House Intelligence Committee earlier [that same] week that he did not know that Veselnitskaya provided the Browder information to Chaika or to Donald Trump Jr., the Trump campaign’s point-man in the Trump Tower meeting.” http://dailycaller.com/2017/11/21/unsealed-fusion-gps-bank-records-show-...
What was Delivered Wasn’t What was Expected - But, It's Not Clear What was Expected
Here’s the Senate Judiciary Committee Inquiry into the Trump Tower meeting page with exhibits and testimony: https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/press/releases/materials-from-inquiry-i...
What appears to be the actual four-page memo delivered (apparently provided by Fusion GPS) is reproduced by the Senate Committee as part of the Exhibit set for the Lady Lawyer. If this what was delivered, it is worthless trash – a turgid backgrounder on the Maginski Sanctions. Not worth reproducing in part or whole. It’s indexed as the first four pages of the Veselnitskaya Exhibits. (see above) I recall reading last year that after the contents were read, the meeting was quickly wrapped up, and the memo left behind in its envelope.
The Rob Goldstone June 3 email to Don Jr. promised something more interesting, but it makes no direct reference to Hillary’s emails or DNC documents. The way they are referenced in Goldstone’s first email, below, does not make it clear what their exact nature or provenance might actually be.
IMHO, this is not incriminating evidence of an actual crime or conspiracy, but it does show that Rob Goldstone is part of an effort to lay down breadcrumbs leading to Trump Tower for the Lady Lawyer, particularly if Goldstone wrote the Subject Line (content routinely collected along with metadata, but normally not admissible without a warrant; if Ron Jr. wrote it, it’s ironclad proof that he’s retarded. Just by responding to this in an email, it’s proof that he makes Fredo look like a prodigy):
From: Donald Trump Jr.
Subject: Re: Russia· Clinton • private and confidential
Date: June 3, 2016 at 10:53 AM
To: Rob Goldstone
MARKED AS EXHIBIT -IThanks Rob I appreciate that. I am on the road at the moment but perhaps I Just speak to Emin first. Seems we have some llme and if it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer. Could we do a call first thing next week when I am back?
Best,
DonFrom: Donald Trump Jr.
Subject: Re: Russia· Clinton • private and confidential
Date: June 3, 2016 at 10:53 AM
To: Rob Goldstone
EXHIBIT – IOn Jun 3, 2016, at 10:36 AM, Rob Goldstone wrote:
Good morning
Emin just called-and asked me to contact you with something very interesting.
The Crown prosecutor of Russia met with his father Aras this morning and in their meeting offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father.
This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump • helped along by
Aras and Emln.
What do you think is the best way to handle this information and would you be able to speak to Emin about it directly?
I can also send this info to your father via Rhona, but it Is ultra sensitive so wanted to send to you first.
Best ·
Rob Goldstone
Conclusion:
IF there were real evidence that #1) Hillary’s emails were illegally intercepted by the Russians (an actual crime) and that the materials promised for delivery to Trump Tower on June 6, 2016 were somehow otherwise the product of a federal crime (a big IF, there) and IF there is real evidence that Trump believed he intended to in some way to further that crime (big IF #2), along with solid evidence that he took such an act (Big IF #3), then a conspiracy case could be made. But, it hasn’t on the basis of the existing record. Cohen’s statement that Trump, Sr. knew about a meeting is inadequate to prove a Conspiracy without all these elements.
What has been proven? Merely, Junior was stupid enough to take a meeting with someone offering “some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia.” That doesn’t even establish collusion, really.
I don’t see any of these three Big Ifs that might prove a Conspiracy Charge on this basis against either Trump, right now. Do you see the outlines of “collusion” here – that’s a matter of interpretation. Is this proof of Don, Jr’s and Mike Cohen’s stupidity? Absolutely.
POST-SCRIPT
The Steele Dossier Violated Campaign Laws
It has also been conjectured that the Trump Tower meeting might have violated federal campaign laws. However, that charge is even less viable than the Conspiracy to Defraud the U.S. allegation, above. Here's why.
If Mueller raises the Trump Tower meeting as evidence that Trump campaign conspired with foreigners to violate Campaign Laws, he will have to also accuse Hillary Clinton and the DNC of the same federal offense. Indeed, the campaign finance violation case that can be made against the DNC for its actual funding of former MI-6 operative Chris Steele — a UK national who authored the notorious “Pee Pee Dossier” — is far stronger than what might be pieced together conjecturally against Donald Trump, Jr. for his meeting with the Russian Lady lawyer on June 9, 2016.
