From the article:
Daily Comment
The Department of Justice Thinks That Collusion Is a Crime
By
Jeffrey Toobin
April 4, 2018
The special counsel in the Russia investigation, Robert Mueller, now has the authority, and the legal theory, to bring criminal charges for collusion.
Photograph by Tin Shen / Xinhua / eyevine / Redux
Is collusion a crime? That is one of the central questions of the investigation into Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. elections. Even if it could be proved that
Donald Trump and his supporters worked with the Russian government, or with Russian citizens, to win the Presidential race, would that activity have violated United States law? It’s long been an article of faith for Trump supporters, and for Trump himself, that collusion is not illegal. As the President
told the Times in an interview last December, “There is no collusion, and even if there was, it’s not a crime.”
Now, it appears, Trump’s own Justice Department may have a different view. That conclusion appears in a document released earlier this week, in the course of pre-trial litigation in the case of
Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman, on charges including money laundering. Lawyers for Manafort, who has pleaded not guilty to the charges, asked that they be dismissed on the grounds that
Robert Mueller, the special counsel, did not have the right to bring them; Manafort’s lawyers assert that the case—which centers on work that Manafort did for the pro-Russia government of Ukraine—was outside Mueller’s jurisdiction.
In response to this claim, Mueller filed a brief that laid out the basis for him to bring the case. As described in the brief, after Mueller was appointed, in May of last year, he asked Rod Rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney General and Mueller’s supervisor, for specific authorization for the areas that he wanted to investigate. In a memorandum issued on August 2nd, Rosenstein spelled out the details of Mueller’s jurisdiction. He said that Mueller had the authority to investigate:
Allegations that Paul Manafort:
Committed a crime or crimes by colluding with Russian government officials with respect to the Russian government’s efforts to interfere with the 2016 election for President of the United States, in violation of United States law;