Potential Section 1030 Violation By Donald Trump Jr

¶The Office also considered whether Donald Trump Jr. intentionally accessed a protected computer without authorization, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(2)(C) & (c)(2)(A) (providing penalties for "[w]hoever . . . intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access, and thereby obtains . . . information from any protected computer"). The conduct at issue was Trump Jr.'s use of a password, supplied to him by WikiLeaks in a Twitter direct message, to access the website "putintrump.org" in September 2016. See Volume I, Section III.D.1.e, supra.

¶The facts known to the Office likely sufficed to establish each element of a misdemeanor violation of Section 1030(a)(2)(C). Trump Jr. received the password from WikiLeaks and then wrote to others that "it worked" when he tried it; that evidence would support a conclusion that he "accesse[d] a computer without authorization." See United States v. Phillips, 477 F.3d 215, 219- 220 (5th Cir. 2007) (collecting cases holding that use of a guessed password, or one belonging to a third party, constitutes unauthorized access). That same course of conduct, and Trump Jr.'s email admissions afterwards, also suggested that Trump Jr. acted "intentionally." See United States v. Willis, 476 F.3d 1121, 1125 n.1 (10th Cir. 2007) (explaining that the 1986 amendments to Section 1030 reflect Congress's desire to reach "'intentional acts of unauthorized access—rather than mistaken, inadvertent, or careless ones'") (quoting S. Rep. 99-432, at 5 (1986)). In addition, the computer accessed with the password likely qualifies as a "protected" one under the statute, which reaches "effectively all computers with Internet access." United States v. Nosal, 676 F.3d 854, 859 (9th Cir. 2012) (en banc). And Trump Jr.'s statement in an email that he had seen the website's contents likely sufficed to demonstrate that he "obtained information" from the computer, since the word "obtain" in this provision "includes mere observation of the data," S. Rep. 99-432, at 6, even without an attempt to copy or download it.

¶Applying the Principles of Federal Prosecution, however, the Office determined that prosecution of this potential violation was not warranted. Those Principles instruct prosecutors to consider, among other things, the nature and seriousness of the offense, the person's culpability in connection with the offense, and the probable sentence to be imposed if the prosecution is successful. Justice Manual § 9-27.230. In this instance, Trump Jr. accessed the website shortly before it went public using a "guessed" password that, although it was sent to him individually, had also been posted by WikiLeaks to its public Twitter account, such that anyone following WikiLeaks could have gotten the same preview of the website that Trump Jr. did. That fact, among others, would make it difficult to prove that Trump Jr. acted to further any crime or tort or that he obtained information valued at more than $5,000—which are the kind of circumstances that can trigger felony punishment under the statute. See 18 U.S.C. § 1030(c)(2)(B). Given that Trump Jr. did not himself initiate the plan to access the website or guess the password, the absence of evidence that his acts caused any damage to the website or obtained valuable information, the technical nature of the violation, and the minimal punishment that a misdemeanor conviction could be expected to carry in these circumstances, the Office decided against pursuing charges.

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Russian Government Outreach and Contacts

¶As explained in Section IV above, the Office's investigation uncovered evidence of numerous links (i.e., contacts) between Trump Campaign officials and individuals having or claiming to have ties to the Russian government. The Office evaluated the contacts under several sets of federal laws, including conspiracy laws and statutes governing foreign agents who operate in the United States. After considering the available evidence, the Office did not pursue charges under these statutes against any of the individuals discussed in Section IV above—with the exception of FARA charges against Paul Manafort and Richard Gates based on their activities on behalf of Ukraine.

¶One of the interactions between the Trump Campaign and Russian-affiliated individuals— the June 9, 2016 meeting between high-ranking campaign officials and Russians promising derogatory information on Hillary Clinton—implicates an additional body of law: campaign-finance statutes. Schemes involving the solicitation or receipt of assistance from foreign sources raise difficult statutory and constitutional questions. As explained below, the Office evaluated those questions in connection with the June 9 meeting and WikiLeaks's release of stolen materials. The Office ultimately concluded that, even if the principal legal questions were resolved favorably to the government, a prosecution would encounter difficulties proving that Campaign officials or individuals connected to the Campaign willfully violated the law.

¶Finally, although the evidence of contacts between Campaign officials and Russia- affiliated individuals may not have been sufficient to establish or sustain criminal charges, several U.S. persons connected to the Campaign made false statements about those contacts and took other steps to obstruct the Office's investigation and those of Congress. This Office has therefore charged some of those individuals with making false statements and obstructing justice.