My question isn’t whether she is going to face witchcraft charges; because that would be a definite no; but whether there is some sort of minimum standard for efficacy below which an attempt to do something that is illegal to do(destroy evidence, interfere with an investigation, tamper with a witness, menace someone, etc.) basically counts as no more than a desire to do that thing; and isn’t treated as a ‘real’ attempt.
Something like shredding paper is also perfectly legal in itself; but if your shredding activities happen to be part of an attempt to destroy evidence, the fact that the means you used weren’t illegal in themselves won’t stop things from going poorly for you(though if you used means that are also illegal, like employing arson to destroy evidence, things can go worse because that’s a second crime; but the destruction of evidence aspect doesn’t depend on the means being criminal, it’s an end that is criminal in itself). In this case; there isn’t anything intrinsically illegal about attempting a bit of witchcraft; but it would certainly appear that the objective of the activity was to hinder an SEC investigation by personally targeting some of its agents; something that is unlikely to be legal; so I’m curious about whether attempts must be at least vaguely plausible to count as real attempts; or if all it takes is an act intended to achieve the result.
