Seth AbramsonVerified account

1/ 18 U.S.C. § 2 prohibits aiding, abetting, or procuring a crime against the U.S. The penalty is the same as for the underlying offense.

2/ To be eligible for conviction for aiding, abetting or procuring (paying for) a crime under 18 U.S.C. § 2, certain conditions must be met.

3/ There must be a crime. You must know the crime is afoot beforehand. You must aid, abet, or procure it. And you must intend to facilitate.

4/ 17 intelligence agencies concur—Russia committed computer fraud in an effort to hack our election systems on or just before Election Day.

5/ So there are a series of dates for the relevant offenses—18 U.S.C. § 2—to include Election Day and the several days and weeks just prior.

6/ On August 17th, 2016, Donald Trump received his first-ever official briefing from the intelligence community as a presidential candidate.

8/ He was told these computer crimes were ongoing—which he'd acknowledged on July 27 by calling for more such crimes.https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/28/us/politics/donald-trump-russia-clinton-emails.html …

9/ Under 18 U.S.C. § 2, one's knowledge of the crime need not be ironclad. You just need to know there's a "high likelihood" it will occur.

10/ Moreover, under 18 U.S.C. § 2 case law, "deliberate ignorance"—denying evidence of "high likelihood"—qualifies equally as "knowledge."

11/ So as of August 17th, 2016, Trump legally had "knowledge" of pending computer crimes—no matter what he later said. The law doesn't care.

12/ The only question is whether Trump took steps to "facilitate" the crime in a way that aided, abetted or procured it under 18 U.S.C. § 2.

13/ If he did, by law he'd be culpable for Russia's post-August 17th computer crimes to a degree no different from the hackers themselves.

14/ Based exclusively on public reporting, we know that Trump took several steps to aid, abet, or procure post-August 17th computer crimes.

15/ In fact, certain of those legally actionable steps are steps the President of the United States is publicly taking at this very moment.

16/ For our purposes, the most important of the three terms we're now focused on—"aid"; "abet"; "procure"—is the last of these: procurement.

17/ Certain crimes—international computer fraud is one—are expensive to commit. It's illegal to bankroll such crimes directly or indirectly.

18/ So the only question—under federal law—is whether Trump directly or indirectly funded Russia's computer crimes after August 17th, 2016.

19/ 22 days after his August 17, 2016 briefing—September 8—Trump's NatSec and foreign policy chief, Sessions, met with Russia's ambassador.

20/ Last week, Sessions finally conceded to Congress—after providing false answers in two prior testimonies—he and Kislyak talked sanctions.

21/ Sessions began his September 8 sanctions discussion with Kislyak at the July RNC. So for both discussions he was legally Trump's agent.

22/ On September 8, Trump's position on Russian sanctions was to oppose them and to support their unilateral abolition by the United States.

23/ Sessions now admits to having communicated to Ambassador Kislyak the Trump campaign's position on US-Russia sanctions—that is, against.

24/ The legal problem for Trump here is that his position supports an unmitigated financial benefit for Russia—essentially a pecuniary gift.

25/ If Trump had changed his policy post-August 17, it'd be different. Or if he supported negotiated sanctions relief—benefit to both sides.

26/ But Trump's position was that—despite knowing Russia had committed computer fraud—they should receive an unmitigated financial benefit.

27/ This cannot be emphasized enough: Trump's sanctions policy was legally and historically unprecedented in the history of U.S. politics.

28/ Trump didn't just permit Sessions to offer unilateral sanctions relief to Russia. He had other aides put it into the public sphere, too.

30/ On March 24th, 2016, Papadopoulos revealed to his NatSec and foreign policy teammates that the Kremlin had sent him to set up meetings.