Daily Mail UK - Ignorance is bliss - and a great reasonable doubt defense. That seems to be the case for Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort, who managed to avoid being charged for violating campaign finance law by not being smart enough to know that they were engaging in unlawful activity.
In summarizing his findings from the infamous June 2016 meeting between members of the Trump campaign and Russian Natalia Veselnitskaya, Robert Mueller wrote that unlawful activity did take place, but the men who broke them were unaware of their illegal actions.
'On the facts here, the government would unlikely be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the June 9 meeting participants had general knowledge that their conduct was unlawful,' reads the report.
'The investigation has not developed evidence that the participants in the meeting were familiar with the foreign-contribution ban or the application of federal law to the relevant factual context.'
"Even assuming that the promised "documents and information that would incriminate Hillary" constitute a "thing of value" under campaign-finance law, the government would encounter other challenges in seeking to obtain and sustain a conviction,' wrote Mueller.
He then explained how reasonable doubt would make it hard to convict Don Jr and Kushner.
'To prove that a defendant acted "knowingly and willfully," the government would have to show that the defendant had general knowledge that his conduct was unlawful,' wrote Mueller.
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