# Could and would Trump Sr. pardon Trump Jr. **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [July 11, 2017, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-and-would-trump-sr-pardon-trump-jr/791001 "2017-07-11T15:00:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 22
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2017, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-and-would-trump-sr-pardon-trump-jr/791001/421 "2017-07-18T00:12:00Z")
> [@Okrahoma](#): > > Especially since it’s “official documents” coming from (LOL) “Crown prosecutor”? > [@Johnny\_Ace](#): > > People, get over the Crown Prosecutor bullshit. It was Goldstone applying his cultural knowledge (i.e., Brit) to the Russian legal system. Concur. As noted above, this is no different than calling a prosecutor a “district attorney” in Chicago and getting criticism because they are actually called “State’s Attorney.” ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2017, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-and-would-trump-sr-pardon-trump-jr/791001/422 "2017-07-18T00:21:36Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > There is no reason that anyone who isn’t both stupid and corrupt would take the “call.” There is no reason to come up with excuses for them. Unless you actually support them (or are their defense attorney being paid to defend them). > > We’ve got to stop this habit of coming up with excuses for evil people that allows them to do evil. You are thinking of this in terms of “right” and “wrong”, while other are thinking of this in strict terms of “legal” and “illegal” These two ways of thinking are not necessarily congruent. I agree with **John Mace** … Let’s let this thread be about the strict legal issues, and put aside “right and wrong”, recognizing that this does not mean we abandon this concept. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2017, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-and-would-trump-sr-pardon-trump-jr/791001/423 "2017-07-18T00:29:03Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Concur. As noted above, this is no different than calling a prosecutor a “district attorney” in Chicago and getting criticism because they are actually called “State’s Attorney.” I was only arguing that the news media should make clear that it’s not a real job in Russia and that they should note that we have no idea if anyone involved is actually a government lawyer of any description. Obviously richie rich music producer wannabe from the UK can use any term he likes. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2017, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-and-would-trump-sr-pardon-trump-jr/791001/424 "2017-07-18T00:59:20Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > I was only arguing that the news media should make clear that it’s not a real job in Russia and that they should note that we have no idea if anyone involved is actually a government lawyer of any description. Obviously richie rich music producer wannabe from the UK can use any term he likes. You used the term “music producer” but in reality he is a publicist for musicians. If the media reported in your post, would you expect them to correct your error? ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2017, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-and-would-trump-sr-pardon-trump-jr/791001/425 "2017-07-18T01:08:41Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > You used the term “music producer” but in reality he is a publicist for musicians. If the media reported in your post, would you expect them to correct your error? Of course not. That would be an outrageous expense of effort. I mean during the taco bowl scandal CNN made sure to point out: > [@](#): > > An online menu for Trump Tower Grill doesn’t list a taco bowl, but an entree listed on the menu for Trump Tower Cafe includes a “Taco fiesta!” which matches the description of Trump’s taco bowl. and included many tweets explaining that Taco bowls aren’t Mexican. But now, thanks to your tutelage I realize that level of insight is only required for important stories. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2017, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-and-would-trump-sr-pardon-trump-jr/791001/426 "2017-07-18T01:14:06Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > Of course not. That would be an outrageous expense of effort. I mean during the taco bowl scandal CNN made sure to point out: > > and included many tweets explaining that Taco bowls aren’t Mexican. But now, thanks to your tutelage I realize that level of insight is only required for important stories. Do you think you may have excluded the possibility that the taco bowl story you mentioned is ducking stupid and inane, so there’s no duty to pile nonsense on top of silliness? ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2017, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-and-would-trump-sr-pardon-trump-jr/791001/427 "2017-07-18T01:24:10Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > Do you think you may have excluded the possibility that the taco bowl story you mentioned is ducking stupid and inane, so there’s no duty to pile nonsense on top of silliness? I am honestly at a loss as to your meaning. It seems like you’re saying the taco bowl story was so stupid that of course they did extra research? But whatever. I’m done clowning around with the Crown Prosecutor angle. Maybe you can entice Okrahoma to be your sparring partner. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2017, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-and-would-trump-sr-pardon-trump-jr/791001/428 "2017-07-18T01:35:34Z")