As I wrote here recently, there is much stronger evidence that the Clinton Campaign actively worked with Ukraine (and other foreign governments) before the election and actually received some “thing of value” for its money, namely foreign intelligence on Trump. In addition, the DNC actually used that intelligence against the opposition, which makes this an actual completed conspiracy. Indeed, the DNC’s funding of the Steele Dossier closely fits the description of a conspiracy to violate the same federal campaign law. (52 USC § 30121)
Some quarters claim that Trump could be indicted for conspiring with foreigners to violate the law forbidding foreigners from contributing “anything of value” to a U.S. campaign. Writing in The Atlantic, which used to be a good publication, Natasha Bertrandt laid that case out, but, of course, neglected to mention the Steele Dossier: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/07/trump-michael-cohen...
If Trump approved a meeting with foreign nationals in the hopes of obtaining something of value—i.e., opposition research at the height of the presidential election—the intent alone could provide prosecutors with an important piece in understanding the campaign’s willingness to conspire with Russia, legal experts told me.
“It’s certainly one of the more relevant data points that we’ve had,” said the former federal prosecutor Jeff Cramer. If Trump approved the meeting, it was “clearly a violation of criminal law”—specifically, the campaign-finance laws that prohibit campaigns from soliciting things of value from foreign nationals. “And it gives color to all the cover-ups,” Cramer said. Trump and his surrogates have denied that the president knew about the meeting approximately 20 times over the last year. Trump also personally dictated a misleading statement about the meeting on his son’s behalf, which left out the fact that the Russians had offered the campaign dirt on Clinton.
Michael Zeldin, a former federal prosecutor in the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and a former special counsel to then–Assistant Attorney General Robert Mueller, said that if prosecutors “could establish that Trump approved the meeting with foreign nationals to receive derogatory information about his opponent—a thing of value—it would fall squarely within the black letter of campaign-finance laws. It would be difficult to dispute that the campaign received a thing of value when the candidate knew of the purpose and approved of the meeting.”
Of course, they don't mention the Steele Dossier.
Comments
Good work. Thanks for writing this! n/t
Thanks for the concise legal analysis of conspiracy etc.
Goldstone is clearly setting a trap and definitely with the intention only to stage a so-called collusion (whatever the hell that is, because collusion is not a legal term--conspiracy is). Why Veselnitskaya met up again with Glen Simpson post Trump Tower is an unknown. Perhaps the purpose was to inform Simpson about how the fish (Trump Jr.) snapped at the bait. Maybe it really did have to do with releasing the Magnitsky sanctions. There is certainly no evidence of any substantial evidence, whether purloined emails or written contracts with the Russian government, etc.
From start to finish, this Trump Tower titillation is overblown--like a small birthday balloon too vigorously inflated.
3 Big Ifs that might prove a Conspiracy not there
Do you see the outlines of "collusion" here - that's a matter of interpretation. Is this proof of Don, Jr's and Mike Cohen's stupidity? Absolutely.
Well done
This and a few others essays are just begging me to send to my family members who have bought Russia Gate hook, line and sinker. But the one time I tried talking to them about this and said that it is a huge propaganda claptrap they wouldn't listen and it's not worth alienating them over it.
There is just no there there as Lisa Page told Strzok and I just don't understand how so many people can't see that.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
It’s desperate ‘wishful’ thinking. It has to be
true or they have to admit the Orange Menace has been telling the truth, she’s as crooked as ‘a dog’s hind leg’.
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
It's a way for people to rationalize the election results
People just can't believe that Her could have lost and especially to Donald effing Trump of all people.
Maybe this would have been easier to swallow if they had just said that the 3 states that put him over the top had been messed with by Russia? But to involve FB, Twitter and the kitchen sink is just too much for me to believe. Bush stole his election with one state each time. Florida and then Ohio. I'm just glad to see that the truth is finally getting out, but the power of propaganda is so damn strong that people still refuse to see it.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
@snoopydawg Well, actually, Bush
Well, actually, Bush did more than that. I know personally that there was hanky panky in Florida twice, not once, which makes sense if you think about it--why would his brother, Jeb, who was still in charge of Florida, stop fixing elections for George W Bush the second time around if he was OK with doing it the first time?
