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[mahatmakanejeeves]

6. No, it is not.

Full disclosure: IANAL. From 2018:

POLITICS
Why you shouldn't assume Trump is guilty if he takes the Fifth

By Josh Barro
May 12, 2018, 10:03 AM ET

• A lot of people assume that if you exercise your Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination it means you're guilty.
• President Donald Trump himself has made this accusation in the past.
• But now Trump's own lawyer says he may take the Fifth if he has to testify in the Russia investigation.
• Criminal defense attorney Ken White says this assumption is wrong and damaging; the Fifth Amendment serves to protect both the innocent and the guilty.

{snip}

A lot of [Trump’s] detractors today feel roughly the way he felt two years ago: The Fifth is for the guilty, if you're invoking it that means you have something to hide, and an innocent person shouldn't fear discussing his activities with federal investigators or in front of a grand jury.

Trump was wrong then, and his detractors are wrong now.

There are a wide variety of reasons to surmise that Trump and his associates have committed crimes. But his exercise of constitutional rights shouldn't be one of them.

{snip}

The Fifth Amendment is not just for the guilty — it's also for those who would like to stay innocent

{snip}

[Ken White, a criminal-defense lawyer practicing in Los Angeles, and formerly a federal prosecutor,] urged that we not lose sight of the original purpose of the constitutional right against self-incrimination: It serves to protect the innocent from situations in which they can be pressured into confessing or committing perjury. The amendment is a recognition of the way governments can abuse their enormous power over criminal defendants, a problem that could be seen all the way back to the Salem witch trials and before.

{snip}