furtherance of a crime or fraud. that is this crime/fraud exception that would allow them to overcome the attorney/client privilege and basically force him to answer questions that typically he wouldn t have to. but we should note, look, we don t know how this is going to end up. it will go to a judge. they have to make a decision based on the merits here. ellie, so a judge has to decide whether a crime was actually committed? exactly, anderson, so prosecutors here bear the burden of going to a judge and trying to pierce or get through the attorney/client privilege. one of the ways you can do that, if you convince a judge that the communications at issue had something to do with furthering an ongoing crime. the standard is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt. that s what you need to prove to a jury in order to get a conviction. here you have to prove to a budge by a preponderance of the evidence more likely than not essentially that you have evidence that the evidence we re talking
communications secret. but there is an exception, declined fraud exception, that occurs when lawyers are actively assisting in a criminal act. you do not get attorney-client privilege for that, otherwise every criminal would just do all of their dirty work through the lawyers. that is what the privileges for. this claim is going to be decided, at least for now, by the chief judge in washington d.c.. a very respected judge by both democrats and republicans alike. she is already in the mueller investigation, she concluded the crime fraud exception applied there. here, this is about the stolen documents that trump had at mar-a-lago. and using his lawyers to try to certify that he had turned over all of the material when he didn t and that is what led to that dramatic raid over 100 different classified documents being found at trump s mar-a-lago complex after his
here? there is an exception to attorney-client here? there is an exception to attorney-client privilege - here? there is an exception to attorney-client privilege call. here? there is an exception to i attorney-client privilege call the attorney client privilege call the client fraud exception that allows investigators to talk to a lawyer, compels a lawyer to talk to investigators if he s talking about a client who is discussing a crime or trying to get the lawyer to help him commit a crime. in other words, what you say to a lawyer is usually privilege but if you tell a lawyer how do i cover up annoy or how do i cover a bank flawed than criminal investigators can get access and compel that lawyer to testify. batters what apparently the justice department lawyers are trying to do here with donald trump lawyer, because they are suspicion one can inferfrom this is because they are suspicion one can infer from this is that they think that maybe donald trump or someone who is talking to a
you can compare the last special counsel investigation into obstruction with this special counsel investigation into obstruction. we refer to it as the two prongs of the mueller probe, and what seems to be the difference is that in don mcghan, he had a lawyer who was skilled enough and smart enough not just to take notes but have a chief of staff that took notes and to know where the lines were and retain a skilled lawyer to make sure he didn t cross any of them. in this case, it sounds like potentially, this special counsel is trying to figure out bobb and corcoran came on the other side of the line. that s not far off. we should be careful and say that the crime/fraud exception that jack smith is trying to use to pierce the privilege that evan corcoran had with donald trump doesn t require a finding that evan corcoran engaged in a
sealed and this situation is coming from sources. let s understand it further with msnbc legal analyst, joyce vance. explain the legal jargon, what is the crime/fraud exception? so like you said in your intro, we re taking our viewers, i don t think this is law 101. this is more like law 102. it s complicated stuff but the principle here is this, people are entitled to have confidential conversations with their lawyers. if i, for instance, am accused of committing a bank robbery, i can go talk candidly with my lawyer, and get information on how best to defend myself. but what i can t do, i can t go to my lawyer and say can you help me commit the next bank robbery. if i do that that otherwise confidential communication is deemed to be no longer privileged because of the crime/fraud exception. you can t go to your lawyer to