A civil rights conspiracy charge matches Donald Trump’s alleged crimes

When it finally leaked that one of the three possible criminal offenses referenced in the target letter sent to Donald Trump by the special counsel involved the civil rights conspiracy statute, some commentators’ knee-jerk reaction was that this was a novel charge, an unexpected and untested legal theory. It was proof, in other words, that the special counsel’s case was too weak to support the more compelling case recommended by the Jan. 6 committee — giving aid and comfort to an insurrection. But, at least from what we know publicly, a civil rights conspiracy is exactly what happened — the fo...