At best, it's criminal...

Obama and Bush ethics lawyers call Trump Jr.’s defense of Russia meeting ‘nonsense’

By DIAMOND NAGA

Former ethics lawyers for presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush both think Donald Trump Jr. broke the law when he met with a Russian lawyer to get purported damaging information on Hillary Clinton.

In an editorial penned Tuesday night in the New York Times, the two called Trump Jr.'s defense “nonsense” and said they would have called the FBI immediately in such a situation.

“As ethics lawyers, we have worked on political campaigns for decades and have never heard of an offer like this one,” wrote Norm Eisen and Richard Painter. Eisen is the chairman and Painter is the vice chairman of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics. “The promised Russian ‘documents and information’ would have been an illegal campaign contribution from a foreign government — and a priceless one.”

They said this meeting could tangle with conspiracy law, criminal violations and campaign finance laws among other legal liabilities.

Painter, who served for over two years in Bush’s administration, said on Tuesday that people should not collect information from Russia unless they “want to be accused of treason.” He also said such acts would not have been tolerated during the Bush presidency.

“We’d have one of them — if not both of them [Jared Kushner and Trump Jr.] — in custody right now, and we’d be asking them a lot of questions” Painter said. “This borders on treason if it is not itself treason.”

Painter additionally said that “you can accomplish a lot by way of damaging your own country, assisting an adversary and espionage” during the 10 minutes Trump Jr. met with the Kremlin-related lawyer.

Eisen, who served on Obama’s administration, has not yet made any public appearances regarding Trump Jr.’s actions, though Eisen has tweeted multiple times about the meeting since his piece was published.

“Actually, nothing burger turns out to be a whopper, in every sense of the word,” Eisen tweeted late Tuesday night and continued sending 180-character missives into Wednesday morning as more developments unfolded. “This is an ethics violation: use of public money & time to benefit a private individual. See5 CFR §2635.702 (Tho poss. Don Jr crimes worse!)”

Eisen also coauthored another editorial with white-collar crime lawyer Barry Berke, which was published on Wednesday in USA Today. Though in this piece, Eisen discusses the president’s Twitter habits, rather than his son’s undisclosed meetings.

Painter and Eisner concluded their piece by questioning President Donald Trump, due to his possible proximity to the unrecorded meeting and the nature of how close the three people involved — Kushner, Trump Jr. and consultant Paul Manafort — are to Trump.

“Evidence is accumulating, but we do not definitely know yet what crimes, if any, have been committed, or by whom,” the two said of the Trump-Russia investigation. “For that reason, it is not more critical than ever that the investigations by the special prosecutor and Congress be allowed to complete their course without White House or other interference.”