In Hammerschmidt, Chief Justice Taft, defined "defraud" as follows: To conspire to defraud the United States means primarily to cheat the Government out of property or money, but it also means to interfere with or obstruct one of its lawful governmental functions by deceit, craft or trickery, or at least by means that are dishonest. (A)ny conspiracy which is calculated to obstruct or impair its efficiency and destroy the value of its operation and reports as fair, impartial and reasonably accurate, would be to defraud the United States by depriving it of its lawful right and duty of promulgating or diffusing the information so officially acquired in the way and at the time required by law or departmental regulation. In Hass the Court stated: The statute is broad enough in its terms to include any conspiracy for the purpose of impairing, obstructing or defeating the lawful function of any department of government. Both offenses require the traditional elements of Section 371 conspiracy, including an illegal agreement, criminal intent, and proof of an overt act.Īlthough this language is very broad, cases rely heavily on the definition of "defraud" provided by the Supreme Court in two early cases, Hass v. This clause creates a separate offense from the "offense clause" in Section 371. The operative language is the so-called "defraud clause," that prohibits conspiracies to defraud the United States. See Project, Tenth Annual Survey of White Collar Crime, 32 Am. § 371, creates an offense "f two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose. The general conspiracy statute, 18 U.S.C.
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