NOTE: Today's Assange news reveals *impeachable conduct*.
Trump—in possession of the best intel in the world establishing Russian election interference—offered a criminal, via an intermediary, an official act in exchange for fabricated evidence that would help Trump politically.
Trump—in possession of the best intel in the world establishing Russian election interference—offered a criminal, via an intermediary, an official act in exchange for fabricated evidence that would help Trump politically.
PS/ Worse, because U.S. intelligence/law enforcement had established WikiLeaks as a Kremlin-agent entity, today's news *also* establishes that Trump secretly conspired to defraud the U.S. with a geopolitical enemy of America, which takes us *close* to—but not *quite* to—treason.
PS2/ The only reason Trump's actions do *not* constitute treason is that the war America is at with Russia—with Trump's full knowledge—is a "hot" cyberwar, not a "hot" conventional war. If our treason statute had been updated to include cyberwar, this would be considered treason.
PS3/ Stone's trial *just* established *many* conspiratorial contacts between Stone and Trump, Manafort, Gates, Kushner, and other members of the Trump campaign—under circumstances in which these campaign members believed (maybe accurately) that Stone was a WikiLeaks intermediary.
PS4/ The picture presented is of a clear Trump conspiracy with a known Kremlin cutout both before and after the 2016 election, and an attempt to cover up the conspiracy by aiding/abetting the production of fraudulent evidence—that would hurt America—in a "hot" US-Russia cyberwar.
PS5/ Moreover, it is clear that the coverup continues even today. Trump is lying about how well he knows Rohrabacher, when he has met with him, which advisers of his were in contact with Rohrabacher as he engaged in his efforts, and much more. This is an *ongoing* federal felony.
CLARIFICATION/ Happy to clarify my use of the word "criminal" in this (pre-trial) context. I am using that term to establish Trump's mens rea, not as a matter of what Assange did or did not do (which has not yet been tried in a court of law). See below for more information:
PS6/ Needless to say, this also puts Trump's interference in the Stone case and his floating of a possible pardon in a new light. This changes *everything* about how we must view the Stone trial and its aftermath, as well as the information about WikiLeaks in the Mueller Report.
