[Pete F.]

If there was a quid pro quo is not the issue, it has already been publicly admitted, when quid pro quo becomes self-dealing is.

If you have a job and negotiate what you are supposed to efficiently, then you get to keep your job. That's the benefit to you.

If you have a job and negotiate what you are supposed to and you tell the party you are negotiating with that in order to make the deal they have to give you personally something of value in addition to your legal purpose. That's self-dealing.

When Mulvaney was asked about a quid pro quo, he said, on Oct. 17, “We do that all the time with foreign policy.” That is correct.

But there is a profound difference between using governmental power in a quid pro quo as part of a public (or fiduciary) duty to advance the public interests of the United States versus using governmental power as a quid pro quo to advance the private interests of Donald Trump or Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani, a private citizen, said in May that he was working to advance the interests of “my client.”

There are many jail inmates and former executives who could not distinguish between public (or fiduciary) interests and their private interests.

Any public corruption prosecutor familiar with the federal bribery statute and self-dealing cases will recognize that firsthand witnesses, such as Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland, Mulvaney, and Trump himself, have now offered evidence to all the elements of the offense. The bribery law—18 U.S.C. § 201(b)—is easy to understand. The elements, as they pertain here, are as follows:

Whoever, being a public official …

corruptly

directly or indirectly demands or seeks …

anything of value

for himself or some other person

in return for being influenced in the performance of any official act …

has committed the felony.

I believe the federal bribery crime, a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison, also gets at the heart of the self-dealing issue more effectively than some alternative theories of criminal behavior, such as “honest services fraud” (which has some complex legal issues associated with it) or foreign campaign finance violations (which tend to involve monetary help apparently lacking here).

Anyone joining knowingly in the commission of the above could be liable as well, probably under the conspiracy statute (18 U.S.C. § 371). That might include Giuliani, who is not a public official.

There are a number of people involved in this that are hoping their defense of their actions holds up in court. It will very likely end up there.

The moving defense that has been used here is typically a sign of weakness and guilt.

Not always, but more often then not.