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Thanks for your hard work in deconstructing the legal
....issues in this case. I had taken a fast pass on that aspect because I did not see a crime, and looked at other intricacies, like the behavior of the media. But your analysis triggered a number of important points I had forgotten about.
One point is that Natalia Veselnitskaya really did have a wealthy client she was representing who had been negatively affected by the Magnitsky sanctions. He was also a client of Fusion GPS. I had looked into her early on and I came to the conclusion that she was in business and had been working on private interests surrounding these sanctions for a very long time. I rejected the notion that she was employed by the Russian government. She had made a nuisance of herself in DC, she would aggressively lobby anyone she met about lifting the Magnitsky sanctions. There were complaints. It got to the point where the US government finally told Veselnitskaya to leave and barred her from re-entering the US.
It would have required extraordinary efforts from the DOJ to issue her a special visa to enter the US in the Summer of 2016 for a special purpose and a short stay. I assumed the request came from the top and Veselnitskaya was acting in the interests of the Obama Administration.
Just prior to the Trump inauguration, two cases with very strong evidence in place sprang into existence fully formed — the investigation of Michael Flynn's foreign contacts and the exaggerated investigation into Donald Trump Jr's disclosures, which included foreign contacts. No other cases emerged this way. The remainder came from midnight raids with search warrants or they were quietly pled or dropped. My immediate assumption about Flynn and Trump Jr. was that they blossomed because the NSA recordings of their daily lives were put to use. After all, one must assume full spectrum surveillance, especially at that level.
I still believe that was the case with Michael Flynn — not that he committed a crime during that time. He didn't. He committed a crime much later in 2017, talking to the FBI.
I now believe the high-pitched suspicion and constant leaks about the extended Trump family came from full spectrum, 24-7 surveillance during most of 2016. I believe this was behind the immediate high-profile nature of Donald Jr's so-called investigation. I think this ultimately caused a big problem for the Deep State: The Trump family was too clean. They didn't have any suspicious contacts with Russians that could be used against them, which seems to be a fact. So the Agencies had to stage one.
Other than my own assumptions, your narrative works for me.
@Pluto's Republic Clean legally, not
Clean legally, not particularly morally--but they can't really use the Trumps' actual moral failings as the basis of a smear campaign, because "lousy slumlord casino-owning ratbastard oppressor of the poor" applies to too many other people in D.C.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@Pluto's Republic I also don't get why this
I also don't get why this meeting is suspicious anyway. That giant sucking sound is the lack of meaning at the heart of this narrative, draining people's free thought away.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
It was "suspicious" because
...Trump Jr. did not list it on his disclosures. It was one of many he missed of hundreds of campaign events and random encounters where a Russian might have been present in 2016. He amended his disclosures several times, as did most of the Trump campaign noobies, but this one was the poison pill.
I had to laugh that Natalia. who had been deported for her constant pestering over the Magnitsky sanctions, was true to form at Trump Tower, and as inappropriate as ever.
They came for free dirt on Hillary and got Rickrolled, instead. That's embarrassing. Who wants to conjure up that old fail? It always struck me as odd that there were a dozen or so people in the room, many of them unexpected, and several of them Russian. The meeting was wiretapped by the government, so speculating on what was said is just distraction and fodder for the newscycle. I doubt anything but chagrin and an abrupt exit took place in front of all those strangers.
There were complaints. It got
"It
would haverequired extraordinary efforts from the DOJ to issue her a special visa to enter the US in the Summer of 2016 for a special purpose and a short stay. I assumed the request came from the top and Veselnitskaya was acting in the interests of the Obama Administration.It was either Comey or maybe Lynch who fixed her passport issues so that she could attend the meeting. Holder? But someone who was high up in the Obama justice department did the deed.
This is correct. From the way I heard it Flynn had been wiretapped and when he was questioned by the FBI he wasn't aware of that and so he answered questions in a way that were different from what he actually said on the wiretapped conversations. What people have heard about this is that he spoke with someone in Russia about the sanctions that had been put on them because of Magnitsky's 'murder' in a Russian prison. But he also spoke to him about Israel's building more settlements in Gaza. Bibi asked Kurshner to ask Flynn to speak someone in Russia and ask them to vote against censoring Israel for doing that. However, how many other incoming administrations have talked to people in foreign governments before they had been sworn in? Did Reagan get in trouble for asking Iran to not release the hostages before the election? .
