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Credit to Author: Issie Lapowsky| Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2017 21:02:19 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n On Tuesday, Donald <\/span>Trump Jr. tweeted<\/a> out a lengthy email chain from June, 2016. The tweet was an effort to get out ahead of a New York Times<\/em> investigation<\/a> into the meeting the emails discussed. They show Trump Jr. eagerly arranging to meet with a Russian lawyer, explicitly described as being government-affiliated, for the stated purpose of getting dirt on Hillary Clinton to help elect Donald Trump. Immediately, conservative leaders leapt to the first son\u2019s defense. Their argument: Nothing came of the meeting, so what\u2019s the big deal?<\/p>\n \u201cAnd just like that, another blockbuster from the NYTimes (Don Jr Story) ends up being pure bullsh*t. It never ends,\u201d tweeted<\/a> conservative radio host Bill Mitchell, referring to the earlier New York Times<\/em> stories from over the weekend that first described\u2014accurately\u2014the contents of the emails.<\/p>\n "Trump, Jr. smart to release emails. Tabloid guy set him up w Russian lawyer who promised Hillary dirt. She didn't deliver. That's the story," tweeted<\/a> former Fox personality Bill O'Reilly.<\/p>\n In his own note defending the correspondence, Trump Jr., too, argued that because the source didn\u2019t provide any useful dirt, the media frenzy over this meeting is overblown. \u201cAs Rob Goldstone said just today in the press, the entire meeting was \u2018the most inane nonsense I ever heard. And I was actually agitated by it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n It is, essentially, the exculpatory equivalent of saying, \u201cSure, I broke into your safe, but there was nothing worth taking, so I'm innocent.\u201d That defense entirely misses the point, legal analysts say. As far as the law\u2019s concerned, the quality of the intel is irrelevant; the problem is that Trump Jr.\u2014as well as senior adviser Jared Kushner and former campaign manager Paul Manafort\u2014took the meeting at all.<\/p>\n \u201cThey may say there was nothing of value exchanged, but the solicitation itself is illegal,\u201d says lawyer Larry Noble, who served as general counsel of the Federal Election Commission for 13 years before becoming general counsel for the Campaign Legal Center. That\u2019s according to statute 52 USC 30121, 36 USC 510<\/a>, which says, \u201cA foreign national shall not, directly or indirectly, make a contribution or a donation of money or other thing of value, or expressly or impliedly promise to make a contribution or a donation, in connection with any Federal, State, or local election.\u201d It continues: "No person shall knowingly solicit, accept, or receive from a foreign national any contribution or donation" prohibited by the law.<\/p>\n Information, Noble says, can be a thing of value. Trump Jr. is making the argument that the information itself wasn\u2019t valuable. But according to the law, merely soliciting that information is prohibited.<\/p>\n \u201cThe contribution is the opposition research. The fact they found it useless is not relevant,\u201d Noble says, adding that the Campaign Legal Center plans to file a complaint asking the Federal Elections Commission to conduct a civil investigation into this meeting.<\/p>\n Other analysts argue Trump Jr.\u2019s offense could be more severe. According to Nick Akerman, a partner at the law firm Dorsey & Whitney and former assistant special Watergate prosecutor, there is an argument to be made that this meeting not only violated campaign finance law but amounted to treason. \u201cThey were willing to give \u2018aid and comfort to the enemy,\u2019 Russia, which is under sanctions,\u201d Akerman said.<\/p>\n The specifics of Trump Jr.\u2019s emails also raise questions, Noble says, about how long his conversations with the Russian operatives continued. In his June 3 email, Trump Jr. says he loves the idea of receiving damning information on Clinton \u201cespecially later in the summer.\u201d As we now know, WikiLeaks began publishing hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee in July, right around the time President Trump openly encouraged<\/a> Russian hackers to \u201cfind the 30,000 emails that are missing\u201d from Clinton\u2019s private server. \u201cIt warrants a serious investigation into what else happened,\u201d Noble says. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to believe this was the end of it, especially when we know the Russians did more than this.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s hard to believe this was the end of it, especially when we know the Russians did more than this.\u201d \u2014 Lawyer Larry Noble<\/p>\n The question will be whether mere information can be considered a "thing of value," as specified in campaign finance law. "There is nothing in my experience that would lead me to believe that sitting and talking in a meeting with a foreign national would constitute a thing of value," says lawyer Craig Engle, founder of the DC law firm Arent Fox's political team, and a former general counsel to the National Republican Senatorial Committee. "Once you start down that path, then when isn\u2019t something a thing of value?"<\/p>\n The task of answering that will likely fall to Robert Mueller<\/a>, the special counsel appointed by the Department of Justice to look into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Akerman says Mueller\u2019s team will likely seek more emails and the devices those emails are stored on, if it hasn\u2019t already done so.<\/p>\n Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee demanded a copy of the emails early Tuesday morning. Now that Trump Jr. has shared them with the world, several senators, including Mark Warner and Ron Wyden, have expressed their belief that the emails show evidence of collusion.<\/p>\n "No longer a question that the Trump campaign sought to collude with a hostile foreign power to subvert American democracy," Sen. Wyden tweeted<\/a>.<\/p>\n "This is black and white: Trump officials at the highest levels knew Russia was working to aid Donald Trump & welcomed Russia's interference," added<\/a> Sen. Warner.<\/p>\n Both the Senate and Mueller investigations will continue on, now with a new set of evidence to probe. And you thought we were finished with email scandals, didn't you?<\/p>\n