I'm not sure if that qualification adds a useful distinction. The usual definition I hear is "a person who committed a crime". Suppose I were to come home and

I'm not sure if that qualification adds a useful distinction. The usual definition I hear is "a person who committed a crime". Suppose I were to come home and find that my door has been broken down and my home ransacked, I would be justified in saying that "a criminal did this". There was an act of crime, and therefore it was done by a criminal. That it is ambiguous who the criminal was and whether there is sufficient evidence to prove that they did it, it was still done by a criminal. Furthermore, even if I accept that criminality requires a guilty verdict to be a valid descriptor, it is something that applies retroactively. Once the conviction is given, it is retroactively correct to have called them a criminal between the time that the crime was committed and the time that the conviction was given. In this view, describing somebody as "criminal" prior to a verdict is an expression of belief as to what the verdict should or will be. In either case, it is not incorrect to refer to the actions of the Trump campaign as criminal, to use one specific example. We know (1) that it is illegal to receive foreign aid in a campaign, (2) that the Trump campaign openly requested foreign aid (campaign speech, 2016-07-26), and (3) that the Trump campaign were in active negotiation for foreign aid (self-released emails from Trump Jr, dated 2016-06-03). From these, I conclude that the Trump campaign has performed criminal acts.