For the Record: Conspiracy to Defraud the Government

 

Donald Trump silver-plated playing cards. Spades are trumps. $11.89 from eBay.

Another dumb Xversation, this time with a very self-confident lawyer:

Emulated the supporters of Al Gore (including me) when they had exhausted every legal remedy in 2000, and agreed that the constitutional order was more important than my partisan interest. Of course if my side had lost over 60 lawsuits I'd start thinking I might be wrong.

— Yas We Can (@Yastreblyansky) August 4, 2023

That last bit is sophistry. None of the cases found there was any grounds for changing or attempting to change the outcome in any of the states.

I don't think the law really cares about when people are "convinced of something". Ignorance of the law is no excuse, and...

— Yas We Can (@Yastreblyansky) August 5, 2023

... neither is ignorance of reality, unless you want to plead insanity.

If he wants to talk about a philosophical conviction, that he's fighting injustice, like Dr. King, then he's got to be prepared to go to jail, as Dr. King did from time to time. That's civil disobedience.

— Yas We Can (@Yastreblyansky) August 5, 2023

It's not obvious to me. Teach me.

— Yas We Can (@Yastreblyansky) August 5, 2023

"Read my Twitter," she replied. So I started doing that but all I could find were things to object to, like this:

I hope they'll read your twitter too, and avoid these errors in the future. I'm sure you've explained somewhere why they shouldn't do it

— Yas We Can (@Yastreblyansky) August 5, 2023

(She hadn't.)

Or a digression on Rod Blagojevich, of all people:

Great to have Blago on your side. Such an expert on political persecution, especially after Donald commuted his sentence

— Yas We Can (@Yastreblyansky) August 5, 2023

And you're allowed to not quote it. Why on earth would you?

— Yas We Can (@Yastreblyansky) August 5, 2023

But it mostly boiled down to two questions, whether the government can be criminally defrauded or not, which she seemed to think was impossible in this case, because nothing in the charge says Trump had cheated the government out of any money, which I think I explained pretty clearly:

Is there in this case an element of reasonable reliance on the alleged fraud? In the ordinary case under the statute, the element is satisfied when the government purchased goods or made a payment.
Who or what took any action for the government in reliance on Trump’s statements?

— Mark O. Van Wagoner (@VanWagoner) August 4, 2023

It's at the very least about the government's time being abused for a spurious complaint. Wikipedia https://t.co/OVQTuj6B8C says the government has "interests" which are what allow it to impose regulations, like those governing the transfer of power. Preventing the transfer...

— Yas We Can (@Yastreblyansky) August 5, 2023

If it's a fraudulent petition? If I sue the federal government for stealing my imaginary $100-million yacht without offering any evidence it exists, do they have to conduct a full investigation, and are they enjoined from punishing me in any way for a frivolous complaint?

— Yas We Can (@Yastreblyansky) August 5, 2023

People, perhaps, but governments have other sorts of interests pic.twitter.com/hU3CRZ7v19

— Yas We Can (@Yastreblyansky) August 5, 2023

And the question of whether Trump could commit fraud if he didn't know what he was saying was false, to which I think I contributed an original point

And as I say it's a conspiracy charge: not every conspirator needs to know every detail.

— Yas We Can (@Yastreblyansky) August 5, 2023

I've been reading your Twitter avidly to find out where I'm going wrong, but I still haven't gotten there.

— Yas We Can (@Yastreblyansky) August 5, 2023

Even so, it took her a very long to before she blocked me, actually over a sort of linguistics question (Biden is selling coffee mugs as campaign merch, making a play on "Joe" meaning coffee, and she was accusing him of egomania or worse because he'd capitalized "Joe"—"Does he mean we're supposed to drink him?").

Of course without having explained why she thought I was wrong about anything. Being blocked made assembling this an extremely complex job, too, I think that's my main reason for posting it, so it's not a total loss. I know, I have to stop doing this.