In June last year, Donald Trump Jr. had met with Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer with the express purpose of getting information the Russian government that had supposedly acquired on Hillary Clinton, which was then confirmed on Twitter by releasing the actual emails between him and British publicist Rob Goldstone setting up the meeting. Emails have successfully proved that the Trump Jr. was told beforehand that the information he would be getting came from the Russian government.
To get useful information on Hillary Clinton, Trump Jr. had already admitted in a statement that he took the meeting with Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian attorney but as per him that meeting did not result to be fruitful. Hence, this did not constituted meaningful collusion between Russia and Trump campaign because Veselnitskaya didn’t provide him with anything useful. Actually, this “defense” is, legally speaking, no defense at all. It violated violated campaign finance law. The mere fact that Trump Jr. asked for information from a Russian national about Clinton constitutes a federal crime.
The emails blow the best defense he has out of the water. Prosecutors need to be able to show that he knew the person he was soliciting emails from a foreign source which he responded as he had not told name prior to the meeting, implying that he didn’t know much about the person he was meeting including nationality among other things.
According to Goodman, emails show that Trump Jr. went into the meeting with an attempt to solicit information from the Russian government. Also, he added that the emails also directly implicate Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort, who are included on the entire email chain.
Trump Jr. has now admitted damaging facts that prosecutors need to prove to make a case against him, if Bauer, Goodman, and Hasen are reading the statute appropriately.
Akerman, the former Watergate prosecutor said that he want to get everyone who has been involved in that meeting in front of a grand jury, and find out what they said about what had happened there.
As per Defense Department, The emails are simply put damning as a legal matter and provide very clear evidence of participation in a scheme to involve the Russian government in federal election interference, in a form that is prohibited by federal criminal law. Also, the law states that no person shall knowingly solicit or accept from a foreign national any contribution to a campaign of an item of value and Donald Trump Jr. has met all the elements of the law, which is a criminally enforced federal statute.
Trump has hired Alan Futerfas to represent him on issues relating to the Russia investigation who had not responded to a request for comment and have recognized some danger.
Why Trump Jr. may have broken the law
The statute in question is 52 USC 30121, 36 USC 510 — the law governing foreign contributions to US campaigns. There are two key passages that apply here. This is the first:
A foreign national cannot indirectly or directly, make expressly or impliedly promise or a contribution or any donation of money or other thing of value, in connection with any Federal, State, or local election. The other important passage is that no one shall knowingly, accept, solicit, or receive any contribution or donation prohibited from a foreign national.
It means that the law extends beyond just cash donations. Like, say, damaging information the Russian government collected about Hillary Clinton.
An assistant special prosecutor, Nick Akerman said that to the extent they are using the resources of a foreign country to run their campaign: was an illegal campaign contribution.
According to University of California via its expert Rick Hasen, the key word from Trump Jr., is solicit that means a solicitation is an oral or written communication that, construed as reasonably as it is made, contains a clear message requesting, asking, or recommending that another person make a contribution, donation, transfer of funds, or otherwise provide anything of value. The solicitation bit is why it doesn’t matter if Trump Jr. actually got useful information. The part that’s illegal.
Bob Bauer, White House counsel for Barack Obama from 2010 to 2011, writes at Just Security. Those statements show intent as a clear-cut willingness to have Russian support along with revealing specific actions undertaken to obtain it.
