A reminder about this related development reported in the NYT last week, I put a long excerpt here on Barefooted's The Really Big Shoe thread:

Mueller Examining Trump’s Tweets in Wide-Ranging Obstruction Inquiry

Forget Collusion. Conspiracy’s the Watchword in Mueller’s Filings

By Greg Farrell @ Bloomberg.com, July 31, 2018, 3:25 PM EDT

[....] Giuliani told CNN this week. Trump echoed that in a tweet: “Collusion is not a crime.”

That is at once technically correct and, according to former federal prosecutor Mimi Rocah, beside the point.

“To say there’s no crime of collusion means nothing,” said Rocah. “That label isn’t in the criminal statutes. But that doesn’t matter because the conduct that underlies collusion can be, under certain circumstances, conspiracy to defraud the U.S.”

The statute -- Title 18 U.S. Code 371 -- makes it a crime for two or more people to “conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose." The maximum penalty is five years.

It’s among a list of similar charges that Mueller’s prosecutors have brought in their investigation, including conspiracy to launder money and conspiracy to obstruct justice, which can lead to longer sentences.

(Mueller’s mandate, it’s worth noting, doesn’t mention either collusion or conspiracy. Deputy U.S. Attorney General empowered him to investigate “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump,” and matters arising from that.)

Tool Kit

The statute has been a basic part of prosecutors’ tool kits for decades [....]