Professor Jed Shugerman discusses on PBS NewsHour whether Donald Trump Jr broke the law by meeting Russian lawyer.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Jed Shugerman, it is the case that the e-mail to Donald Trump Jr. said the Russian government wants to help your campaign.
JED SHUGERMAN: All of this is indicative or suggestive of what we might find out later.
I think if we carefully read the e-mails, I think it’s hard to make the leap that this is like a coordination. There’s indications there. I understand where Bob Bauer is coming from.
So, I think we have to be careful, though, because if you read the e-mail from a little bit of perspective of how could this be applied in the future and can we have line-drawing here, it’s hard to see where this e-mail doesn’t lead to some effect of applying this to any kind of contact between a government …
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JED SHUGERMAN: Well, the word collusion is more of a political word than a legal word. There is no statute against collusion.
And — but I think the word we might turn to in the law is conspiracy. This is where we’re headed. I think there is a lot of other information that is coming out day by day that points to this conspiracy.
And we may have conspiracy. I think what we’re getting closer towards is a violation of 1986 law of computer hacking, because I think, if you look at the timing, there are just too many coincidences about what the Trump campaign was doing before and after this June 3 e-mail about President Trump himself.
I just — my point here is, I think we need to be careful in analyzing each step.
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JED SHUGERMAN: I think there is evidence that’s pointing towards crimes, but I think we need to be careful when we make interpretations of these statutes.