MORE Orange May Be In Mr. Trump’s Future…

To All You PL Apologists for Donald Trump’s requests of the foreign powers, on the email leaks:

Let us not quibble henceforth:

No “hacking” need be shown. That is a canard.

Simply “correspondence or conversation” with a foreign power will suffice.

That’s three years in prison — under the Logan Act. 18 USC § 953 (1799):

“…Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both….”

Forget whether he was “joking” — or even if he was (preposterously!) asking to help the DoJ find the emails. He has no right to intervene — this is a matter for the discretion of our sitting President.

Under the Logan Act, since he is NOT a US legislator, he is PROHIBITED
from engaging with, or requesting anything from any Russian official to influence any US controversy, of any kind. Here, that would be those email productions/recoveries/retrieval or release(s). [WikiLeaks is no foreign government, so he is free to discuss it with Assange.]

That said, simply because we level headed Americans are magnanimous, and actually want to see him lose the election on his own, we are not likely to see him charged under the Logan Act.

But make no mistake, he could be wearing orange* (and not just his spray tan, and hair dye!) for at least three years, in a federal facility, while HRC serves as our duly-elected 45th President, if we decided we wanted to pin him down.

Here endeth the lesson.

[* Perhaps ORANGE is his natural hue, afterall.]