Good comment, Pluto. I'm starting to have difficulties keeping track of all that went on during this time and all the players involved. But two things that are obvious. Trump was being setup so he could be accused of working with Vlad to sway the election and we would never have known about this if Herheinous had won. And no one would have ever heard of Manafort or Cohen.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
Thank you for bringing this up
In order for this meeting to have even taken place, there had to be collusion on the part of the Obama administration to allow Veselnitskaya to even enter the United States after she had been previously barred. IMO, this was the real collusion.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
I was quoting Pluto
She posted it and I forgot to hit reply because I got too rushed to church. But it's an excellent point. She would never have been at the meeting if they hadn't fixed her passport. The before and after meetings with someone from Fusion GPS shows that she was used to setup Trump Jr.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
@gulfgal98 Clearly entrapment. I
Clearly entrapment. I kind of hate that, since I really despise Trump, and don't enjoy being in the position of proclaiming him the victim, but my feelings about Trump do not determine the truth of the matter.
If my feelings about people determined guilt, the Bushes and the Clintons and all their top aides would be rotting in a jail somewhere.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
So,
as this saga keeps moving in a slow spiral toward revelation that our whole government is corrupt to the point of military industrial treason, we try hard to find a clear picture of the sequence of events. So, does it seem the Deep State had surveillance on all candidates, Cruz, Rubio, Hillary, Bernie, etc., and that at any point they could have orchestrated Military Industrial fake evidence on any of them? In other words, could informants, including Russian actors like Veselnitskaya and energy industry consultants like Carter Page, be utilized at any given moment to create a picture of political espionage around any candidate? All of this for the purpose of electing Jeb of course.
But what went wrong was that none of their candidates was elected, especially Jeb, who was eliminated by Trump in the debates. And then the other even bigger problem was that Wikileaks revealed that the DNC was defrauding all of its donors, not just Bernie's, and laundering money illegally to support Hillary in the primaries, plus voter suppression. So with the DNC crimes plus the maverick candidate Trump, the Deep State orchestrated a grand scenario that all of this illegal surveillance and illegal money laundering and illegal influence peddling among billionaire Russian so-called industrialists was done, not by the Deep State, but by Vlad. By Putin. Is that more or less what we're looking at?
The purpose of all of this is to continue the black hole of funding to the industry of war, to purchase the modernization of nuclear weapons and rebuilding of our submarine fleet so they can utilize new nukes, and the blinding of the American people from the truth that in fiscal year 2015-2016 the Army alone could not account for 6 trillion dollars in spending. 6 trillion dollars is a third of a year's GDP. Is that level of theft and malfeasance not enough to cause subterfuge and deflection?
I'm hoping researchers like leveymg and Pluto's Republic and Jeff Carlson at themarketswork continue to make sense of this. I still think the FBI may have been monitoring the DNC under a warrant and that a disgruntled FBI agent may have been the leaker to Wikileaks. Either way, whether a disgruntled DNC staffer or law enforcement officer, whoever leaked evidence of serious DNC crimes in 2016 created an imperative for Americans to put these murderers out of business. Thanks for all that you are doing.
@Linda Wood I still believe it was
I still believe it was Seth Rich.
Frankly, I would rather believe that he was murdered in a simple robbery gone wrong, and died quickly, rather than the horrible scenario that I actually believe happened.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Linda, this should be considered:
Your leap of logic is beyond my abilities, but it is impossible to deny the validity since the benefit to the MIC is the one thing that came into existence fully developed.
It makes me realize that rather than being interested in our own nation's classified and covert doings, we'd be much better informed if we had access to intel that other nations had uncovered about the US.
See the Post-Script. Of course they didn't mention Steele
POST-SCRIPT
The Steele Dossier Violated Campaign Laws
It has also been conjectured that the Trump Tower meeting might have violated federal campaign laws. However, that charge is even less viable than the Conspiracy to Defraud the U.S. allegation, above.
If Mueller raises the Trump Tower meeting as evidence that Trump campaign conspired with foreigners to violate Campaign Laws, he will have to also accuse Hillary Clinton and the DNC of the same federal offense. Indeed, the campaign finance violation case that can be made against the DNC for its actual funding of former MI-6 operative Chris Steele — a UK national who authored the notorious “Pee Pee Dossier” — is far stronger than what might be pieced together conjecturally against Donald Trump, Jr. for his meeting with the Russian Lady lawyer on June 9, 2016.
