Monday June 19, 2023; 10:18 AM EDT
- Has a U. S. President participated in a conspiracy? In the National Archive's docid-70106088.pdf, dated July 28, 1974, one Congressional investigator during the Watergate crisis described what legal precedents currently said about that question: #
- Under the case law, very little evidence is required to establish that the President joined an ongoing conspiracy . . .#
- One who learns of and then associates himself with an ongoing criminal conspiracy by casting in his lot with the conspirators -- especially where he himself has a "stake in the venture" -- becomes a member of the conspiracy under existing case law. "Once the existence of a conspiracy is established, slight evidence may be sufficient to connect a defendant with it." . . .#
- One does not become a member of a conspiracy simply on account of receiving information about its nature and scope -- something more is required. The "something more" is generally described as having "a stake in the success of the venture." . . .#
- The individual "must in some sense promote [the] venture himself, make it his own, have a stake in its outcome." . . .#
- Although one member of the conspiracy must commit an overt act, it is not necessary that every conspirator whose participation is at issue have done so. . . .#
- In other words, there must be evidence to show that the individual whose membership in the conspiracy is alleged learned of the existence of the conspiracy and thereafter, possessing some commonality of interest in some of the goals of the conspiracy, took action sufficient to show that he had "cast in his lot" with the conspirators to help further their conspiratorial aims. [from pages 8-9 of the pdf that goes on to offer a detailed timeline of events that the Watergate investigation had uncovered]#
- Reading this, I found myself remembering the televised January 6 hearings. At one point, a woman working in Trump's White House described the unfolding battle on the grounds of the Congress. She said she conferred with another staffer, possibly himself a lawyer, possibly someone who may have refreshed his memory of conspiracy law in the weeks before that day, who knows. Anyway, her colleague said that she must in no case go down to Congress. Sure, it was not safe to be there, but going there might also very easily be taken as joining in, as casting one's lot with the conspiracy. No matter why a person would go there that afternoon, even if her boss said to go, it could easily look like participating in the conspiracy, under the terms of law described above. One person who dearly wanted to be there that day, apparently, was Donald Trump.#
- National Archives Watergate materials page here.#