Could and would Trump Sr. pardon Trump Jr.

Neither of your examples were what they were accused off, here or elsewhere. Do you actually have no recollection at all of any of the news stories concerning why the Russians were accused of interfering with U.S. elections? You’re acting as if this is the first time you’ve heard these accusations.

May 19 and June 11.
Not exactly current, are they?

But the issue being discussed here is what transpired between DT Jr and the Russian lawyer. Not all those things that are in the press of what the Russians did. We’re trying to decide if what DT Jr did in this specific instance was against the law or not. We’re talking about how statutes would be interpreted wrt the meeting DT Jr had. That i

Sorry, but no. He responded directly to this question:

What do you mean by “exhausted all his appeals”? Isn’t new evidence coming to light grounds for an appeal, regardless of how many appeals there have already been?

You’re only looking at the tip of the iceberg. Go back and see the chain of discussion*. Oddly enough, it’s about what this thread is about-- the meeting DT Jr had. If, in fact, JA is attempting to broaden that discussion, then Bricker is absolutely correct to ask for a clarification because it’s not at all obvious that that is where the conversation is going.

*You really only have to look at Bricker’s post, which JA was responding to, and you’ll see the context was the discussion about the DT JR meeting (i.e., how does one define a “thing of value”).

You go by what you think this thread should only be about, and I’ll go by what seems to be a direct response to a question that broadened the scope just a bit.
Now if Bricker wants to come back and say that, although he quoted Johnny Ace’s post directly, he wasn’t posting in response then that’s another thing entirely.

Technically, yeah, I would say so, on the part of the campaign, if given just the info in and implied by your post. I mean, the campaign is in fact talking to a foreign national (if this particular Miss Slovakia is not a US Citizen, anyway) who is offering them something of value, by taking that information of value of criminal activity, they are obstructing justice, which if they happen to be a person with a duty to report (not inevitable, but more likely given that campaign staffers are often high ranking individuals in other ways.) could give rise to misprision, and then, holding onto that information makes it very easy for you to find yourself in a position of blackmailing your opponent(If you tell them the info you’ve got them, or they find out, then any deal they may make to prevent you from releasing it puts you in the position of being an extortionist.

Fortunately, forestalling any attempts at claims of hypocrisy, the Clinton meeting was not anything like that, in that this particular Miss Slovakia was in fact a US citizen and her story was already public.

If something happened that is more like how you spelled out your hypothetical, the appropriate thing for the staffer to do would be to send them to the relevant authorities or the press. Holding onto that sort of information for themselves would only put them in an untenable position.

I am not sure how a campaign thinks that they would be using the info more effectively than the law enforcement, or at least the press would. Pretty much the only thing that the campaign could do that the others wouldn’t would be to hold onto it to release at a strategic time, which can be problematic, especially as the info is passed around in the campaign, it is more and more likely to end up in the hands of someone who does have a duty to report, and may find themselves in a tough position.

I would think that in the general course of things, you can chat with a foreigner about any subject you could chat with a US citizen about. But, there are a few caveats in that. First is that you are part of a campaign, and campaigns do have quite a few rules and laws that candidates and their staff are supposed to follow, so there are things that I, as a private citizen unaffiliated with any political entities can chat about that someone a staffer for a campaign may not be able to. Also, when you say “excluding classified information”, are you also saying “excluding conspiracy to commit a crime”? because that is actually something that one US citizen is not supposed to chat with another US citizen about, and so it would stand to reason that you shouldn’t chat with a foreigner about conspiring to commit crimes either.

But is he saying that you do not then need to disclose those conversations when applying for a security clearance?

I give up. People typically only quote the last post in the discussion, but it’s generally understood that the discussion is continuing along the lines that it was unless otherwise noted. If you insist on quoting things out of context, then I guess we are going to come to different conclusions.

Feel free to have the last word on this little hijack if you feel you need to.

Banana.

Heh. I’ll split the difference with you.

At any rate, “Russian attempts to interfere with the election” could easily span the entire gamut of what Bricker was offering as examples. He would be a fool to offer a simple yes or no to that question without trying to figure out what, specifically the poster was asking about. And if the poster doesn’t like those examples, he can reply with some of his own.

Neither of my examples was intended to replicate the current situation, but merely to illustrate that “interfere,” is not a word that appears in any law in play here and cannot be used to determine if First Amendment rights are in play or not.

Correct. Some types of “interfere with the election,” are clearly protected First Amendment conduct, and some are not. What specifically Johnny Ace means by “interfere” is necessary before I can meaningfully answer his question, “Are you now contending that Russian attempts to interfere in the election are protected free speech?”

A Russian lawyer who says, “I know about some criminal activity from Clinton - do you you want to hear it?” is protected by the First Amendment. And a Trump staffer that replies, “Yes, I’d love to,” is also protected by the First Amendment. I explained this reasoning above, with citation to case law.

But “interfere” is a broad term that may encompass other activity that’s also been in the news, and some of that activity is NOT protected by the First Amendment.

So it was both necessary and prudent to clarify what “interfere” meant.

If the Clinton campaign heard that Trump’s Mar-Lago resort was hiring undocumented workers, and sent a staffer down to interview those workers, and they revealed they were not US citizens, and were being paid under the table, and the campaign publicized that, you believe this would violate the law? (As an aside: as a personal favor, please learn the elements of ‘obstruction of justice,’ before using that as an example.)

OK, the short reply is: no. If the law were interpreted in that way, it would run afoul of the First Amendment. It’s very difficult for a law to criminalize exchanging information about items of political interest. Those kinds of exchanges are where the First Amendment is at its absolute strongest.

You may think it’s ‘untenable,’ but the fact is that the First Amendment protects its use. Even classified information can be disseminated by the press without prior restraint. Consider the holding in New York Times Co. v. United States (1971) for a good discussion of this reach.

Specifically, a Russian attorney with information which is represented as being from the Russian government, and meant to damage the Clinton campaign, going to the Trump campaign.

Trump supporters are using the Clinton campaign case to say “See, they do it, too!” Are the two cases the same, in your view?

Question:

What is the actual mechanism for rejecting a pardon? Does the convicted have to sign an affidavit? Are there witnesses? Are they impartial?

The answer is: yes, that conduct would, in my view, be clearly protected by the First Amendment.

The two cases are different in one key respect: Machado was an American citizen when she worked with the Clinton campaign. That takes her out of the reach of the law as written.

However, imagine, for purposes of analysis, that Machado was still solely a Venezuelan citizen. She’d then fall into the reach of the law, but the law’s application to her would violate the First Amendment.

There’s another distinction: Machado was representing only herself; the Russian purported to represent the interests of the Russian government. But that’s not relevant for the law, which forbids both foreign nationals on their own behalf and foreign nationals representing foreign governments from contributing “things of value.” So the fact that one is advancing her own interests and the other is advancing her government’s interests is not a distinction reflected in the law.

Generally, the recipient must manifest his acceptance of the pardon by using it somehow. For example, if he raises the existence of the pardon as a defense against prosecution, or as evidence he is eligible for restoration of his voting rights, or if he uses it to effect his release from confinement, he has accepted it.

Really? There isn’t just some paperwork to sign to put the pardon into effect? So if a guy gets offered a pardon, does nothing about it for ten years but then decides he wants to vote or own a gun, the pardon only comes into effect when he tries to register or apply for a permit? Could a pardon be rescinded in the interim?

Yup. Assuming he’s out of confinement, then he can sit on the pardon without explicitly accepting it until he needs it.