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There are laws against foreign nationals to provide a "thing of value" to a US political campaign. This is obviously a difficult thing to tease out. My source o
by AaronFriel 9y ago
There are laws against foreign nationals to provide a "thing of value" to a US political campaign. This is obviously a difficult thing to tease out. My source on this is Eugene Volokh, a law professor and First Amendment attorney: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/07/12/can-it-be-a-crime-to-do-opposition-research-by-asking-foreigners-for-information/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...
The fundamental question then is: was this intentional on behalf of the foreign agent to provide a "thing of value" to a US political campaign, and/or did a political candidate or campaign solicit this?
- Ajedi32 9y agoBut in this hypothetical scenario they're not donating to a political campaign, they're buying advertising space directly from a private organization. I suppose you could argue that ads which advocate for a political candidate could count as a "thing of value" for that candidate, but even in that case, there _is_ no foreign national to punish here; the entity that funded the effort is a foreign government, not an individual person.
- AaronFriel 9y agoOne doesn't have to donate to a political campaign to contribute a "thing of value" to a campaign, that argument is elaborated on in the link I shared. The law does not define thing of value to be a donation or monetary contribution to a campaign, but something much broader, see 52 U.S.C. § 30121. Likewise, foreign national is a legal term that includes foreign principals, which includes governments, see 22 U.S.C. § 611.