A lot of the smoke wafting from the investigation into Russia’s effort to hack the election for Donald Trump wafts from the Oval Office itself. But a former public defender believes there’s an awful lot of fire–and complied a lengthy list of reasons that show why.
Seth Abramson is an English professor at the University of New Hampshire and HuffPost contributor. However, he is probably best known to us as the man who revealed that the events leading up to James Comey’s infamous letter three weeks before Election Day were shot through with unethical and potentially criminal behavior by rogue elements in FBI and several members of Trump’s inner circle. Based on information that was publicly available, Abramson believes that the FBI was well aware long before Comey told the nation there was no there there that the emails discovered on Huma Abedin’s laptop weren’t new at all. Rather, they were copies of emails the FBI already had.
Additionally, while the agents investigating Anthony Weiner didn’t have the time to alert FBI Director James Comey about this discovery, they found the time to tell the agents working the email server case, as well as two of Trump’s closest advisers–Rudy Giuliani and Jim Kallstrom. Lest you dismiss this as mere unprofessional conduct, not only did Abedin never get a copy of the warrant, but when the warrant was released, it seemed to be based on mere speculation of criminal activity rather than actual probable cause.
Anderson knows what dodgy law enforcement activity smells like; he was a public defender in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. He also knows how someone sounds when he or she is innocent or guilty. He was one of the earliest to report that Michael Flynn was about to flip, for instance. With that in mind, he compiled a list of the things Trump has done, based on widely reported information, that strongly indicate he did collude with Russia.
(THREAD) 20 Things Guilty People Do That Trump Does Daily
As a former criminal defense attorney, I've sat in rooms candidly discussing crime with thousands of criminals. I know what "consciousness of guilt" looks like. Trump exhibits it daily.
I hope you'll read and share this. pic.twitter.com/JWBU3ONduK
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 26, 2017
#1 DEFLECT BLAME. Criminals seek others who may have conducted themselves poorly in order to unload or distribute blame rightly assigned to them. Trump does this with ex-aides like Manafort, Flynn, and Papadopoulos, who he presents as little known by him and/or having gone rogue.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 26, 2017
#2 ALLEGE A CONSPIRACY. Criminals will claim a conspiracy as the cause of their problems. The most common conspiracy alleged is between witnesses or members of law enforcement. Trump repeatedly alleges that government officials and law enforcement officers conspired against him.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 26, 2017
#3 COMPLAIN ABOUT LAW ENFORCEMENT. Criminals want to talk about the investigation itself, rather than what and who the investigation is investigating. Trump obsessively complains about aspects of the investigation against him that don't actually change the underlying evidence.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 26, 2017
#4 TAMPER WITH WITNESSES. Criminals will often seek contact with known witnesses either to convince them not to testify, to change their story, to remain loyal to the defendant, or to intimidate them. Trump did this with Flynn, Yates, Comey, McCabe, Sessions, his son, and others.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 26, 2017
#5 DISTRACT ATTENTION FROM THEIR ACTIONS. Criminals eagerly discuss subjects beyond their pending case when doing so distracts from their criminal liability. Trump's war on "fake news" and unhinged tweetstorms distract attention from an investigation threatening to take him down.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 26, 2017
#6 REFUSE TO ANSWER VALID QUESTIONS. Criminals refuse to discuss, sometimes even with a lawyer, inculpatory facts, whether things they said, decisions they made, or actions they took. Trump has successfully evaded answering even the most basic questions on what he knew and when.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 26, 2017
#7 EXHIBIT FALSE CONFIDENCE. Criminals often assure allies and defenders that there's nothing to be found against them and they'll shortly be exonerated, even when nothing in the facts supports this view. Trump's wild claims that he'll soon be exonerated fall into this category.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 26, 2017
#8 USE "EVEN IF" ARGUMENTS. Criminals often float self-aggrandizing hypotheticals in the form of bet-hedging: "Even if I did X, it wouldn't be illegal, or I would've been justified…" Trump does this most flagrantly when discussing whether he told Flynn to negotiate with Russia.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 26, 2017
