That's the open question that hasn't been cleared up, though. Plus, it really makes no sense: why can you hire a foreign national for dirt but you can't get it for free? I'm assuming that it's because it would be considered a contribution from a foreign national but as I've pointed out and cited in support, that is not at all clear. Such a prosecution would be unprecedented.
The precedent for a political party being offered political dirt on their opponent by a foreign Government and not instantly rejecting the notion is to our knowledge unprecedented. However, people have been prosecuted for receiving and helping foreign nationals give money to a political Campaign before, in
particular Bill Clinton's Campaign had money funneled to it via a Chinese American who was getting fund sent to him from China. As a result the campaign had to refund the money and several people involved in knowingly funneling the money ended up with convictions.
Now at this point I guess we need to decide is "Information" is "anything of value"?
While there are many arguments about how much and even if Information should be valued, I would suggest that in the end it comes down to this, is this information something that campaigns would generally expect to pay, and in fact do pay for.
There is a whole mathematical theory devoted to showing this that you can go through if you want, though it made my brain hurt.
Based on that simple definition, I think that few people would really argue that "Political Dirt" is in fact information that has zero value to a campaign, and as such any offer becomes an offer of "anything of value" which is explicitly disallowed by law for foreign nationals to offer to give, or for campaigns to solicit.
as a result, IMO, and I hazard the opinions of a number of others I have seen, including lawyers, making the offer of information is an illegal action, thus in accepting and setting up a meeting, those involved were clearly furthering that illegal action.
Here is where you are going beyond the evidence made public thus far: that there was a conspiracy between Trump and Russia to hack the emails. I understand where people are inferring that such happened but there is no direct evidence that it happened.
You seem to totally misunderstand my statement here, I'll assume that this was not deliberate and re-explain it for you. It had nothing to do with Clinton's nor the DNC emails, but rather the
email exchange between Jr and Rob Goldstone.
Goldstone made it quite clear that the information that he was offering was "very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump"
At this point Jr should have backed out and gotten as far from it as possible, but he didn't. He kept going and then set up the meeting. In doing so he creating and then was taking further steps to partake in a Conspiracy.
I'm not so sure about that. If there was a plan to exchange dirt for sanction relief or help in hacking the DNC servers, that's clearly a crime. If there was no such plan? Not so clear.
Again, no need to offer anything back in return. As long as you accept that information that generally would be something that campaign would have paid to get was being offered for free, then a crime was occurring. If the campaign members partook in solicit for that information, then they too directly committed a crime. If they merely took part in attempting to get the information, knowing it's source, then they committed Conspiracy, even if they failed to gain the information that they wanted.
Just to be clear, Solicit here means
"to ask, request or recommend, explicitly or implicitly, that another person make a contribution, donation, transfer of funds or otherwise provide anything of value. A solicitation is an oral or written communication that, construed as reasonably understood in the context in which it is made, contains a clear message asking, requesting or recommending that a person make a contribution, donation, transfer of funds or otherwise provide anything of value. A solicitation may be made directly or indirectly."
Now let's be quite clear here, from the emails between Jr and Goldstone, I have no beliefs to the Trump Campaign soliciting the material at this point. That may have occurred later, and one could certainly suggest that Trump did so in asking Russia to find Hillary's emails, but that's not really here nor there as far as the meeting goes, in that there was only the criminal action of a conspiracy to have a foreign national contributing a thing of value to the campaign.
That's a declarative statement. But it's subject is a matter of question. I totally agree that the Trump campaign shouldn't have touched this but there are reasons beyond legality as well. It's really bad optics even if it isn't illegal.
Yes it is, and I think I have shown why. Personally I don't even think that the Meeting was the worst issue in this whole saga, assuming a conviction, it's a slap on the wrist of a fine and likely probation for those involved. The lies to the FEC and Congress over it were worse.
To me I think that far more interesting ball of yarn is that whole change in direction of the Trump Campaign, including millions of dollars in advertising and trips being cancelled in what were assumed to be battleground states, and diverted to what were seen as blue states just a week after the Russians stole the DNC's analytics and gameplay book at the end of September 2016.
Again, that's extrapolating beyond publicly available evidence.
Not at all, and I have explained why.
Robbing a bank is clearly a crime. Conspiracy to rob a bank is therefore also a crime. Accepting information from a foreign national is not clearly a crime, though it may turn out to be. If it turns out not to be a crime, then there can't be an illegal conspiracy.
It hinges on if Information can be defined as something of value, and I believe that yes, it not only can, but it is something with a value to it.
).
