Mnuchin’s not a lawyer. If he were, maybe, maybe he’d realize that whether it affected the outcome of the election is not merely necessary to prove wrongdoing, but entirely irrelevant. The person who attempts to buy an election by paying off voters need not succeed to commit a crime. The person who stuffs ballot boxes (or fiddles with computer code) commits a crime that is the same whether he manages to add to his preferred candidates total enough to carry the day, or proves himself incompetent by underestimating what the other side will get. And the person who commits treason does so whether or not he is effective. (Treason consists, in part, of an American citizen making war on the United States. The person who sets off a missile to shoot down a US Air Force plane is treasonous even if the missile misfires.)
Not that knowing any of that would make a difference to Mnuchin. He’s only in it for the money and, as one of the Vanderbilts said, “The public be damned.”