#9 PLAY DUMB. Criminals will claim to have no knowledge of things they obviously would have known about. Trump claims to have known absolutely nothing any of his aides (even his own sons) were doing with the Russians, a claim that strains credulity well past the breaking point.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 26, 2017
#10 EXHIBIT UNUSUAL AGITATION. Criminals exhibit anger in response to warranted criminal accusations; in my own experience, innocent people react to false accusations with signs of confusion, fear, and depression. Trump has responded to Mueller with rage and false self-assurance.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 26, 2017
#11 LEVELING NEW ACCUSATIONS OF IDENTICAL CONDUCT. Criminals accused of, say, assault will often level new claims (even unrelated ones) that someone else is guilty of assault. Trump regularly accuses people of the lying, cover-ups, and treasonous conduct he stands accused of now.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 26, 2017
#12 OBSTRUCTING JUSTICE. Criminals will try to slow the investigation against them, including by refusing to speak or delaying speaking to investigators. Trump not only won't speak to investigators, he's tried to fire, get reassigned, or force into retirement those investigators.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 26, 2017
#13 AVOID GIVING EVIDENCE UNDER OATH. Criminals are smart enough to know that they must never be placed under oath on the subject of their crimes. Trump, despite saying in the Rose Garden that he'd speak to Mueller under oath, has thus far refused to make good on that assurance.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 26, 2017
#14 DENY SIMILAR PAST CONDUCT. Even though criminal defense attorneys have access to clients' criminal records, criminals often attempt to downplay or deny their criminal pasts. Trump has denied provable and known frauds, perjuries, and clandestine foreign contacts from his past.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 26, 2017
#15 TELL UNNECESSARY, GRANDIOSE LIES. Criminals lie out of fear; they tell grandiose lies out of a false belief they can orchestrate their exoneration. Trump's lies about how he conducted himself at the Ritz Moscow in 2013 (grandiose and quickly disproven) are an example of this.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 26, 2017
#16 DRAW OTHERS INTO THEIR COVER-UP. Criminals are so focused on their own survival that they needlessly draw innocents into their schemes for self-salvation. Trump uses others (including attorneys, spokespeople, aides, and family members) to spread lies about his Russian ties.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 26, 2017
#17 TRUST ONLY FAMILY. Criminals, especially those who've participated in a conspiracy, necessarily operate within a small circle of trust. Trump has surrounded his business dealings with family members and attorneys to make it unlikely or impossible that anyone will rat him out.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 26, 2017
#18 PLAY WITH LANGUAGE. Criminals know statutes are well-defined, so they get cute with language to seek out wiggle room in their criminal liability. Trump uses word games, misquotations, false definitions, and linguistic misdirection to undercut precise legal terms and concepts.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 26, 2017
#19 SEEK DODGY ALLIES AND PARALLEL INVESTIGATIONS. Criminals recruit dodgy witnesses or pursue suspect lines of inquiry to evade probes whose just administration they know will catch them. Trump uses House allies, Fox News, and dodgy pals to build a wall of allies around himself.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 26, 2017
#20 UNDERSCORE SUPPORTERS' AFFECTION. Criminals hope that, if they don't have the facts on their side, they can at least get others to say they're a good person. Trump pumps up supporters' adulation, praise, and encouragement at every turn to transform popularity into innocence.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 26, 2017
Abramson promised only 20, but provided a bonus 21st anecdote for our pleasure.
(BONUS) DENY KNOWN ASSOCIATIONS. Criminals deny knowing people they believe they can credibly deny knowing, if knowing them would be inculpatory. Trump has done this with Papadopoulos, Sater, Page and many others who he definitely knows but who he fears Mueller has linked to him.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 26, 2017
All pretty accurate, based on what we’ve seen from Trump over the last few months. And remarkably well-timed, too. Trump did most of these things just on Tuesday when he raged about the “golden showers” dossier being “FAKE NEWS!”
Abramson spent several months preparing this list in consultation with a number of defense attorneys after David Swerdlick of The Washington Post encouraged him to analyze Trump’s behavior for potential signs of consciousness of guilt. It’s not the first time he’s done such an analysis; back in February, he concluded that Trump displays a number of common signs of a guilty person.
Keep this thread on file the next time you see Trump go into one of his patented 280-character rants.
(featured image: photo art courtesy Ben Park, Vanity Fair)