Is Collusion a Crime?

What's the story?

• For months, President Donald Trump has insisted there was “no collusion” between the Russians and his 2016 election campaign.
• On Tuesday, however, Trump repeated a line of defense offered by his attorney, Rudy Giuliani, that “collusion is not a crime.”

Is collusion a crime?

• Giuliani is technically correct: the U.S. legal code says nothing about “election collusion.” (Bonus explainer: “election meddling” is not a precise legal term, either.)
• In a criminal sense, collusion applies to antitrust law and price fixing - when rival businesses coordinate their prices in a non-competitive way – so in this context the phrase is being used colloquially to imply improper coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia.
• During a CNN town hall in April, fired FBI Director James Comey said collusion "is not actually a thing that exists under the federal laws of the United States."

So is Trump off the hook?

He is not. After making the above statement, Comey continued that improprieties associated with collusion – such as conspiring with Moscow to defraud the U.S. – are crimes.

Conspiracy

• The “Conspiracy to Defraud the United States” statute makes it illegal for any “two or more persons” to use “deceit, craft, or trickery" to interfere with governmental functions—including elections.

Election fraud

• Special counsel Robert Mueller could also bring charges against the Trump campaign for election fraud, hacking, and wire fraud.
• Election law prohibits foreign governments from making contributions to U.S. political campaigns, and that goes beyond a simple cash donation to include "anything of value" in connection to the campaign—such as hacked DNC emails.
• It’s not clear that courts would interpret a campaign accepting potentially helpful information from a foreign government as an in-kind contribution that violates campaign finance law.
• However, some legal experts believe such coordination could violate other laws. For example, it’s also illegal to solicit contributions from foreign nationals, and that’s illegal whether or not the contribution (in this case non-existent opposition research) is actually delivered.
• And the AP noted that if “Trump or his aides knew in advance that Russia had the trove of stolen emails and did nothing to alert federal authorities, they could be accused of covering up the crime of stolen emails or working as foreign agents.”

Final verdict

• While “collusion” may not be a federal crime, improprieties associated with the Trump campaign possibly “colluding” with Russia could still be against the law.

What do you think?

Giuliani has argued that Russian hacking is the real crime of the 2016 elections, and Trump did not participate in any hacking and therefore committed no crime. Do you agree? Should collusion be made a crime? Hit Take Action and tell your reps, then share your thoughts below.

—Josh Herman (with Eric Revell)