NYT : "Trump Jr. Was Told in Email of Russian Effort to Aid Campaign"

[Final-Fan]

Aeolus451 said:

Final-Fan said:

1.  If the information was exclusively something to be used against a party Mr. Trump wanted to see damaged, and therefore was exclusively an indirect benefit to Mr. Trump & Donald Trump's campaign as opposed to a direct benefit, this could be seen as equivalent to performing a service, which are most certainly covered under this statute as I believe case law attests.  Additionally, by that logic securing the services of a hitman is fine because it doesn't directly benefit you, only damages another party to your indirect benefit. 

2.  Please agree or disagree to the following statements.  You may, obviously, give as much context or qualification as you like to your agreement, disagreement, or uncertainty. 
(a)  Trump would not have taken time out of his busy schedule for a meeting to obtain information that he did not value. 
(b)  The statement of the go-between, "...offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father. This is obviously very high level and sensitive information..." indicate that he considered the information to be a thing of value. 
(c.)  The statement of Mr. Trump, "...if it's what you say I love it especially later in the summer." indicates that he considered the information to be a thing of value. 
(d)  In general, information can be a thing of value, which is demonstrated by people and organizations expending resources to produce, obtain, publicize, or prevent the publicization of information, which they would not do if it was worthless. 
(e)  In specific, this would be a case of a party (Mr. Trump) valuing information for the purposes of obtaining and subsequently publicizing information "especially later in the summer". 

3.  I don't see how trying to do something illegal (but failing) would be closer to the spirit of the law than trying to do something illegal (and succeeding). 

I'll just agree to disagree on 1 and 2 since it's a legal argument that would debated around the termnology around the laws rather than who said what considering what the meeting was for. If this was about a donation of money in exchange for favors, it would be clear cut.  It will either go to court or won't.  I think that it won't or that it won't go much of anywhere other than being talking points for cnn for the next couple of years.

I think you're misunderstanding me with 3. What trump jr did in this situation and what just about all politicians do breaks the spirit of this law but trump jr came closer to breaking the letter of the law in this situation than most of them do. I think it's not a big deal because politicians ignore it anyway.

In my opinion, I think the law should be updated to fit the times to close loop holes or be done away with because it only serves as a snare for the witless instead of keeping foreign governments from influencing our elections by donating to candidates that would likely do something they want.

1&2.  I can't argue with that
(In all seriousness, I think that (a,b,c) could, if you were amenable, be fruitfully separated into "question of reality" to be discussed and "question of law" to be set aside, while (d,e) are only of value as "question of law"; but nevertheless I will respect your desire to agree to disagree on the whole show, for as long as that is your desire.) 

3.  I guess I did misunderstand you:  I had thought you were saying something more along the lines of "other politicians routinely break the spirit of the law more than Junior did, but Junior broke the letter of the law more than them"—whereas I now understand you to be saying something more like, "Junior only went a little further than others, if any at all, in terms of the spirit; but he clumsily came much closer than them to breaking the letter of the law."  Is that a more or less accurate picture of your thoughts?