Title 18 U.S.C. §371 makes it a crime for "two or more persons [to] conspire . . . to defraud the United States" or "to commit any offense against the United States." Despite the fact that these concepts or theories of conspiracy are contained in the same code section, they are completely different from one another and involve different elements of proof.
Conspiracy is a plan "to commit any offense", and it simply involves a conspiracy to commit a recognized federal crime. Conspiracy "to defraud," on the other hand, is a conspiracy to impair, obstruct, or defeat some lawful function of the government.
Depending on the part of the statute relied upon by the prosecution, the required proof may well consist of different evidence. Conspiracy to defraud requires proof of an agreement to interfere with some lawful governmental function or purpose, regardless of whether that interference is, itself, a separate substantive criminal offense. The conspiracy to defraud element reaches not only property or pecuniary loss, but also the integrity of the United States and its agencies and programs.
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