Posted on 04/22/2018 3:20:35 PM PDT by Signalman
Conspiracy theories are strongest when their claims and evidence are kept vague and shadowy. When they meet the cold light of day — for example, when they are put into writing in a lawsuit — their flimsy nature is revealed and elicits laughter rather than fear.
This week, the Democratic Party seems to have proven this by filing a civil RICO lawsuit against President Trump’s campaign, various campaign staffers (including Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr.), WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, the Russian Federation, and specific Russian officials and operatives.
The DNC has a legitimate grievance against the Russian operatives who hacked their computers and released their emails to the world. The operatives broke the law, and some of them have been indicted. No one disputes that.
But the inclusion of Trump’s campaign as a defendant appears to be a publicity stunt. This might just be the Democrats’ way of keeping the torch of conspiracy theory burning bright after special counsel Robert Mueller wraps up his investigation without charging anyone with treason, or “influencing an election” (which isn’t a crime), or whatever crime they think must have been committed in 2016.
It is noteworthy that Trump himself is not a defendant in this case, and also that there is no allegation that campaign finance laws were broken because of a foreign in-kind contribution. That’s because charges like that one are cut and dry. Either they happened or they didn’t, and clear evidence has to be presented one way or the other.
In contrast, it’s easy to create at least the appearance of a conspiracy in the pages of a lawsuit without offering anything nearly so concrete. Take, for example, Trump’s famous joke at the beginning of the Republican 2016 convention, in which he expressed his hope the Russians would find Hillary Clinton’s “30,000 emails that are missing.” This is actually cited in this lawsuit as evidence Trump’s campaign was in the know or somehow involved in illegally causing harm to the DNC through the Russian releases of stolen Democratic emails.
Also offered as evidence are a couple of pages filled with Trump tweets and Trump speech excerpts that referenced the emails put out by WikiLeaks. That Trump kept talking about and praising the WikiLeaks’ revelations when it was obviously to his political advantage to do so is presented as an indication of ... well, it must prove something. Right?
The lawsuit also points to the fact that WikiLeaks sent private direct messages over Twitter to Donald Trump Jr. so he and his dad could share links to its stolen documents. But is it illegal to share or link to such published material? If so, was it also illegal when people shared links to stories in bona fide newspapers quoting from or even republishing excerpts of the stolen documents? Under fairly recent Supreme Court precedent, the answer is no, it isn’t illegal in either case.
Likewise, part of the conspiracy involves copyright infringement and divulging Democratic Party trade secrets. That’s another legal theory that would clobber press freedom, as Trevor Timm of the Freedom of the Press Foundation pointed out. “Countless journalists would be liable for all sorts of campaign-related reporting in the future” if such a case were allowed before a jury, he tweeted. Imagine if any newspaper could be sued for publishing campaign memos leaked by disgruntled staff.
The evidence in this lawsuit remains flimsy even where the Russia collusion story comes closest to being something real. Take, for example, Roger Stone’s correct August 2016 prediction of the release of John Podesta’s private emails. The Democrats’ complaint traces his insider knowledge back to a public Twitter conversation Stone had with Guccifer 2.0 (a hacker with Russian intelligence) on Aug. 17, 2016.
It is very easy to believe Stone, a man with no discernible ethical code, took their conversation offline and learned more details about coming leaks. But how likely does it seem contacts would be established in such a sloppy, artless manner if Trump’s campaign were simultaneously in constructive contact with Russian intelligence?
You never know what a judge is going to do with any given complaint. But if this one doesn’t survive a motion for summary dismissal, it will have already done a service to Trump by weakening the Democratic myth of the 2016 election. If that happens, then Democratic leaders will deserve the backlash and humiliation they get for having brought it in the first place.
And a good portion of the Fedgov AND a bunch of republicans.
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