Geez, what happened to “ignorance of the law is no excuse”? Donnnie’s ignorance here appears to be his only excuse. In every other way, he was illegally conspiring with Russia.
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Hmmm.
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In other words, DOJ policy regarding non-indictment of sitting presidents extends to their family members.
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“general knowledge of the illegality of their conduct.”
WTF is this? Now if Trump goes out on 5th Avenue and kills someone, then claims he doesn’t have knowlege of the illegality, will that work too?
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Can’t they nail the little pisher on lying to Congress?
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So, in your legal opinion, why did Mueller punt here? what the fuck is happening? Can you put this legaleze into plain English here? From my perspective, everything seems like black and white…they willfully obstructed/conspired…all of it. Why isn’t a spade a spade here?
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And Mueller didn’t subpoena him and instead inferred that Don Jr did not have the relevant mental state. Wtf
It’s increasingly looking like the Mueller investigation was a total waste of time and money and will be studied as an example of how not to conduct an investigation.
- Gratuitously narrow in scope
- Pretty much useless in the matter of digging up facts not already known
- Inexplicably timid towards or biased in favor of the Republican establishment in the crucial question of issuing subpoenas
- Extravagantly exculpatory interpretations of law and fact
- Utterly subservient to partisan AG and Deputy AG in the matter of releasing the findings
- Always punching down, never up when it comes to indictments
- Hyper-secretive
- Utterly fucking useless at gaining the confidence of the half of the country that would like to think that the rule of law applies to presidents
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In other words, ignorance of the law IS a defense. Wow!
Edit: I was late to the table on this. I see I’m not the only one confounded by this.
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Yup, this is a man who has a college degree from Wharton in finance and real etate. He failed to familiarize himself with campaign finance law. It boggles the mind. But Mueller is saying that Jr. was not smart enough to determine the Russians he met with were bad actors.
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I believe Barr has now expanded it to disallow indicting anyone who is sitting during a meeting with a family member.
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Or sat at any time within 24 hours before or after said meeting
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Or whose state of mind may have indicated a desire to sit.
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The ubiquity of ignorance in the ranks may well mean the entire GOP could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it.
If I were Don Jr. I would think that my troubles are just starting.
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[quote=“the_loan_arranger, post:9, topic:87001, full:true”]
So, ignorance of the law is an excuse. Probably only if you’re a Republican.
[/quote]Well, it helps to be ignorant of just about everything else, too. It’s evidence that you’re not just faking ignorance in this particular circumstance.
Campaign finance law provides an exception to the “ignorance of the law” excuse, at least as it stands with current case law and DOJ policy. In other words, the law is useless as written and interpreted as long as a defendant is careful to never acknowledge the existence of the law.
Edit: Specifically, it’s the penalty section which has the problematic wording. Someone could be found to have violated one of the restrictions, but no penalty could be imposed.
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You can remove “probably” from your assessment.
Well, it may be that in criminal law, particularly with respect to the offenses under investigation here, willful has a more restrictive interpretation, and has been construed by courts to include actual knowledge that the conduct in question violates the law. If there’s a criminal lawyer out here, perhaps s/he can enlighten us.
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Thanks for that clarification.
I think the public would be interested to know if the Trump campaign violated those laws, even if no penalty could be imposed. But what do I know?
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