Most important factor in prosecuting Russiagate conspirators

Now that Russiagate is out of the bag and National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard has passed the case to the Department of Justice for criminal investigation, the burning question on everyone’s mind is: Who will face charges?

Author, legal scholar, and attorney Hans Mahncke, however, says there’s a more important question that needs answering first.

On a recent episode of “The Liz Wheeler Show,” he joined Liz to discuss the single most important factor in potential criminal prosecutions related to Russiagate.

“I do not want to see piddly little perjury charges, a slap on the wrist essentially, for these people who attempted to stage a coup against a duly elected president using false information … and [weaponized] the government against us — we the people. I want serious charges,” Liz says.

“What can these individuals be charged with?” Liz asks.

“I would start off with not the what but the where,” Mahncke says.

“If the idea is to charge them in Washington, D.C., or across the river in Arlington, so that’s the Eastern District of Virginia, you might as well just not charge them at all. … Because there is no way a jury in those places is going to convict these people.”

“Is there a way to avoid those jurisdictions?” Liz asks.

“Absolutely, there’s many creative ways, but it just seems that Democrats are much better at using these creative ways,” Mahncke says, pointing to the case of Douglass Mackey, known as “Ricky Vaughn,” who was convicted in 2023 for conspiring to interfere with the 2016 presidential election by posting deceptive memes encouraging Hillary Clinton supporters to vote by text.

“He had nothing to do with Manhattan or New York or anything like that. No connection at all. He lived in Florida. … They charged him up there because they knew they would get a friendly jury who would convict him,” Mahncke says.

“The way they tied it in, it was like, ‘Well, his Twitter feed was being read in New York, hence we can charge him there.’ Well, all these [Russiagate] crimes that these people committed, they affected the people in Oklahoma, in Texas, in West Virginia.”

“You can definitely create angles to go to Florida or any of these other places, so that would be my overriding priority. Make sure you do it in the right jurisdiction. Otherwise, just don’t do it at all.”

To hear more of Mahncke’s analysis, watch the episode above.

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