Stealing this illustration from Eugene Volokh:
Imagine that, in summer 2016, a top Hillary Clinton campaign staffer gets a message: “A Miss Universe contestant — Miss Slovakia — says that Donald Trump had sexually assaulted her. Would you like to get her story?” The staffer says, “I’d love to,” and indeed gets the information, which he then uses in the campaign.
Did the staffer and the Miss Universe contestant just commit a crime?
This information is not stolen.
You might need to add a little bit of detail to your hypothetical. It may not make a difference to the answer to your final question, but I think it’s important:
Imagine that, in summer 2016, a top Hillary Clinton campaign staffer gets a message:
"A Russian contact just called and asked me to contact you with something very interesting.
The Crown prosecutor of Russia met with his father this morning and in their meeting offered to provide the Clinton campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Trump and would be very useful to your candidate.
This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Ms. Clinton - helped along by my contacts.
Our contact has stolen some information that says that “A Miss Universe contestant — Miss Slovakia says that Donald Trump had sexually assaulted her. Would you like to get this stolen information?” The staffer says, “I’d love to,” and indeed gets the information by meeting surreptitiously, along with Bill Clinton, and Hillary’s campaign manager, which he then uses in the campaign.
He denies every having anything to do with any Russians, and his colleagues, who have also met with Russians, deny every having done so. These colleagues swear an oath that they have never met with Russians, but change their stories as details come out.
When confronted with the story, he first says he only met to discuss poor orphans. As more of the truth comes out, he releases the emails.
I know you didn’t. Hence my using “many” instead of making a blanket statement about all conservatives/republicans. I wasn’t trying to suggest otherwise.
If you would be so kind, would you please explain why the law concerning info being shared by a foreign government wouldn’t qualify as having value? I’m referring to the exchange you and I had upthread with the link to Cornell University.
And, if possible, could you explain it in layman’s terms?
Who says the non-existent information that the Russian lawyer was peddling was “stolen”?
The law forbidding foreigners contributing any “thing of value” to campaigns says nothing about information being stolen or not. So it is irrelevant to that law.
Where does the law in question make that distinction? In other words, why do you believe this is relevant?
Also please note that the DNC hack became public knowledge June 16th, 2016. Cite. Donald Jr’s mail exchange was June 3rd, 2016. Cite. I mention this only to point out there doesn’t seem to be a way to suggest he knew the material was the result of an illegal hack. But even if he did, where do you see that factor being an element of the law involved here?
Sure.
If that interpretation is correct, then I can give you lots of examples of things that the law would ban that are clearly protected by the First Amendment. That would make the law substantially overbroad, and constitutionally invalid as a result.
For example, remember Alicia Machado? She revealed to the Clinton campaign that Trump had called her “Miss Piggy,” and other names related to her weight. Mrs. Clinton used this information during the September 26th debate. An hour after the debate ended, her campaign tweeted a two-minute video they had compiled about Machado’s experience with Trump, in which she explains at lengths the various insults Trump subjected her to.
Machado is Venezuelan.
But I think it’s very clear that Machado had every right under the First Amendment to approach the Clinton campaign to share her story. (Bridges v. Wixon, (“freedom of speech and of press is accorded aliens residing in this country. . .”) The Clinton campaign had a First Amendment right to use the information as assistance in the campaign as they did, because Americans have a right to receive information from foreign sources (see Lamont v. Postmaster General).
Moreover, I think if anyone had suggested that Clinton’s use of Machado’s information was illegal because it was a “thing of value,” supplied by a foreigner, the reactions would have been swift and decisive rejecting such a theory.
If the Clinton campaign had learned that Mar-Lago was employing illegal aliens and had tried to verify this by speaking to one, that, too, would be protected First Amendment conduct.
So the reason that the interpretation you advance is not correct is: if it were, the law would encroach on protected First Amendment conduct.
ETA too late: In checking this, I see Machado became a US citizen in May 2016, so this illustration is not a good one in its specifics. But the general point remains.
Fair enough, and thanks for the explanation without excessive legal jargon. Is that actually settled case law, or just a likely interpretation?
And, in your hypothetical, is it significant that Machado isn’t an employee of the Venezuelan government, or connected to them? I would think (and, again, I’ll defer to you on this) that a private citizen approaching a party to give a personal anecdote is different from someone connected to a government approaching a party with information about a 3rd party.
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Why even bother having this conversation when it’s certain that this is not where this story ends?
Diversion from the hypothetical posed in the OP. Most indicative.
The two cases I cited are settled law, of course, and the principle of substantial overbreadth invalidating a law is also a settled principle.
There is no case that I can find directly construing the law under these circumstances. In other words, no one has ever attempted to prosecute this kind of conduct and made it stick through appeals.
The regulation here does not differentiate:
Or we can wait a week and revisit it with all the new information that will be out by then. Wanna put a timer on it?
The innocent do not get pardoned. The innocent do not need to be pardoned. So what say you, Trump?
When stuff is on the internet, it is there for everyone to see, police included. I’m not impeding their work by having someone give me the evidence in lieu of giving it to the police. So I’m comfortable lambasting someone based on things I see online, though I do take pains to make sure the sourcing is someone I trust. My doing so in no way hinders any official investigation.
If a victim comes to you and wants to tell a story, that is their choice. The staffer should hear them out, then encourage them to go to the authorities and the media with the same story.
That’s not what happened with Alicia Machado, though – is it?
That’s worth repeating – the acceptance of a pardon carries with it an implication of guilt. One cannot simultaneously accept a pardon and claim innocence.
Only because Hillary’s campaign was quite late to the party. She announced her plans to write a book exposing Donald as a sexual predator in July 2015. By the time Hillary brought it up in a debate, it was old news.
Wait, I’m actually curious about this; why is this necessarily true?
Let us suppose, for instance, that Jim is convicted of a murder he did not commit. It is revealed some years later - for fun, we’ll say it’s Season 15 of “To Make a Murderer” - that the prosecution was extremely wrongful, and Jim was framed by the police. However, he has exhausted his appeals. The evidence of the frame job explodes into the public sphere and there’s smoking guns all over the place, but with no appeals left and an intrasigent DA, Jim remains in prison. With an outraged public screaming for Jim’s release, the governor pardons him and he is released from prison to cheers.
Surely Jim has not admitted guilt by leaving his cell?
The governor in that case might instead commute the sentence, which may be done without the recipient’s consent (Biddle v. Perovich). But a pardon, to be effective, must be both granted and accepted:
Quoting Burdick v US.
Now, I suppose a given state may have a different rule; I’m sharing the federal one.