Dept. of Justice Conspiracy Theories - 3

Whistle blowling where you work

I. Background

In the previous post of this series I wrote:

Over a half a decade ago I pointed out one bad habit of the mass media (Dept. of Justice Conspiracy Theories).

The McTell News (Blind Willie McTell News, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) has an aversion to "conspiracy theory" (On The Origin of "Conspiracy Theory", 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7).

One reason for that aversion is that some of the media who were CIA agents or assets wanted "conspiracy theory" to be relegated to the realm of evil thoughts (Mocking America, 2, 3, 4).

Instead, the McTell News like to make things up, like "collusion," their doublespeak word for the proper word "conspiracy."

Thus, they have. for months and months now, echoed daily the word "collusion" (which cannot be found in the criminal laws of the United States).

They have been caught in their own tongue twisting machinations.

The proper word is not "collusion," rather it is "conspiracy," as clearly shown in the criminal laws of The United States of America:

"If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both."

(18 USC § 371, emphasis added, cf DOJ on conspiracy theory). This is a general conspiracy statute ("If two or more persons conspire ... to commit any offense against the United States ... in any manner or for any purpose").

(Dept. of Justice Conspiracy Theories - 2). The word 'collusion' does not appear in the criminal law of conspiracy.

That is because it is not a crime under U.S. statutes, it is a civil matter:

Today, a Trump Campaign manager and his deputy were indicted on twelve felony counts (Federal grand jury indictment against Manafort, Gates).

The first two of the twelve counts in the indictment were for CONSPIRACY  (not "collusion").

Count One was the crime of CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE UNITED STATES, a felony (18 USC § 371).

When McTell News reads the indictment will they supplant the word conspiracy with their made up idea-word collusion?

McTell News should give up their bad habit.

(Dept. of Justice Conspiracy Theories - 2). Everyone knows that the media has been busy colluding to try to muddy the waters concerning the reality of conspiracy law by the imposition of the unrelated, non-criminal-law word collusion.

II. There Are People Who Understand Conspiracy Law

The recent release, by Senator Dianne Feinstein, of the transcript of the Senate hearing of August 22, 2017, shows that he and the Senate understand the law of criminal conspiracy as it relates to election law:

INTERVIEW OF: GLENN SIMPSON
...
"11 So the purpose of this was to see if we could
12 learn more, generally speaking, about his business
13 dealings in Russia. What came back was something,
14 you know, very different and obviously more
15 alarming, which had to do with -- you know, which
16 outlined a political conspiracy and a much broader
17 set of issues than the ones that we basically went
18 looking for." (p. 143)
...
"22 ... He [Steele] thought from his
23 perspective there was an issue -- a security issue
24 about whether a presidential candidate was being
25 blackmailed. From my perspective there was a law
1 enforcement issue about whether there was an
2 illegal conspiracy to violate the campaign laws,
3 and then somewhere in this time the whole issue of
4 hacking has also surfaced.
5 So he proposed to -- he said we should tell
6 the FBI, it's a national security issue. I didn't
7 originally agree or disagree, I just put it off and
8 said I needed to think about it. Then he raised it
9 again with me. I don't remember the exact sequence
10 of these events, but my recollection is that I
11 questioned how we would do that because I don't
12 know anyone there that I could report something
13 like this to and be believed and I didn't really
14 think it was necessarily appropriate for me to do
15 that. In any event, he said don't worry about
16 that, I know the perfect person, I have a contact
17 there, they'll listen to me, they know who I am,
18 I'll take care of it.I said okay. You know, I
19 agreed, it's potentially a crime in progress.
20 you know, if we can do that in the most appropriate
21 way, I said it was okay for him to do that." {p. 159-160)
...
"19 ... This one has the title "Russia/U.S.
20 Presidential Election, Further Indications of
21 Extensive Conspiracy Between Trump's Campaign Team
22 and the Kremlin." (p. 234)

(Glenn Simpson Senate Testimony, emphasis added). This shook up Trunp, Inc. to the point of a lawsuit to shut down the revelations (Trump lawyer sues Fusion GPS, BuzzFeed over Steele dossier).

III. Conclusion

Simpson and Steele did the proper thing by informing the FBI.

Now, some more republican sychophants (Beware of the Sycophant Epidemic, 2) want the messenger punished rather than wanting the criminal conspirators brought to justice (What you need to know about Christopher Steele, the FBI and the Trump ‘dossier’).

What remains to be seen is how far they will go to cover up the assault on American elections (Greg Sargent: How bad is the Republican cover-up on Trump and Russia? We may soon find out).

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.