violation of federal criminal law. he wasn t sure he could prove criminal intent in the russia investigation. now everyone is on notice that it s illegal. it looks like trump s defense is going to be, well, i was asking just that they take a look at corruption and investigate corruption and, by that, he doesn t mean he will say his own political concerns. he means corruption that was going on in the ukraine. for the campaign finance violation, there does have to be a quid pro quo, but if there is, it makes it look even sleazier because then it s an obvious shakedown. and for that, these text messages are super incriminating evidence because not only do we have the ambassador saying, as i said to you on the telephone, it s crazy that we re holding up military aid in exchange for you helping out donald trump with his campaign. as i said to you on the
much easier in a bank robbery than tax fraud. second, they talk about the difficulty of establishing that the information that was to be passed at the trump tower meeting was, quote unquote, a thing of value. without getting into the legal weeds here, there is a lot of thought and a lot of consideration given to whether what happened at the trump tower meeting is a violation of federal criminal law. my reading is that it is. but i understand why the mueller team was being careful and folks who want to see their reasoning can start at page 184, read three, four, five pages and you ll see what they re getting at. chuck, one follow-up to what jennifer said. if you were making this case again on the re-election campaign, there would be no issue of ignorance of the law that could possibly survive and it would seem to me it would be much easier to clear the intent threshold especially after you heard the president tonight.
the information that was to be passed at the trump tower meeting was, quote unquote, a thing of value. without getting into the legal weeds here, there is a lot of thought and a lot of consideration given to whether what happened at the trump tower meeting is a violation of federal criminal law. my reading is that it is. but i understand why the mueller team was being careful and folks who want to see their reasoning can start at page 184, read three, four, five pages and you ll see what they re getting at. chuck, one follow-up to what jennifer said. if you were making this case again on the re-election campaign, there would be no issue of ignorance of the law that could possibly survive and it would seem to me it would be much easier to clear the intent threshold especially after you heard the president tonight. yeah, i think that the president probably took care of the willfulness element for everybody tonight.
lied repeatedly about it, publicly, he got his own attorney to come on television and either lie about it knowingly or accidentally and it s sleazy that sarah sanders he seems to have lied to sarah sanders about it alan, let me talk. you don t have to talk all the time. let jeff talk for a second. it is undoubtedly true that sleaziness is not a violation of federal criminal law. sleaziness is in the eye of the beholder and i don t think there s any doubt that there was sleazy behavior here. but it is misleading to say that federal campaign laws are so complicated that you can t know what they are. the whole reason why they paid this money in the convoluted way was to avoid was to break the law, because they knew how bad it would look. so, it is not a terribly complicated story. it is a willful violation of the law. i got to wrap it there.
to it s not a crime to lie. okay, i m just saying it s not that easy. the president of the united states i m talking now. and i m saying it s really sleazy. it is sleazy that michael cohen lied repeatedly about it, publicly, that he got his own attorney to come on television and either lie about it knowingly or accidentally and he seemed to lie to sarah sanders about it. allen, let me talk. you don t have to talk all the time. let jeff talk for a second. allen, there is it is undoubtedly true that sleaziness is not a violation of federal criminal law. sleaziness is in the eye of the beholder. i don t think there is any doubt that there was sleazy behavior here. but it is misleading to say that federal campaign laws are so complicated that you can t know what they are. the whole reason why they paid this money in this convoluted