timelets | (no subject)

Elements of Bribery

In order to find the president guilty of the crime of bribery, the House must prove each of the following elements:

First, that the president, on or about July 25, 2019, demanded, sought or received something of value;

Second, that at that time the president was then a public official; and

Third, that the president did so with the corrupt intent to be influenced in the performance of an official act.

The bribery law makes no distinction between demanding, seeking or receiving a bribe; the mere seeking of a bribe is just as much a violation of the statute as the actual receiving of one.

The thing of value may be tangible property, intangible property, or services, of any dollar value, so long as it has value.

Corrupt intent means simply having an improper motive or purpose. The president must have demanded, sought or received a thing of value with the deliberate purpose of being influenced in the performance of his official duties. This involves conscious wrongdoing, or as it has sometimes been expressed, a bad or evil state of mind.

An official act means any decision or action on any question or matter that may at any time be pending or that may by law be brought before any public official in his official capacity or in his place of trust.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/some-relevant-points-law-impeachment

At first, I struggled to understand the meaning of "being influenced." It turns out, in case law the phrase means that actions of a government official depend on receiving something of private value. https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-4th-circuit/1207254.html

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Так он никакой не public official, он просто имперсонатор, прикидывающийся президентом :-)

I think this would make an excellent defense ;-)

Yes. We live inside the greatest practical joke ever! Уже сейчас в судебных разбирательствах министерство юстиции официально утверждает, что президент понятия не имеет, о чем говорит или пишет.

да, готовятся к insanity defense (он, ведь, рано или поздно перестанет быть президентом, несмотря не его разговоры о том, что хорошо бы отменить ограничение "двух сроков", и тогда ему придётся иметь дело с ворохом федеральных и штатных уголовных дел против него; и будут утверждать, что он безумен и не дееспособен (что, в общем, правда), а что не активировали 25-ую поправку, так это не его вина, а тех, кто вокруг него (что тоже правда))...

Если его не переизберут на второй срок, то, я думаю, Пенс его помилует в последний день. Одно из основных открытий президенства Трампа стал факт, что президент превыше закона.

Bribery, о которой говорится в Конституции, совсем не то же самое, что взятки в уголовном кодексе. Об этом много написано.

As members of Congress conduct impeachment proceedings and—if the facts warrant—draft articles of impeachment, they should view bribery as the Framers did. The offense of bribery, in the Framers’ view, did not require meeting the narrow, specific elements established by a judicial gloss on a federal statute that would not be articulated for centuries to come. Instead, the Founding generation understood bribery broadly, as covering the corrupt abuse of power to obtain personal benefit. There is little doubt that Trump’s conduct falls within the scope of the constitutional definition. Indeed, Trump’s attempts to use his immense foreign policy power for personal and political gain rather than the public good is a realization of the Framers’ worst fears and the very definition of impeachable bribery.
https://www.lawfareblog.com/constitution-says-bribery-impeachable-what-does-mean

Sure, but satisfying criteria for criminal bribery makes the case stronger. It tells us that the president is essentially a criminal, not just a breaker of the oath of office.

We already know he is a criminal (an unindicted co-conspirator in Michael Cohen's case and an unindicted obstructionist in Mueller's report).

The bar for "high crimes and misdemeanors" in the Constitution refers to the abuse of power available only to the president and should not be trivialized as a crime that many other people might commit. Lowering the bar in Bill Clinton's case set a bad precedent.

Good point. Thanks.