Trump may have violated federal law by urging NFL owners not to sign Kaepernick

Trump may have violated federal law by urging NFL owners not to sign Kaepernick
"Tell everybody, you can't win this one. This one lifts me."
Lindsay Gibbs
Jun 2, 2018, 11:28 am


Last month, the NFL announced a new policy for its players during the national anthem: Players are permitted to stay in the locker room during the anthem, but if they go out onto the field during it, they must stand. If any of the players takes a knee, the team will be fined.

Soon afterwards, a Wall Street Journal report confirmed what most have long suspected: That President Donald Trump’s public outrage about NFL players protesting police brutality and systemic racism during the national anthem at football games heavily influenced NFL owners to change the rule, and discouraged them from signing players who would protest.

It’s all terrible news for those in favor of free speech and peaceful protest, and for those against white nationalism and police brutality.

However, Mark Geragos, the lawyer representing Kaepernick in his collusion lawsuit against the NFL, sees the glass as being half full: He believes that both the anthem rule change and the information about Trump’s influence on NFL owners will go a long way towards helping him prove that the NFL and NFL owners colluded to keep Kaepernick out of the NFL, despite the fact that he had the talent to be a starting quarterback in the league.

Geragos also believes that Trump’s direct influence over NFL owners on this issue violates federal law. U.S. Code 227 says that members of Congress or the executive branch cannot “wrongfully influence a private entity’s employment decision … solely on the basis of partisan political affiliation.”

A few revelations from the last couple of weeks strongly support Geragos’ case here, and it’s important to remember that Geragos knows much more about the case than we do — he has taken the depositions of more than a dozen NFL owners, while the public only knows about the depositions that have leaked.

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https://thinkprogress.org/trump-kaepernick-crime-8136464f87a1/