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comment by johnnyFive
johnnyFive  ·  1805 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Redacted Mueller Report has been Released

    Apparently you have to prove intent to commit a crime in a conspiracy(?) charge and the Trump tower meeting with Don Jr is incredibly suspicious but he's too dumb to prove he was malicious. I don't know. That's me recalling an NPR story I probably wasn't even paying attention to

Pretty much. "Conspiracy" in the legal sense requires there to be an underlying crime; you can't conspire to do something that isn't illegal. The report then goes on to say why Mueller wasn't confident that they could prove all the elements of the underlying foreign-interference crime, and your summary of that is basically right as well. The statute in question requires a "knowing and willful" violation, meaning those involved would've had to have known that it was illegal. Not just that, of course, but prosecutors would have to prove that they knew, and that's pretty difficult.





am_Unition  ·  1805 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I think 'bl00 has said it before, but this really is the Hanlon's Razor presidency.