One down, one to go. But I’m not holding my breath. ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2017, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-and-would-trump-sr-pardon-trump-jr/791001/429 "2017-07-18T03:56:47Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > What I read suggest that a few (5?) days later, the stuff got out. Penis ensued. But it might have done whether Don the Lesser accepted it or not. There isn’t necessarily a connection. I can’t decide if that was an interesting turn of phrase or an auto-correct fail. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2017, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-and-would-trump-sr-pardon-trump-jr/791001/430 "2017-07-18T04:06:27Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > This is it. The Russians were going to release DNC emails—interspersed with some invented ones, as is their wont—even if Don Jr. had sent Goldstone and his Russian-Government-Lawyer packing. Is there any evidence that any of the emails were invented / faked / modified in any way? The handful I checked were authentic, and I know other people checked some and authenticated them, and I never saw any evidence than any of them were faked. Do you have any evidence to support the “interspersed with some invented ones” claim? ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2017, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-and-would-trump-sr-pardon-trump-jr/791001/431 "2017-07-18T04:15:58Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > It’s actually pretty clear. Russia was offering dirt on Clinton to her electoral opposition. That is illegal, even before discussing email hacks. I haven’t read this whole thread, so if this has already been answered, I apologize. What precisely was illegal about it? Is it that the information came from a Russian national? ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2017, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-and-would-trump-sr-pardon-trump-jr/791001/432 "2017-07-18T06:49:14Z")
> [@Ann\_Hedonia](#): > > I can’t decide if that was an interesting turn of phrase or an auto-correct fail. It was intentional. I’ve seen "“penis ensues” in other posts and memes, though not necessarily from that poster. > [@Okrahoma](#): > > There WAS no information. So there was no “up and up”. What posters in this thread are talking about is the presumption that the supposed information that \*\*Russians \*\*were dangling - about **Russians** sending money to DNC and Hillary - was “stolen”. > > That presumption would be ludicrous. \*\*Russians \*\*don’t need to steal info from DNC or Hillary about \*\*Russians \*\*sending them money. Again, while I’m content to let this all play out before finalizing my opinion, it’s not that this info was legally or illegally obtained, or even had anything of substance at all. Trump[sup]2[/sup] was under the impression that he was getting damaging info on the Clintons. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2017, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-and-would-trump-sr-pardon-trump-jr/791001/433 "2017-07-18T06:58:04Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Is there any evidence that any of the emails were invented / faked / modified in any way? The handful I checked were authentic, and I know other people checked some and authenticated them, and I never saw any evidence than any of them were faked. Do you have any evidence to support the “interspersed with some invented ones” claim? This was a thing a while ago: [Russian ‘Fancy Bear’ Hackers Tainted Their Huge Leaks With Fake Data](https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2017/05/26/russian-dnc-hackers-planted-leaks-with-fake-data/#14e57eb252ff) I can’t really quote that, you’ll need to read it. It’s not very long. [All Signs Point to Russia Being Behind the DNC Hack](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/4xa5g9/all-signs-point-to-russia-being-behind-the-dnc-hack) > [@](#): > > The metadata in the leaked documents are perhaps most revealing: one dumped document was modified using Russian language settings, by a user named “Феликс Эдмундович,” a code name referring to the founder of the Soviet Secret Police, the Cheka, memorialised in a 15-ton iron statue in front of the old KGB headquarters during Soviet times. The original intruders made other errors: one leaked document included hyperlink error messages in Cyrillic, the result of editing the file on a computer with Russian language settings. After this mistake became public, the intruders removed the Cyrillic information from the metadata in the next dump and carefully used made-up user names from different world regions, thereby confirming they had made a mistake in the first round. Neither article states in exactly what way data was modified, though. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2017, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-and-would-trump-sr-pardon-trump-jr/791001/434 "2017-07-18T09:01:28Z")
