Trump Tower meeting: Why Mueller didn't prosecute Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner and others
As the highly anticipated Mueller Report was released, we gained some insight as to why the Special Counsel’s team declined to prosecute Donald Trump Jr.
Mr Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort and others had participated in the infamous Trump Tower meeting in June of 2016 where a Russian lawyer claimed they had dirt on the Clinton campaign, “some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father.”
Mr. Trump Jr was offered “very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr Trump,” to which he replied, “if it’s what you say I love it.”
President Trump claimed to not know of the meeting, although his former lawyer Michael Cohen has said differently. Hope Hicks, then communications director, and Jared Kushner were instructed to mislead the public regarding the meeting.
The group was not charged as there was no proof that they “willfully” violated the law.
The report says “Taking into account the high burden to establish a culpable mental state in a campaign-finance prosecution and the difficulty in establishing the required valuation, the office decided not to pursue criminal campaign-finance charges against Trump Jr. or other campaign officials for the events culminating in the June 9 meeting.”
The Special Counsel’s team explained “The office ultimately concluded that, even if the principal legal questions were resolved favourably to the government, a prosecution would encounter difficulties proving that campaign officials or individuals connected to the campaign willfully violated the law.”
