Posted on 07/12/2017 1:38:12 PM PDT by Cubs Fan
after listening to more than a few talking heads, it appears #1 is legal and #2 is legal if the FBI is called afterward and given the skinny
everything else is illegal because even tho the receiving party didn’t compensate, they still received ‘something of value’
McLame, the DNC, Fusion GPS, and Hillary (by proxy since the dossier was on her server to be circulated) are all guilty under #3-5. So is the PAC that obtained and published Melania’s modeling pics.
If we had honest reporters, they’d be all over the DNC. But unfortunately the MSM has devolved into backbiters, gossippers, nitpickers and rabble-rousers intent on protecting the Dems.
Only if they use the dossier to start an investigation and use it as an excuse to listen in on communications.
Pay it back after the election and all is forgiven
By stating that the meeting could have secured “valuable information” the impeachment lobby are revealing that they consider it reasonable to suppose that the Russian government had negative information about Hillary Clinton.
Therefore a reasonable person with an interest in avoiding the election of Hillary Clinton as the next president would be acting in the best interests of the United States by finding out what negative information was held. They could only then assess whether the information was true, or if it might be helpful in defeating said candidate.
There is no rational case for impeachment or any other kind of lawsuit to be brought against Donald Trump, Jr., and whether there is or not, the case for linking the President to this matter is not clear cut.
An analogy would be this. You are walking down a street in Munich in 1938, and Adolf Hitler drives by in his staff car. They stop and get out to yell, “hey you on the sidewalk, there’s a piano being moved from a third floor window and it looks like it’s not properly tied up, get to safety.”
Do you
(a) ignore the warning because it’s Adolf Hitler
(b) refuse to act on the warning because it’s Adolf Hitler
(c) take a lot of time to assess the situation yourself even though you are right below the piano
\
(d) hustle to a safe location and say thank you Mr. Hitler.
And for the record, Putin is no Hitler, and his maybe distant contact the Russian lawyer is even less so.
3. a candidate meets with a foreign agent to get dirt on their opponent, foreign agent gives info, receives financial compensation. Legal or illegal?
- Bribery
[A]ll civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. US Const, Art. II, Sec. 4.
Technically, this clause could be construed to apply only to those already in office. But it would seem to me that a political candidate, especially for an office in the Federal Government, would be under this constitutional rule. I think you could stay within original intent and construe this rule to include actions taken by those vying for an office of the Federal Government once they actually are elected to the office.
As far as I know, it doesn't matter who actually gets paid money in a bribe, right? It's a quid pro quo regardless of who actually gets the dough.
- Treason
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. US Const, Art. III, Sec. 3, Cl. 1.
Treason would come into play if the foreign agent represented an enemy of the U.S. If so, compensating the agent could be considered giving the enemy aid and comfort, and would, therefore, be treasonous and illegal.
Don't know if there are any cases on point.
4 & 5. a candidate meets with a foreign agent to get dirt on their opponent, foreign agent gives info, which was illegally obtained, regardless of financially compensation. Legal or illegal?
- high Crimes and Misdemeanors
If the candidate knew the info was illegally obtained, the candidate could be a co-conspirator, accomplice or accessory in assisting in the illegality of getting the info.
5. There is probably some law against this, the rest is fine
They are illegal if it helps you and you are a liberal. If you are a conservative and the liberals do it, so what?
thanks. So that locks Comey and Fusion GPS to the naughty list, since Comey allegedly authorized an alleged $50K or more payment to a specific double (triple?) foreign agent acting on behalf of certain alleged republican interest parties and then the DNC, under the auspices of Fusion GPS-who also channeled compensation to the same foreign agent(s), specifically hired to introduce damaging information into the presidential campaign.
Collude is akin to conspire. They are both inchoate crimes, meaning they can not exist alone as a crime. They only rise to a crime if two or more individuals agree in concert to commit an underlying substantive crime.
Your point three is incorrect
Dershowitz and other constitutional scholars have said clearly that Donald Jr committed no crimes
Didn't Bill Clinton gets a whole bunch of donations from the Chinese when he was in office?
This is exactly why that aspect of the law exists.
As for treason, that requires an "enemy" (foreign or domestic) to whom "aid and comfort" are provided. There has never been any official definition which provides a comprehensive test of who would qualify as an "enemy," although a nation with whom the US is officially at war (by Congressional declaration) would certainly qualify. Ultimately, that's a political question. If Russia is an enemy, then there are many joint programs and exchanges going on between the US and Russia that would qualify as treason.
The Supreme Court has already answered the question of whether it's legal to receive information which was obtained illegally by someone else. You can find out their answer by reading about the Pentagon Papers. I'll leave that as an exercise for the audience.
If #2 is illegal, then #1 is illegal. If you attempt to commit a crime, it doesn’t matter whether or not you got what you were after.
The answer in each case is no. This conclusion is arrived at based that on the fact the “value” of whatever baloney b/s was provided was negligible. Otherwise it would have been known during the campaign. Whatever might have been paid would make no difference. In Texas we would say that whatever you might have paid is the extent to which you got skinned.
What are you calling my “point three” and how is it incorrect? (I never mentioned the facts of any particular matter including Trump’s.)
We need more information. (R) candidate or (D) candidate?
For Democrats and their captive media, the evidence doesn’t matter. Its the seriousness of the charge.
And the charge is “Russian Collusion.”
“[A]ll civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. US Const, Art. II, Sec. 4.”
I think it would be a stretch for a candidate not holding government position at the time to be defined as a civil officer. Clearly the incumbent would be but an opponent completely divorced from government would not seem to be.I say that because the thrust of the bribery provisions is to discourage civil officers from trading on their positions in government and the contacts they make during their service to advance their interest. Obama would not be directly permitted to pay for info from Putin but Trump because he was not in government and thus he would not have made contact with Russia as a result of discharge of government duties. Having said that, the reality is they all pay for negative info even info coming from foreign sources through layers of campaign staff on one side and layers of foreign government agents on the other and keep the candidate insulated from the activity. Lastly how do we define an enemy? The political reality is right now Russia is called as an enemy by many. As a matter of diplomacy State does not call them an enemy. Others see them more as a irritating pain in the butt of no real threat of directly attacking the US.Is an enemy a country we do not like because their are many of those on the globe. Personally I think there currently are truly only 3 enemies of the US right now that can lead to direct confrontation NK, Iran and lesser extent China. All others range from friends like Israel to irritating pains in the ass like Russia.
Bribery requires a quid pro quo with an identifiable "official act". I rather doubt DJT Jr. performed any official act (or even promised one) for Natalia Veselnitskaya. Now Honest Services Fraud (HSF) only requires the exchange of "things of value" (TOVs) with the corrupt intent to influence a public official's action. It seems to me that even the "bribery-lite" HSF statute doesn't apply here. In order for DJT Jr. to be guilty of HSF, he'd have to receive a TOV, not provide a TOV. Even if we assume DJT Jr. paid for the information, the TOV is going from DJT Jr. to Veselnitskaya. DJT Jr. can't be criminally responsible for providing a TOV with the corrupt attempt to influence a public official. It would be a stretch to argue that Veselnitskaya's information was the TOV if DJT Jr. paid for it. If that was the case, it wouldn't be any different from a campaign paying a caterer to cater an event. How can that be HSF?
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