I have much to say on this subject and little time right now, but I’m just dying to get it out here. Everyone is mostly carrying on as though Trump has more or less been cleared of complicity in Russia’s criminal interference in our elections. And the Mueller report does state that insufficient evidence was discovered to establish a conspiracy or cooperation between the Trump campaign and Russia, though it also states that a lot of interest in cooperation was expressed by the Trump campaign, and there were many contacts between the campaign and Russia, and further states that there are too many gaps in the information the Special Counsel was able to obtain to be able to clear the Trump campaign of conspiracy or cooperation.
But it seems to me that, while there may not be sufficient facts to find cooperation or conspiracy that there are other theories of criminal liability that the known facts do seem to support, specifically, Principal liability and accessory after the fact liability.
In order to establish a conspiracy or cooperation, you must prove the existence of an agreement between the parties. There is no such requirement for Principal or Accessory after the fact liability though.
18 US Code Section 2 provides:
(a)
Whoever commits an
offense against the
United States or aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procures its commission, is punishable as a principal.
Whoever willfully causes an act to be done which if directly performed by him or another would be an offense against the United States, is punishable as a principal.
[Section 3 provides:]
Whoever, knowing that an offense against the United States has been committed, receives, relieves, comforts or assists the offender in order to hinder or prevent his apprehension, trial or punishment, is an accessory after the fact.
Except as otherwise expressly provided by any Act of Congress, an accessory after the fact shall be imprisoned not more than one-half the maximum term of imprisonment or (notwithstanding section 3571) fined not more than one-half the maximum fine prescribed for the punishment of the principal, or both; or if the principal is punishable by life imprisonment or death, the accessory shall be imprisoned not more than 15 years.
I wish I had more time for analysis right now, but think it of Trump’s public urging of Russia to go find Clinton’s emails and all of his efforts to deny and downplay any Russian role, effectively using his unique position as nominee for a major political party to enhance the effectiveness of their operations during the election and all of the actions he’s taken as president to help Russia evade punishment. Don’t his actions seem to fall well within the ambit of those statutes? And that’s just the publicly available stuff.