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This is what must exist for the crime of criminal conspiracy to have occurred:
A criminal conspiracy exists when two or more people agree to commit almost any unlawful act, then take some action toward its completion. The action taken need not itself be a crime, but it must indicate that those involved in the conspiracy knew of the plan and intended to break the law. A person may be convicted of conspiracy even if the actual crime was never committed.
For example, Jason, Alice and Hank plan a bank robbery. They 1) visit the bank first to assess its security, and 2) pool their money and buy a gun. All three can be charged with conspiracy to commit robbery, regardless of whether the robbery itself is ever attempted or completed.
criminal.findlaw.com
There needs to be a plan to commit a crime. There needs to be an agreement to commit the crime. There needs to some actions taken in the furtherance of that crime — whether or not the actual crime ever takes place or not.
The Crime: Rudy Guiliani on the orders of his boss Trump, constructs a false story on “corruption in Ukraine”. There is no evidence to back up their false story, by the way:
Prosecutors say Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman were part of a conspiracy to funnel foreign money into U.S. elections
by Aruna Viswanatha, Rebecca Ballhaus, Sadie Gurman and Byron Tau, Wall Street Journal — Oct 10, 2019
[...]
Since late 2018, Messrs. Fruman and Parnas have introduced Mr. Giuliani to several current and former senior Ukrainian prosecutors to discuss the Biden case, acting as key conduits of information. In July, Mr. Parnas accompanied Mr. Giuliani to a breakfast meeting with Kurt Volker, then the U.S. special representative for Ukraine negotiations. During that breakfast, Mr. Giuliani mentioned the investigations he was pursuing into Mr. Biden and 2016 election interference, according to Mr. Volker’s testimony to House committees.
The two had lunch with Mr. Giuliani at the Trump International Hotel in Washington on Wednesday, according to a person who was in the hotel and saw the three together.
[...]
While the two men assisted Mr. Giuliani in investigating Mr. Biden and his son Hunter, they also solicited money from Ukrainians while touting their connections to Washington, according to people familiar with their activities in Ukraine.
Mr. Giuliani identified the two men in May as his clients.
The Crime: Rudy’s co-conspirators funnel foreign money in several GOP Political entities, as they advocate for the removal of the Ambassador to Ukraine — who insists on following protocols of the State Dept and following U.S. Laws:
2 Florida businessmen who helped Giuliani in Ukraine arrested on campaign finance charges
The foreign-born men, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, were arrested late Wednesday at the airport attempting to leave the country.
by Tom Winter, Allan Smith and Joe Valiquette, NBC News — Oct 10, 2019
[...]
The indictment also details a push by Parnas and Fruman to oust then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, whom Trump recalled from her post earlier this year. The indictment alleges that Parnas met with a congressman identified in the charging document as "Congressman-1" in mid-2018 to get assistance in the effort.
According to the document, the efforts to oust Yovanovitch were at least partially on behalf of an unnamed Ukrainian official.
Multiple senior U.S. law enforcement officials told NBC News that "Congressman-1" is former Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas. The two men committed to raising $20,000 for the then-lawmaker, the indictment alleged.
[...]
The agreement to commit the crimes, and the steps taken in the furtherance of said crimes: In between efforts to extort the newly elected President of Ukraine, Trump acknowledges his removal of the Ambassador, and Trump sets up a meeting between Rudy and the new president. The intent of the meeting is to rewrite the history of Ukraine’s anti-corruption efforts:
CNN — September 26, 2019
[...]
The President [Trump]: Good because I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that's really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved. Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor of New York City, a great mayor, and I would like him to call you. I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General. Rudy very much knows what's happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great. The former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news [Marie Yovanovitch] and the people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news so I just want to let you know that. The other thing, There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it... It sounds horrible to me.
The earlier Crime, providing the motive for the current Crimes: The former president of Ukraine had a back-room arrangement with Trump, via Michael Cohen, to block the efforts to provide corruption evidence against Paul Manafort (and other Oligarchs). Thus the need for the new “extortion effort” on the new president Ukraine — to get him on-board with the “already in progress” Rudy-led Trump plan to smear Joe Biden.
The politician and former journalist Serhiy Leshchenko says Ukraine needs its own Robert Mueller.
FP: Did the relationship between [former Ukraine President] Poroshenko and Trump improve after the Manafort-related investigations were blocked?
Serhiy Leshchenko: I think so, yes. There is also a report that Poroshenko paid money through former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen for a meeting. So Poroshenko is using different ways to get Trump’s sympathy. Instead of making reforms and making Ukraine a successful country, Poroshenko decides to pay money or to buy American goods and to block investigation of Manafort. But he would get the real sympathy of Americans if he made real reforms. But real reforms mean to stop corruption, which is unacceptable to him.
Here’s is the anti-corruption evidence generated by Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau, despite efforts of the former corrupt [pro-Putin] prosecutor to stop it. There are a lot of Russian Oligarchs on the “black book” ledger, besides Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort, by the way:
“This was our cash,” he said, adding that he had left the party in part over concerns about off-the-books activity. “They had it on the table, stacks of money, and they had lists of who to pay.”
Additionally, there is this insinuating evidence of likely Putin-Trump “criminal conspiracy” agreement, demanding yet another “condition” from the new President of Ukraine, in Trump’s brazen extortion of him in that July 25th call — if Ukraine ever wanted to see U.S. Military aid again, though:
Trump Says He Hopes Zelensky and Putin Can Be BFFs
“It’s just one of those things,” President Trump said of the annexation of Crimea.
Questions about the nature of President Donald Trump’s relationship with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky have prompted the House of Representatives to launch an impeachment inquiry. But in his first in-person appearance with the leader he allegedly pressured to investigate his political rivals, Trump appeared more interested in matching Zelensky up with another unlikely ally: Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“I really hope that Russia—because I really believe that President Putin would like to do something—I really hope that you and President Putin can get together and solve your problem,” Trump said at the United Nations on Wednesday, as Zelensky sat stone-faced. “That would be a tremendous achievement, and I know that you’re trying to do that.”
“You’ve really made some progress with Russia,” Trump added, telling Zelensky that “it’d be nice to end that whole disaster.”
The prospect of such a friendship is, in a word, unlikely. Ukraine and the Russian Federation have been engaged in a slow-motion war since Putin’s invasion and subsequent occupation of the Ukrainian region of Crimea in 2014, which has resulted in the displacement of 1.5 million Ukrainians and thousands of deaths. [...]
Whew. That’s a lot of plans, agreements, steps taken — and yes even, Crimes committed.
Sooner or later all the “behind the scenes” back-channel Dirt on Donald will pile up SO high, that even the slippery eel Teflon-Don — won’t be able to escape its impending collapse …
This is one Criminal Conspiracy that went several steps … too far. This Trump-Rudy-Cohen scheme of working an offline, deep-state State Department operation, in the shadows, far from the prying eyes of average Americans.
Too far for even for some flag-loving republicans, it seems.
Beep … Beep … Beep …
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