As I wrote here recently, there is much stronger evidence that the Clinton Campaign actively worked with Ukraine (and other foreign governments) before the election and actually received some “thing of value” for its money, namely foreign intelligence on Trump. In addition, the DNC actually used that intelligence against the opposition, which makes this an actual completed conspiracy. Indeed, the DNC’s funding of the Steele Dossier closely fits the description of a conspiracy to violate the same federal campaign law. (52 USC § 30121)
Some quarters claim that Trump could be indicted for conspiring with foreigners to violate the law forbidding foreigners from contributing “anything of value” to a U.S. campaign. Writing in The Atlantic, which used to be a good publication, Natasha Bertrandt laid that case out, but, of course, neglected to mention the Steele Dossier: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/07/trump-michael-cohen...
If Trump approved a meeting with foreign nationals in the hopes of obtaining something of value—i.e., opposition research at the height of the presidential election—the intent alone could provide prosecutors with an important piece in understanding the campaign’s willingness to conspire with Russia, legal experts told me.
Of course, they didn't mention the DNC and the Steele Dossier.
Why isn't Sessions prosecuting Clinton and maybe Obama
for the Steele dossier?
EDIT:
Is sessions a Trojan Horse or will it be an October surprise?
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
I greatly appreciate your scholarly posts. Thank you.
Sessions is a Dead Duck they keep in place to prevent
Trump from ordering the AG to convene Grand Juries of his own.
If Sessions is fired, they'll use it as grounds for an Obstruction of Justice charge, a la the "Saturday Night Massacre." The only conclusion one can draw from this is that's part of a bi-partisan deal that was made early on when it looked like there was enough evidence to actually remove Trump. Now, it's not so clear which side has broken more laws.
Am I the only one still noticing
that obtaining dirt on a rival candidate is usually called "opposition research?"
Suppose I work for Candidate X, and someone tells me that they have dirt on our rival, Candidate Y. It would only make sense for me to meet with them and see what they had unless they seemed like a crank.
The point about the information being stolen seems weird to me, though I bow to people with greater legal knowledge. When did data become the same as goods? It's not like I'm receiving stolen pound notes or stolen gold bullion. As far as I know, receiving stolen data is not a crime, or every publisher of leaks in the history of history would be a criminal. Stealing the data is a crime. This is the distinction that every whistleblowing case ever relies on. It's why Daniel Ellsberg was held to have committed a crime, but the New York Times wasn't.
I know that whistleblowing and opposition research are far from the same in ethics or aims, but surely the principle is the same. When it comes to data, the person who steals it has committed a crime. It makes no sense to say that the person who is told the information has committed a crime. If I stole information and walked down the sidewalk with a bullhorn yelling it at the top of my lungs, would everyone on the street become a co-conspirator and bound for the jailhouse?
Actually, wouldn't the logical conclusion of this thinking be that all of us who have read or heard about Ed Snowden's revelations are criminals?
Please show me the error in my thinking, somebody, because I really want to be wrong about this. This line of thinking seems frighteningly authoritarian and abysmally stupid.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
By the way, thank you for an excellent piece of work.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
What makes one a co-conspirator is intent to further the crime
The element of intent to commit or further a crime, "guilty mind", has to be shown of all confederates prosecuted in a conspiracy, even if the action taken by every willing participant isn't itself criminal.
In the dirty world of politics, opposition research is offered to campaigns all the time. It is perfectly legal to accept it provided that no crime was committed in obtaining it. That's the tricky part, and why anyone running for office needs a good lawyer. Trump got lucky on this one, as it was an obvious attempt to set him up, but there's no evidence that anyone in Trump Tower had any reason to believe the Lady Lawyer was holding stolen goods. As for the fact that she's foreign, there have been only a handful of criminal convictions for soliciting foreign campaign contributions, and those have all involved large cash contributions, not information. As I said, the DNC and Clinton for America campaigns are at least as vulnerable to such a charge, and if one is prosecuted or held accountable, they both should be treated the same way.
Three elements are always required of conspiracy: 1) a crime or an act that would further a crime (a walk together in the woods isn't a crime, going there with a friend to help bury someone whom he murdered is), 2) the intent to carry out an unlawful act (guilty mind - the knowledge that the body to be buried was murdered), and 3) more than one guilty mind.
"3) more than one guilty mind."
So this is why almost all cover-ups are charged as conspiracies: