Target Trump

Let's talk about Rolling Stone, and now ABC, CNN and NBC's confirmation that the three statutes mentioned in donald trump's target letter from Special Counsel for 1/6 include:

Witness Tampering
Conspiracy to Defraud the US
and Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law

First, the Conspiracy to Defraud is straightforward and is charged under Title 18 USC § 371. We've been expecting that charge. It was referred by the 1/6 committee to DoJ.

[...]

Next, because they're using the words and not the numbers, Rolling Stone says "witness tampering". [...] Witness tampering is 1512, but the charges in the documents case were 1512(k), 1512(b)(2)(a), and 1512(c)(1).

I think we can safely assume for the target letter, Rolling Stone meant 1512(c)(2), Obstructing an Official Proceeding - the other statute Judge Carter used to pierce attorney client privilege, and the statute the 1/6 committee referred to DOJ. [...] Liz Cheney started using language from the statue back in 2021, and it's what many 1/6 rioters have been charged with. It carries a 20 year max sentence and it's a very serious crime.

But what's the deal with 242? That's a statute used a lot in police use of force cases like the Breonna Taylor case.

[...]

Section 242 of Title 18 makes it a crime for a person acting under color of any law to willfully deprive a person of a right or privilege protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States.

Further, the phrase "color of law" refers to the appearance of legal authority or an apparently legal right that may not exist. The term is often used to describe the abuse of power under the guise of state authority, and is therefore illegal.

[...]

[P]erhaps a 242 charge here could be about donald depriving a person of a constitutional right or privilege (depriving the people of the peaceful transfer of power - or maybe depriving Pence of his duties under the 12th amendment - or perhaps depriving people of their votes) by attempting to authorize the attack on the Capitol using a legal right that didn't exist.

[...]

It's a long way around, but to use an authority he didn't have to delay or impede the peaceful transfer of power "under the color of law" would violate this statute.

[...]

[T]here have been no other target letters reported in this matter. I have consulted experts and it seems that this is relatively common in mafia type cases when you want all the lieutenants to think the other lieutenants might be cooperating.

  Mueller, She Wrote

Certainly Trump tried to run the country like he runs everything - like a mob boss.

Federal prosecutors have introduced a new twist in the Jan. 6 investigation by suggesting in a target letter that they could charge former President Donald J. Trump with violating a civil rights statute that dates back to the post-Civil War Reconstruction era.

[...]

[T]he third criminal law cited in the letter was a surprise: Section 241 of Title 18 of the United States Code, which makes it a crime for people to “conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person” in the “free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States.”

Congress enacted that statute after the Civil War to provide a tool for federal agents to go after Southern whites, including Ku Klux Klan members, who engaged in terrorism to prevent formerly enslaved African Americans from voting. But in the modern era, it has been used more broadly, including in cases of voting fraud conspiracies.

[...]

A series of 20th-century cases upheld application of the law in cases involving alleged tampering with ballot boxes by casting false votes or falsely tabulating votes after the election was over, even if no specific voter could be considered the victim.

In a 1950 opinion by the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, for example, Judge Charles C. Simons wrote of applying Section 241 in a ballot box-stuffing case that the right to an honest count “is a right possessed by each voting elector, and to the extent that the importance of his vote is nullified, wholly or in part, he has been injured in the free exercise of a right or privilege secured to him by the laws and Constitution of the United States.”

[...]

Mr. Smith and his team could be weighing using that law to cover efforts by Mr. Trump and his associates to flip the outcome of states he lost.

[...]

“It seems like under 241 there’s at least a right to an honest counting of the votes,” said Norman Eisen, who worked for the House Judiciary Committee during Mr. Trump’s first impeachment. “Submitting an alternate electoral certificate to Congress (as opposed to casting false votes or counting wrong) is a novel scenario, but it seems like it would violate this right.”

  NYT

Also in Trump trials...

UPDATE 07/24/2023:  Correction: The actual statute charged is not 242, it's 241.