On Wed, 21 Mar 2018 09:59:45 -0400, M.I.Wakefield says...
Post by M.I.WakefieldIn doing that, he conspired to receive an illegal campaign contribution.
No... Trump Jr. did NOT solicit "to receive an illegal campaign
contribution"... it was offered TO him.
"Consider the meeting in the summer of 2016 between Donald Trump Jr. and
Russian nationals who reportedly offered to hand over dirt on Clinton.
Noti said that if the Trump officials solicited the information, "the act
itself was unlawful." - Forbes
YOU said, "He received an e-mail promising him dirt on Clinton..."
Is that solicitation... to RECEIVE an email?
Nope.
Did he ASK for the dirt, or just set up the meeting to see what they had?
THAT is not illegal.
Nope. Not solicited.
Post by M.I.WakefieldPost by AlleyCatHow? WHAT made it illegal?
That is was part of a criminal conspiracy.
Please... cite chapter and verse of the "crime" committed, if Trump Jr.
did NOT solicit the information, but only set up the meeting.
Post by M.I.WakefieldPost by AlleyCatWhy do you keep worming out of WHAT was said and done at that meeting?
Because what was said or done in the meeting doesn't matter. Setting up the
meeting, and then attending the meeting was part of a criminal conspiracy.
No... the meeting was NOT illegal, if no solicitation was made.
=====
Donald Jr.'s Trump Tower Meeting Was Not a Crime, and Neither Was Lying
About It
Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating the president's role in
writing an ass-covering statement that was misleading but not illegal.
Jacob Sullum|Feb. 1, 2018 2:10 pm
Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russian attempts to
influence the 2016 presidential election, has taken an interest in a
misleading public statement about Donald Trump Jr.'s June 2016 meeting at
Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer who claimed to have dirt on Hillary
Clinton.
In particular, The New York Times reports, Mueller wants to know what role
President Trump played in writing the statement, which said the meeting
was "primarily" about Russian policy on international adoptions. But
neither the meeting nor the statement about it violated the law, which
illustrates the difficulty that Mueller will have in demonstrating that
the collusion and obstruction perceived by many of the president's
opponents actually constitute crimes.
The Trump Tower meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya included
Paul Manafort, Trump's campaign manager, and his son-in-law, Jared
Kushner, as well as his son. When the meeting came to light last summer,
the White House scrambled to explain it. "It was a short introductory
meeting," said a July 8 statement attributed to Donald Jr. but reportedly
crafted mainly by his father. "I asked Jared and Paul to stop by. We
primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that
was active and popular with American families years ago and was since
ended by the Russian government, but it was not a campaign issue at that
time and there was no follow up."
The statement was deliberately misleading, since emails showed that Donald
Jr. agreed to meet with Veselnitskaya after one of his father's former
Russian business partners, who called her a "Russian government
attorney," said she had documents that "would incriminate Hillary and her
dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father." The
intermediary described the information as "part of Russia and its
government's support for Mr. Trump." Donald Jr.'s reply suggested he was
eager to see what Veselnitskaya had. "If it's what you say," he wrote, "I
love it." Veselnitskaya, it appears, was bluffing and did not have any
useful information.
This episode was embarrassing, but that does not mean it was criminal.
When former White House strategist Stephen Bannon called the meeting
"treasonous," he was speaking loosely. The legal definition of treason
requires waging war against the United States or giving "aid and comfort"
to its enemies, defined as nations or organizations with which it is at
war.
Donald Jr. did not do either of those things by talking to a Russian
lawyer in the hope of obtaining information that could be used against his
father's opponent in the presidential election. The fact that
Veselnitskaya had ties to the Russian government, which preferred Trump to
Clinton, does not transform opposition research into treason. If the
meeting with Veselnitskaya provided "aid and comfort" to an enemy of the
United States, so did any action aimed at electing Trump. In any case,
Russia does not legally qualify as an enemy, since it is not at war with
the United States.
Even if the meeting was perfectly legal, lying about it could be a crime.
But not in this context. As the Times notes, "Lying to federal
investigators is a crime; lying to the news media is not." Even if the
elder Trump wrote the statement attributed to his son with the intent of
deceiving the press and the public about the motivation for the meeting
with Veselnitskaya, that would not be illegal.
Since Trump has agreed to answer questions from Mueller, he still has an
opportunity to commit an actual crime by lying about the meeting or about
the genesis of the statement attributed to his son. Lying to Mueller would
violate 18 USC 1001, which criminalizes deliberately false statements "in
any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or
judicial branch of the Government of the United States." Michael Flynn,
Trump's former national security adviser, pleaded guilty to that offense,
as did former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos. Both cases
involved lies to the FBI about direct or indirect contacts with Russians-
contacts that were not in themselves illegal.
It is still possible, in other words, that Trump will commit a felony by
lying about a nonexistent crime. Whether he could be indicted for that
offense without being impeached first is a matter of dispute. So is the
question of whether the president can obstruct justice by doing things
(such as firing the FBI director) that he has the undisputed authority to
do. In practice, a president's obstruction of justice, which figured in
the impeachments of Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, is whatever Congress
says it is. The current Congress, controlled by the president's party, has
little interest in exploring the matter.
No doubt things would be different, as New York Times columnist Bret
Stephens argues, if Hillary Clinton had been elected president and
proceeded to do what Trump has done. But it seems unlikely that Mueller
will change Republicans' minds by focusing on Trump's efforts to mislead
the public about his campaign's Russian contacts. If lying to the public
were a crime, Trump would be eligible for a life sentence.
--
Wanna make a Conservative mad? Tell him a lie.
Wanna make a Liberal mad? Tell him the truth about shithole countries
where most of their voters are from.