Oops, I missed a crucial part from the second article in my previous post: > [@](#): > > The metadata show that the Russian operators apparently edited some documents, and in some cases created new documents after the intruders were already expunged from the DNC network on June 11. A file called donors.xls, for instance, was created more than a day after the story came out, on June 15, most likely by copy-pasting an existing list into a clean document. Although so far the actual content of the leaked documents appears not to have been tampered with, manipulation would fit an established pattern of operational behaviour in other contexts, such as troll farms or planting fake media stories. Subtle (or not so subtle) manipulation of content may be in the interest of the adversary in the future. Documents that were leaked by or through an intelligence operation should be handled with great care, and journalists should not simply treat them as reliable sources. ---
**Author:** ![Okrahoma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90db22/32.png) [@Okrahoma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Okrahoma)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2017, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-and-would-trump-sr-pardon-trump-jr/791001/435 "2017-07-18T14:37:10Z")
> [@Johnny\_Ace](#): > > Oops, I missed a crucial part from the second article in my previous post: So the “crucial part” is that “so far the actual content of the leaked documents appears not to have been tampered with”? ---
**Author:** ![Thing\_Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2017, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-and-would-trump-sr-pardon-trump-jr/791001/436 "2017-07-18T17:24:04Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > I haven’t read this whole thread, so if this has already been answered, I apologize. > > What precisely was illegal about it? Is it that the information came from a Russian national? No, it is that the information was offered by someone whom any reasonable person would strongly suspect to be an agent of the Russian government operating clandestinely. Indeed, the meeting was explicitly framed as being connected to ongoing Russian efforts to subvert the electoral process, and Trump Jr apparently was neither surprised nor upset by the reference to these efforts. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2017, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-and-would-trump-sr-pardon-trump-jr/791001/437 "2017-07-18T17:26:03Z")
> [@Okrahoma](#): > > So the “crucial part” is that “so far the actual content of the leaked documents appears not to have been tampered with”? > [@](#): > > **Documents that were leaked by or through an intelligence operation should be handled with great care, and journalists should not simply treat them as reliable sources.** You probably already knew that ‘appears not to have been’ doesn’t mean ‘was not.’ Interesting to see your comprehension filter in action, though. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2017, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-and-would-trump-sr-pardon-trump-jr/791001/438 "2017-07-18T18:22:33Z")
> [@Thing\_Fish](#): > > > [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > > > I haven’t read this whole thread, so if this has already been answered, I apologize. > > > > What precisely was illegal about it? Is it that the information came from a Russian national? > > No, it is that the information was offered by someone whom any reasonable person would strongly suspect to be an agent of the Russian government operating clandestinely. Indeed, the meeting was explicitly framed as being connected to ongoing Russian efforts to subvert the electoral process, and Trump Jr apparently was neither surprised nor upset by the reference to these efforts. How is that illegal? What law does that violate? ---
**Author:** ![Thing\_Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2017, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-and-would-trump-sr-pardon-trump-jr/791001/439 "2017-07-18T18:32:15Z")
I can’t imagine that it doesn’t violate numerous espionage laws, but IANAL. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2017, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-and-would-trump-sr-pardon-trump-jr/791001/440 "2017-07-18T18:34:08Z")
After all, who says they were trying to “subvert” our electoral processes? Perhaps they were just eager to participate, and their unabashed enthusiasm sort of carried them away, into actions that were not entirely appropriate! Lefties are all about citizenship privileges for non-citizens, except when it comes to Russians! Too white, maybe? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-and-would-trump-sr-pardon-trump-jr/791001.md?page=21) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-and-would-trump-sr-pardon-trump-jr/791001.md?page=23)