April 29, 2018
FREDO AND THE DON:
Did Donald Trump Jr. Admit to Violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act? (Orin Kerr Sunday, April 29, 2018, Lawfare)
We learned back in 2017 that Trump Jr. exchanged direct messages on Twitter with the Wikileaks account during the 2016 Presidential campaign. We knew that Wikileaks had sent Trump Jr. a message that included guessed login credentials of a default account on an about-to-launch anti-Trump website, and that Wikileaks encouraged him to visit the site. But we didn't know if Trump Jr. or anyone else had actually used the username and password. As Matt Ford at The Atlantic explained, with some explanation by me:Trump Jr.'s messages also show WikiLeaks providing him with the login information of an anti-Trump website. "A PAC run anti-Trump site putintrump.org is about to launch," the account wrote to Trump Jr. "The PAC is a recycled pro-Iraq war PAC. We have guessed the password. It is 'putintrump.' See 'About' for who is behind it. Any comments?" Trump Jr. replied that he would "ask around" about the website's provenance.But Trump Jr. doesn't indicate whether he actually used the password. Orin Kerr, a George Washington University law professor who specializes in computer-crime law, said that doing so would violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. "If anyone actually entered in the username and password or entered in the password to the website, that's a federal crime," he said.The Minority report reprints an e-mail from Trump Jr. in which he admitted to just that. As reprinted on the bottom of page 33, here's what he wrote:Guys I got a weird Twitter DM from [W]ikileaks. See below. I tried the password and it works and the about section they reference contains the next pic in terms of who is behind it. Not sure if this is anything but it seems like it's really wikileaks asking me as I follow them and it is a DM. Do you know the people mentioned and what the conspiracy they are looking for could be? These are just screen shots but it's a bully built out page claiming to be a PAC let me know your thoughts and if we want to look into it.This sounds a lot like an admission that he committed a federal crime, and in particular a violation of 18 U.S.C. ยง 1030(a)(2)(c).
Posted by Orrin Judd at April 29, 2018 7:28 PM
