Thread by @SethAbramson

(🆚) BREAKING NEWS: New Trump Fundraising Push May Violate Federal Law By Strongly Implying Trump Is the Nation's Real President

This is *serious*. These texts and this survey are part of Trump's insurrection. DOJ must send a cease-and-desist letter ASAP. sethabramson.substack.com/p/breaking-new…

1/ One thing I found in writing three bestselling nonfiction books about Donald Trump is that he has a series of methods for violating state and federal laws without getting caught—none of which are *actually* prophylactics against prosecution, they've just functioned that way.

2/ For instance, Trump has his accountants and lawyers commit crimes for him. He shares lawyers with criminals he wants to do business with. He has his lawyers represent and enter defense agreements with anyone who could hurt him. He dangles incentives to witnesses to stay quiet.

3/ He says things so preposterous that no one could think he believes them except the people he wants to act on what he's said. He avoids using email. He uses family members to commit crimes, as he believes they won't betray him. He seeks out already-compromised people as allies.

4/ The list goes on and on. But there's something else Trump does that I never saw a criminal knowingly do across the nearly a decade I represented more than 2,000 accused criminals in three jurisdictions: he commits crimes "in the aggregate," a very confusing and rare concept.

5/ That is, Trump commits a very large number of actions that each could *arguably* be said to be "on the line" of illegality. Now, to be clear, most of these actions *are* criminal. But in a system where prosecutors generally fear investigating the rich, powerful, and famous...

6/ ...Trump creates an incentive for prosecutors to look at *each act separately* and say, "Well, Trump *could* argue in court that..." and thereafter decide that they're not *sure* they could prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt, which technically means they can't indict.

7/ Of course, the law doesn't work this way for you or me. It doesn't work this way for anyone who isn't rich, powerful, and famous. For the rest of us, prosecutors consider the *totality* of the actions of a suspect because that's generally how criminal intent is proven, anyway.

8/ It's *defense* attorneys—as I was for years—who are trained to break a case into pieces and attack each piece individually. When a *prosecutor* starts doing this as an excuse not to prosecute? Well, you can be certain that the defendant is rich, famous, powerful, or all three.

9/ So, what does this have to do with my pinned tweet? Well, Trump has found *so many different ways* to violate 18 U.S. Code § 912—which prohibits any person from pretending to be a government official—that a prosecutor scared to prosecute him can explain away (falsely) any one.

10/ But the totality of Trump's actions demonstrates a clear intent to cumulatively—in the aggregate—violate 18 U.S. Code § 912. Essentially, Trump's "scheme" requires repeated small actions, not a single camera-ready "aha!" moment. It's how Trump commits nearly *all* his crimes.

11/ That's why Mueller found a dozen acts of Obstruction by Trump. Why—non-defense lawyers might ask—not just one? Why didn't Trump just make clear *who* he wanted to do *what* in a single statement on a single day? Because Trump's crimes are schemes with small, repeated actions.

12/ Trump kept going back to Comey, McGahn, Manafort and others he wanted to obstruct or tamper with, hoping each time his actions would fall below the threshold for a crime—as no prosecutor would want to put the full picture together. Takes too long and too professionally risky.

13/ Of course it's juries that decide criminal cases—not prosecutors. And is there even one American who doubts that Trump is doing everything he can to appear to be the "legitimate" President of the United States? Does anyone doubt that he's fundraising off this misapprehension?

14/ Here's the relevant federal statute:

15/ In my pinned PROOF article, I also "pre-address" the problem with Legal Twitter that this sort of crime produces—attorneys who value being right over fulfilling their Oath, so they determine what *will* happen and then pretend that it's what *should* happen. In other words...

CONCLUSION/ ...they deduce that, for political reasons, Trump won't be investigated—they may be right—so they fail to demand the law be followed or *even* what I call for here: a cease-and-desist letter from federal authorities. Ignoring Trump's crimes makes him *more* dangerous.