(Thread)
1/ Not all evidence is admissible in court. For example, hearsay (with certain exceptions) is generally not admissible.
2/ On the other hand, if top notch prosecutors, like the SDNY or Mueller, include a “fact” in a court document, you can be sure they have admissible evidence to back it up.
3/ Now we come to a source of confusion: Direct v. circumstantial evidence.
4/ . . . so crimes are proven with circumstantial evidence
5/ Question: Was there evidence in the prosecution documents that Trump and the Russians entered a conspiracy to defraud the US under 18 U.S. Code § 371?
6/ The elements of § 371 are:
7/Another source of confusion: There does NOT have to be an exchange of value.
8/ A conspiracy can be express or implied.
9/ We already know that the object of the conspiracy under § 371 doesn’t have to violate a particular statute.
10/ Yes. Definitely: There's a pileup of circumstantial evidence of an implied agreement.
11/ From the Gates, Alex van der Zwaan, & Manafort docs:
12/ From the Papadopoulos docs: Pap. knew in April 2016 that the Russia had stolen emails & “dirt” on HRC.
13/During the campaign, Cohen & Trump's pals worked on Trump Tower Moscow, a deal that would bring millions of $$ to the Trump Org.
14/ This also occurred AFTER Papadopoulos told the Trump campaign Russia had stolen emails.
15/ If you go outside the docs, there is tons more evidence of conspiracy to defraud fair elections👇 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SEcYLrZ4cY … …
16/ Under Element #2, they don’t have to succeed in carrying out the conspiracy—one or more of them simply has to do any act to further the conspiracy.
17/ There you have it: Evidence in the prosecution docs to support a § 371 TrumpRussia conspiracy to undermine fair and transparent elections.
18/ Trump's "No Collusion!" makes people think there has to be an express agreement.
19/ "Her emails" sank into the public consciousness, but real crimes happening right in front of us are obscured through smokescreens.
20/ Adding: @AntiTrump4Ever1 asked for the link to my page with links and summaries for all the docs. You can follow @Teri_Kanefield.
____
Question: was there evidence of a Trump-Russia conspiracy in the prosecution documents?
Trump said prosecutors found no evidence of "collusion" with Russia.
Even the WashPost said⬇️
Spoiler: Yes, there was.
To show how, we first need Evidence Law for Twitter 101.
This means a lot of what is floating out there in newspaper articles is not admissible in court.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/hearsay
So it's prudent to limit ourselves to the facts in the prosecution documents.
Direct evidence directly links a person to the crime, without the need for any inference.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/direct_evidence …
Direct evidence is the proverbial smoking gun.
Often direct evidence doesn’t exist. . .
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/circumstantial_evidence …
Circumstantial evidence that IMPLIES the person committed a crime.
Federal law doesn't distinguish between direct and circumstantial evidence.
Both are admissible and can be used to prove a crime.
§ 371 has two elements:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/371 …
For a conviction, prosecutors must prove both beyond a reasonable doubt.
#1: Two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the US or to defraud the US or any agency thereof for any purpose and
#2: One or more of such persons do any act to affect the object of the conspiracy.
(We will hack, if you give us X)
That's bribery.
Under § 371 they simply agree to “defraud the US or any agency thereof. . . "
Here's the other important part:
They don't have to actually speak and exchange promises. It's enough to have a "wink-wink" understanding.
In this case, the conspiracy is: Conspire to undermine a fair and transparent election and hide what we're doing.
I explained why here:
Which brings us to:
Was there evidence in the prosecution docs of a TrumpRussia conspiracy to undermine the election?
From the Mueller-Cohen memo:
In 2015 Cohen and Trump reached out to gauge Putin’s interest in meeting with Trump. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5453418-Mueller-Cohen-filing.html …
From the memo: Trump knew about Cohen's outreach.
Trump consistently hired, to run his campaign, people with close ties to Russian intelligence.
https://russia-investigation-summary.com
Trump hired them AFTER he and Cohen reached out to Putin.
He passed that information on to the Trump campaign.
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4776071/a106dd6d-64e2-43c0-9da1-a90a48ed8daa.pdf …
So as of April, the Trump campaign knew about the hacking.
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5453418-Mueller-Cohen-filing.html …
This happened “at a time of sustained effort by the Russian government to interfere in the U.S. presidential election.”
There you have it, in the docs, a pileup of circumstantial evidence that Trump and the Russians had an implied “wink-wink” agreement to undermine a fair and transparent election.
In fact, under § 371 each time Trump obstructs the Mueller probe is a step in furtherance of the conspiracy.
Which brings us to Element #2.
The indictment of the 13 Russians gives direct evidence that Russians actively undermined the election. https://www.justice.gov/file/1035477/download …
Why hasn't this sunk in yet?
I think Trump is clever at misdirecting people.
He has people thinking there must be direct evidence.
Consider why “her emails” sank so deeply into the public consciousness that so many people believed HRC committed an imprisonable offense (she didn’t), but now people don't see a real crime.
Why?
Because spreading simple lies is easier than understanding— and talking about—complex crimes.
There is LOTS more evidence in the docs to support a 371 conspiracy.
Including everything would have made this threat too long. For more, check out 👇 https://russia-investigation-summary.com
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