When does collusion become a crime?

As Special Counsel Robert Mueller has pursued his investigation into Moscow’s role in the 2016 US election, legal experts have debated what sort of contacts between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia may have violated US criminal law. US intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia used a scheme of hacking and propaganda to cause discord in the United States and harm Trump’s Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton. Mueller’s probe, with several Trump campaign figures already pleading guilty or being convicted, has documented numerous contacts between Russians and people close to the president.

Mueller, who has sought to determine whether Trump’s campaign coordinated with Moscow, is preparing to submit a report on his investigation to US Attorney General William Barr. Trump and Russia have denied collusion and Moscow has denied election interference.

Here is a look at potential crimes Mueller may examine relating to these contacts and other matters.

Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani in July 2018 said, “I have been sitting here looking in the federal code trying to find collusion as a crime. Collusion is not a crime.” Trump wrote on Twitter the next day, “Collusion is not a crime, but that doesn’t matter because there was No Collusion.” There indeed is no federal crime called “collusion.” But collusion is a non-legal way of saying conspiracy, which is one of the most commonly asserted crimes in US federal courts. Conspiracy is an agreement between two or more people to commit an unlawful act. A conspiracy does not need to have been successful, but the individuals must have taken some action to further it.

Because computer hacking is clearly a federal crime, any Trump campaign official who assented to and encouraged the hacking of Democratic National Committee computers in 2016 could be liable for the crime of conspiracy. US officials have said Russia hacked the Democratic computers to steal emails that were later released by the Wikileaks website to hurt Clinton.

“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Trump said during a June 2016 news conference, referring to Clinton emails. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

The federal conspiracy statute also prohibits agreements aimed at “impairing, obstructing, or defeating the lawful function of any department of government,” under a 1910 US Supreme Court precedent.

This notion of criminal liability, known as conspiracy to defraud the United States, was raised by Mueller in a February 2018 indictment of 13 Russian individuals and three Russian companies, including St Petersburgbased Internet Research Agency, known for its trolling on social media.

According to the special counsel, their “information warfare against the United States” impaired the functioning of the US Federal Election Commission and other government agencies.

Mueller in July 2018 also indicted 12 Russian intelligence officers accused of hacking the Democratic computers.

Campaign finance laws prohibit foreigners from influencing US elections, and presidential candidates cannot legally solicit campaign contributions from foreign nationals. Campaign contributions are defined broadly as anything of value intended to influence the election.

The hacked Democratic emails potentially could fall into that category, if Mueller finds coordination between the Russians and Trump’s campaign.