If you know information was obtained illegally, wouldn't you be obligated to report it instead of using it in your campaign?

there's a case to be made that when the *government* is the "victim", i.e., when classified information is illegally made public, that newspapers may be free to publish that information if it's compelling that it's in the national interest, e.g., the pentagon papers.

there's no such case to be made when the victim is a private individual or organization such as hillary clinton or the dnc.

and just to put a fine point on it, podesta's emailed tips for making risotto is not anything that is compellingly in the national interest.

Democrats in congress? I like to think this case could close off a line of defense for him someday.

is a crime if you're a Democrat.

The problem is altering your party’s platform and agreeing to ease sanctions for that info. That is the payment made for stolen goods.

yes, their involvement, payment, quid pro quo, or even merely their prior knowledge, of the original crime (theft/espionage/electronic security violations) is one problem.

but regardless, and even if they couldn't be proven to have been involved in the original hacking/espionage, their use of the proceeds of that crime is a further problem.

seems to be open to news conferences (after what 400+ days with only a handful of questions with the helicopter racket in the background). Avoiding the free press is how gets away with all his shit.

Now that he's overconfident, would be a great time to ask him self-incriminating questions. Might help Mueller.

first, it took place in russia, and i can't really comment on the laws for such things there. the hacking was on servers in america, so american laws apply.

second, the case of donnie's "pee" video, it's more of a civil wrong (tort/defamation) than a criminal wrong. at least i'm not sure what crime was involved in the recording of the video (there may have been subsequent blackmail/extortion, but i'm not sure the recording of the video was a crime in and of itself.

if it's merely a civil wrong, then someone could legally publish it and let donnie sue, and then a civil court could decide if he was actually damaged, given the standards that apply to public people, and then possibly pay damages if any are deemed appropriate. arguably, given that the pee tape is a well-established rumor, and that stormy has published a book detailing other highly personal information, it's possible that the publication of an actual "pee" tape might be deemed not to be further damaging much at all.

himself from the crimes of illegally conspiring with Russia and accepting the emails that were stolen property?

Logically, it seems to me that if Trump was engaged in criminal activities he has no right to counter that by claiming his freedom of speech rights outweigh any other laws he broke.

he's still maintaining that russia hacked and innocent little donnie had absolutely nothing to so with it.

he's only addressing the question of *using* the stolen information after the hacking and theft happened and after wikileaks made it available.

he's trying to say, "hey, i didn't steal it, but now that it's out there, i have a right to use it."


i personally don't think he's got much of a legal argument, and he certainly doesn't have much of an ethical argument, but then again he might have a lock on 5 supreme court justices, so there's that....

They know the jig is up on their privilege society do know they are trying to legalize their criminal activity.

Hacked emails given to the campaign by Russian state-sponsored hackers is not “true disclosure”.

Furthermore, knowingly receiving information that was obtained by hacking information systems is a crime according to U.S. Code.

Last edited Wed Oct 10, 2018, 01:54 PM - Edit history (1)

BTW, there appears to be two First Amendments in trump's world

Link to tweet