The Trump Campaign Conspired With the Russians. Mueller proved it.

Jed Handelsman Shugerman (@jedshug) is a law professor at Fordham. He is a co-author on amicus briefs challenging President Trump's Emoluments Clause violations and his appointment of Matthew Whitaker as attorney general.

In his first letter after receiving the Mueller report, Attorney General William Barr accurately quoted it as saying that “the investigation did not establish” that the Trump campaign “conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”

But the opposite is also true: The Mueller report does establish that, in fact, members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.

How is this possible? It’s the difference between the report’s criminal prosecution standard of proof “beyond a reasonable doubt” and a lower standard — the preponderance standard of “more likely than not” — relevant for counterintelligence and general parlance about facts, and closer to the proper standard for impeachment.

There is confusion about the Mueller report’s fact-finding because he used the wrong coordination standard, obstruction probably obscured the evidence of crimes, and the summary was unclear about evidentiary standards. The report’s very high standard for legal conclusions for criminal charges was explicitly proof “beyond a reasonable doubt.” So the report did not establish crimes beyond a reasonable doubt. But it did show a preponderance of conspiracy and coordination.

[link:https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/opinion/mueller-trump-campaign-russia-conpiracy-.html|