This distinction between immoral and illegal is getting to be quite troubling, but also, unfortunately, quite pertinent. We've all heard one politician or business leader or another say "I have broken no laws", without necessarily denying whatever immoral atrocity they've been accused of committing. A recent example: On CNN Tonight with Don Lemon, Michael Reagan first postulated that this whole investigation into the Trump campaign's alleged collusion with the Russians was a political witch hunt, and then followed that up with something like "even if the Trump campaign did collude with the Russians, what law did they break?" This left Don Lemon stupefied, as he patently did not know. His best response, when asked again, was something like "people go to jail for collusion all the time", as if to say that the verb itself is illegal, like two 3rd graders colluding to pool their lunch money together to buy one of those big chocolate chip cookies in the cafeteria (god I loved those cookies) could actually go to jail for engaging in the act of an illegal verb. I am disappointed on two fronts: (1) the guest's attempt to mitigate the immorality of the alleged collusion by relying the legality of same, and (2) the fact that the host, who I am taking to be representative of the press at large, has been talking about this topic for months, while not being quite sure as to the legal implications of it. One person is trying to sell us a false equivalence, and the other is trying to sell us the news. Either way, it seems like both of them are lacking some foundation.
