Accomplished author, Jean Robert Revolus' latest book, US Election 2016 NO COLLUSION? 978-1-95-163003-4 serves as a complete guide into the presidential elections that took place in 2016. The results of the elections left millions of American, shocked. The race that ensued between Hillary Clinton, Democratic candidate, and Donald Trump, Republican candidate, resulted in the latter becoming the 45th president of the United States of America. The duration of the election and campaigning, American politics took a turn for the worse. It was revealed that different US institutions were hacked, personal emails were leaked, and corruption in different departments of the US government was revealed. There was news involving the Russian government and collusion. Many investigations were carried out, bringing forth new information regarding the situation. Though none of the evidence conclusively proved President Donald Trump as guilty, there was enough evidence to charge a number of his associates. Many political figures argued whether collusion was an actual crime. As per Business Insider, here is what President Donald Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani has to say:
Rudy Giuliani, the attorney for President Donald Trump, claimed Monday that collusion is "not a crime," concerning investigations into Russian election interference and whether any Trump associates colluded with Russian officials to try to tip the scales in Trump's favor.Experts say his comments are misleading and miss the larger point of the special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.
"I have been sitting here looking in the federal code trying to find collusion as a crime," Giuliani said during a "Fox & Friends" interview. "Collusion is not a crime."
"I don't even know if that's a crime — colluding with Russians. Hacking is the crime. The president didn't hack. He didn't pay for the hacking," he said during a subsequent interview with CNN.
Trump has long maintained there was "no collusion" between the Kremlin and his campaign. But Giuliani went further, seemingly contending that it wouldn't be illegal in any case, echoing similar cases on collusion from conservative media figures in the past.
"Collusion" is not explicitly cited in the US legal code. But certain interactions between a presidential campaign and a foreign government could be illegal under existing statutes, experts say.
"It’s a red herring by Giuliani," Bradley P. Moss, a Washington, DC-based lawyer specializing in national security, told Business Insider.
He noted that the term "collusion" doesn't appear in the memo from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointing Mueller as special counsel.
"Mueller isn’t investigating 'collusion.' He is investigating possible coordination between the campaign and the Russians, particularly any actual crimes committed in the context of that coordination," Moss said.
Moss said that conspiracy to defraud the US is a crime, under 18 USC 371.
"Underlying offenses would likely be tied up in criminal provisions regarding campaign finance laws or computer hacking. For the conspiracy charge to succeed, it is not required that every participant in the conspiracy play the same substantive role," he said.
Alex Whiting, a law professor at Harvard and former federal prosecutor, told Business Insider that "there is no crime of 'collusion' but as Giuliani well knows there are plenty of potential crimes within the act of collusion."
"Russian companies and individuals have been charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States as a result of their alleged acts of election interference and hacking and distribution of emails," Whiting added. "If American citizens knowingly assisted these efforts, which could be described as 'collusion,' they could also be charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States."
Whiting also said there are potential campaign violations that could be charged, "in particular prohibitions on foreign contributions to campaigns, if it were discovered that Americans 'colluded' with Russians to interfere with the campaign."
Asha Rangappa, a senior lecturer at the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs at Yale University and former FBI special agent, expressed similar sentiments on Monday in an appearance on CNN and via Twitter.
"Conspiracy and aiding and abetting are forms of collusion that are indeed a crime. And even if there are some acts of collusion that don't meet a criminal definition, 'colluding about the Russians' IS STILL A PROBLEM," she said.
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