The Trump administration's criminal fraud charges against the anti-hate group watchdog the Southern Poverty Law Center are haphazardly conceived and doomed to failure, former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann told MS NOW's Ari Melber on Thursday.
"Let's startthere," said Melber, himself a lawyer by training. "Your view of the caselegally. And if it doesn't havelegal merit, what is it?"
"This has all the hallmarksof being a spectacularly failedindictment," said Weissmann.
"It is a speakingindictment where the governmentpresumably is putting its best foot forward, where if it hasgood evidence and key evidence,you would expect to see itthere," Weissmann continued. "And this is what ismissing from the coreallegations in the indictment.The theory of the fraud that'scharged is that the donors tothe Southern Poverty Law Centerwere told that they would begiving money for Purposes A,and in fact, that thosepurposes were not A. In otherwords, that they were told thatthis money would not be goingto, for instance, doing thissort of undercover work. And infact, the money was being usedto go for this undercover work."
"Here's the problem," he said. "That's notwhat the indictment alleges.And there's not a single pieceof evidence cited for any donorbeing specifically told themethodology that the Southern Poverty Law Center would engagein. In other words, if there was a fraud, you need to havesome specific statement thatwas told to the southernpoverty law center donors. Thatwas then proved to be not justfalse, but a lie. And herethere isn't even a specificstatement that's alleged to befalse that was made to a donor."
"One of the things ... Iwould have expected is, where'sthe evidence that any owner hastold the government that theywere misled, that they weretold and given a specificpromise as to how their moneywould be used?" said Weissmann. "I contrast thisa lot with the We Build The Wall case, where Steve Bannon andothers were charged andconvicted because they're, thedonors were alleged to havebeen told, and then it wasproved up that none of themoney would be going to suchthings as salaries or privatecosts that were being. And itwas being funneled off to Steve Bannon and other executives. And that, in fact, was what thegovernment could show, whichwas that the donors were toldthat A, but it was used for Not A."
"That's what's missing here,so I really can't imaginethat the government has thatproof, but they just somehowforgot to put that into theindictment," he added.