Extensive New Report Breaks Down Specifics of Multiple Potential Trump Campaign Crimes

by Matt Naham | 1:54 pm, November 2nd, 2018

An extensive new report published by the Brookings Institute’s Governance Studies program has analyzed potential crimes committed by the Trump Campaign. The crimes in question may not contain the word “collusion” in them, but they are, in effect, just that, according to the authors Barry H. Berke, Dani R. James, Noah Bookbinder, and Norman Eisen.

Berke is a fellow at the American College of Trial Lawyers; James is a partner at the law firm Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP; Bookbinder is executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW); Eisen is the chair of CREW, a senior fellow of Governance Studies at Brookings, and former Obama White House ethics lawyer.

The authors, responding to President Donald Trump‘s oft-used phrase “collusion is not a crime,” admit that it’s “in one sense correct,” but clarify that “Collusion is not a single crime” but “a rubric that encompasses many possible offenses.”

To that end, the report goes into an in-depth analysis of the following six crimes Special Counsel Robert Mueller may be looking at right now as part of his Russia investigation: Conspiracy to Commit Offense or to Defraud the United States, 18 U.S.C. § 371; Computer Fraud and Abuse Act 18 U.S.C § 1030; Federal Wiretap Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2511; Contributions and Donations by Foreign Nationals, 52 U.S.C. § 30121; Bribery of Public Officials and Witnesses, 18 U.S.C. § 201(b)(2); Misprision of Felony, 18 U.S.C. § 4.

The analysis of these crimes was made in the context of news reporting on three specific events central to the Mueller investigation: Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether Trump campaign had any advance knowledge of it or coordinated with it in any way; the 2016 Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer for “dirt” on then-candidate Hillary Clinton that involved Donald Trump Jr.; former Trump campaign chairman/convicted felon Paul Manafort and President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner; and contact between members of the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks ahead of the 2016 DNC hack (see: former Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone)

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https://lawandcrime.com/legal-analysis/extensive-new-report-breaks-down-specifics-of-multiple-potential-trump-campaign-crimes/