Renato Mariotti @renato_mariotti
THREAD: Why news that Mueller obtained a search warrant for Facebook content may be the biggest news in the case since the Manafort raid.
1/ Last night, the @WSJ reported that Mueller obtained info from Facebook via search warrant:
2/ The @WSJ talks about some of the info Mueller obtained (see below). Mueller could not obtain content of an account without a warrant.
3/ I was initially wary about discussing implications of this story because I worried @WSJ may have presumed a warrant that didn't exist.
4/ But @CNN has confirmed that Mueller obtained content via search warrant, including ads, acct details, targeting.
money.cnn.com/2017/09/15/media/facebook-mueller-ads/index.html
5/ That is huge news. It means that Mueller has concluded that specific foreign individuals committed a crime by making a "contribution"
6/ in connection with an election. It also means that he has evidence of that crime that convinced a federal magistrate judge of two things.
7/ First, that there was good reason to believe that the foreign individual committed the crime. Second, that evidence of the crime existed
8/ on Facebook. Why is that big news? Until now, Mueller's efforts to obtain information about Russian interference in the election could
9/ be seen as an effort to gain counterintelligence or to investigate a matter unlikely to result in charges. Now we know he believes that
10/ he's close to charging specific foreign people with a crime. Can he do that? Yes, if they committed a crime in the U.S.
11/ For example, my former boss indicted Osama Bin Laden for the first World Trade Center bombing.
12/ So what does this mean for Trump and his associates? This news also has large implications for them.
13/ It is a crime to know that a crime is taking place and to help it succeed. That's aiding and abetting. If any Trump associate knew about
14/ the foreign contributions that Mueller's search warrant focused on and helped that effort in a tangible way, they could be charged.
15/ In addition, anyone who agreed to be part of this effort in any way could be charged with criminal conspiracy. They wouldn't need to
16/ be involved in the whole operation or know everyone involved but they would have to agree to be part of some piece of it.
17/ One thing I should note is that this particular violation of the law preventing foreign contributions in connection with an election
18/ is far stronger than earlier speculation that Donald Trump Jr. violated the same law by accepting information from the Russian attorney.
19/ One hurdle is that to violate the statute criminally, you have to do so knowingly and willfully. Here, Mueller has evidence that the
20/ foreigner(s) had that intent, and it is far more difficult for an American to claim that he/she didn't know that a massive Russian
21/ influence operation was against the law than it would be to claim that about hearing talk at a meeting. Jurors would be inclined to
22/ convict anyone who was part of or aided a Russian effort to subvert our election.
23/ If I represented someone who was caught up in this part of the investigation, I'd be very worried. /end
ADDENDUM: In case you're curious, here's the statute I discuss in this thread: www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/52/30121