The Russian Connection: The Eighth Man

Now there are eight. The Washington Post identified the eighth person in the room with Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner as Ike Kaveladze, a Russian born US citizen who was implicated in a money laundering scheme in 2000, and is now a senior vice president at Russian real estate developer Aras Agalarov’s company. According to Scott Balber, Kaveladze’s attorney, his client was attended the meeting as a representative of Aras and Emin Agalarov, the father-and-son Russian developers who hosted the Trump-owned Miss Universe pageant in Moscow in 2013. Balber also represents the Agalarovs. Kaveladze is the fourth Russian in the room at the June meeting with Trump’s sn, son-inlaw and campaign manager.

It as explained to me by a good friend, who is a criminal defense lawyer, that Trump’s lawyer Jay Sekulow was correct in saying that “collusion” is not against the law. The word that should be used by the news media is the one that everyone has avoided, “conspiracy.” Conspiracy is a crime in many federal and state laws. It is defined

A criminal conspiracy exists when two or more people agree to commit almost any unlawful act, then take some action toward its completion. The action taken need not itself be a crime, but it must indicate that those involved in the conspiracy knew of the plan and intended to break the law. One person may be charged with and convicted of both conspiracy and the underlying crime based on the same circumstances.

From now on, conspiracy will be used to describe the Trump campaign’s connection to Russian interference with the 2016 election.