title:  Legal Community SCHOOLS Trump’s Lawyer For Claiming Collusion Is Not A Crime
text: Donald Trump s attorney Jay Sekulow made a fool of himself on Tuesday morning.During an interview with ABC host George Stephanopoulos, Sekulow actually claimed that collusion is not a crime in an effort to defend Trump after his associate George Papadopoulos plead guilty to lying to FBI agents about meeting with Russians. He was a volunteer with the campaign, he served on one of the committees,  Sekelow said.  He was involved with individuals that purported to be somehow involved with Russia or Russian government   it s not clear from the documents. The end result is the meeting doesn t take place. So what you had is you had all this conversation about collusion. Remember this, collusion in and of itself   there s no crime of collusion. Even Stephanopoulos knew that claim was bullshit. Collusion is cooperation and that s what he was doing with Russians,  Stephanopoulos replied.Here s the video via YouTube.Indeed, collusion is just another word for  conspiracy,  which is a crime. A MAJOR crime.Sekulow s claim was immediately debunked by prominent members of the legal community.Harvard University law professor John Coates and University of California, Irvine law professor Rick Hasen schooled Sekulow. It is a federal crime to conspire with anyone, including a foreign government, to  deprive another of the intangible right of honest services,  Coates told Politifact after Fox News host Eric Bolling made the same claim in July.  That would include fixing a fraudulent election, in my view, within the plain meaning of the statute. If others participated in the scheme to do this it could be a conspiracy,  Hasen added.  Whether you want to call that  collusion  or not seems besides the point. In short, Trump s own attorney doesn t understand the law and apparently thinks that the use of the word  collusion  absolves Trump and his campaign team of any crimes. But that s simply not the case and any self-respecting judge would laugh at Sekulow in open court if he tried to use such a defense.Featured Image: Win McNamee/Getty Images