The Volokh Conspiracy

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Crime

Did Donald Trump Jr. Admit to Violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act?

A law-nerd discussion, posted up at Lawfare.

|The Volokh Conspiracy |


Over at Lawfare, I have posted a long analysis about whether a recently-disclosed e-mail from Donald J. Trump Jr. indicates that he violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act when he logged into a server using a password that Wikileaks had guessed and then provided to him. It begins:

The recently-released Minority report of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) discloses a copy of an e-mail sent by Donald J. Trump Jr., on September 21, 2016, to a group of top Trump campaign officials. The e-mail is interesting because Trump may have confessed in it to committing a federal crime, specifically 18 U.S.C. ยง 1030(a)(2). It's just a misdemeanor based on the facts we know. But depending on the circumstances, the violation could also be a felony.

Here are the law-nerd details.

Check out Lawfare for the rest.

Orin S. Kerr is a Professor at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.