> (a)(1) Whoever, knowing that the property involved in a financial transaction represents the proceeds of some form of unlawful activity, conducts or attempts to conduct such a financial transaction which in fact involves the proceeds of specified unlawful activity—
> (A)(i) with the intent to promote the carrying on of specified unlawful activity;
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1956
You can read the entire code but it criminalizes 2 main categories of conduct. Knowingly using the proceeds of a crime to promote the carrying on of a crime. And knowingly using the proceeds of a crime in a transaction that attempts to conceal the source of the proceeds. So even if you assume all money is the proceeds of a crime this law would not apply to you as long as you don't use it to commit any crimes yourself and you don't attempt to hide where you got it.
I agree that the way I explained the law was less than completely accurate. But I was talking about money laundering charges as add-on charges. Your "as long as you don't use it to commit any crimes yourself" is unlikely to apply to a defendant who is getting a money laundering charge as an add-on rather than the sole charge.
Theoretically, you might commit a crime, and draw proceeds from that crime, and never use those proceeds in any way to further the commission of the underlying crime – but in practice that doesn't seem particularly likely. An enterprising prosecutor is going to come up with some explanation of how you used the proceeds to further the criminal enterprise which produced them – e.g. you used the money to buy a car, and then you went on a crime-related car trip; you used the money to buy a phone, and then you made a crime-related phone call; etc – and once the jury is convinced you are guilty of the underlying criminal conduct, they'll be primed to believe the prosecutor's explanation. Especially since the law doesn't require the prosecution to prove that you actually used the proceeds to further the criminal enterprise, only that you intended to.
It's almost circular logic.
What has to be proven?
That they got money and used it to fund the operation isn't in question.
US federal prosecutors use a very expansive definition of “money laundering”. Basically, any financial transaction made with funds considered to be “proceeds of crime” can result in a money laundering charge. Contrary to the traditional definition of “money laundering”, there doesn’t need to be any attempt by the defendant to obscure the origin of the funds. All that is required is the defendant knew (at times in a rather loose sense of “know”) the connection between the funds and the underlying crime