It’s against the law to even ask for or receive a “contribution or donation of money or other thing of value” in connection with a U.S. election. One does not have to even receive it to have broken federal law.
This point was made very carefully by Vice President of policy and litigation at Common Cause and government watchdog Paul Seamus Ryan.
This means that: “If indictment allegations are true, it certainly appears Donald Trump or another high official in his campaign illegally solicited a campaign contribution from a foreign national–in the form of requests that Stone obtain damaging information on Clinton for the Trump campaign. This is true even if the Trump campaign never received any hacked emails or other oppo research on Clinton privately and, instead, only saw the hacked emails when Wikileaks released them to the public,” Ryan explained on Twitter.
Former Trump campaign adviser and ally Roger Stone was indicted by a federal grand jury and arrested on charges of obstruction, witness tampering and making false statements related to the release during the 2016 presidential election of hacked Democratic emails. Stone was charged with seven criminal counts of lying to Congress about his possible advance knowledge of Wikileaks plans to release Clinton’s hacked emails.
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Here’s Ryan’s thread on how just asking for the info from a foreign national is a violation of federal law:
Did Donald Trump or another official in his campaign illegally solicit a campaign contribution from a foreign national?
Federal law prohibits any person from soliciting or receiving a “contribution or donation of money or other thing of value” in connection with a U.S. election. pic.twitter.com/UWrLKmfwQ7
— Paul Seamus Ryan **PROTECT MUELLER** (@ThePaulSRyan) January 25, 2019
Federal law defines “contribution” to include “any gift … of money or anything of value made by any person for the purpose of influencing any election for Federal office.” pic.twitter.com/eELwffWkgr
— Paul Seamus Ryan **PROTECT MUELLER** (@ThePaulSRyan) January 25, 2019
Federal regulation defines “solicit” to mean “to ask, request, or recommend, explicitly or implicitly, that another person make a contribution, donation, transfer of funds, or otherwise provide anything of value.” pic.twitter.com/JN4U6IihI1
— Paul Seamus Ryan **PROTECT MUELLER** (@ThePaulSRyan) January 25, 2019
The Stone indictment alleges that "a senior Trump Campaign official was directed to contact STONE about . . . damaging information" Wikileaks "had regarding the Clinton Campaign. pic.twitter.com/2WFB64zJWU
— Paul Seamus Ryan **PROTECT MUELLER** (@ThePaulSRyan) January 25, 2019
Stone then acted on the Trump campaign request for "damaging information" about the Clinton campaign. pic.twitter.com/02IT5wwr8S
— Paul Seamus Ryan **PROTECT MUELLER** (@ThePaulSRyan) January 25, 2019
More from the Stone indictment regarding Stone "passing on" the Trump campaign request for damaging information about the Clinton campaign. pic.twitter.com/AGCDTDylge
— Paul Seamus Ryan **PROTECT MUELLER** (@ThePaulSRyan) January 25, 2019
And even more detail of Stone correspondence passing on Trump campaign requests for damaging information about Clinton–correspondence on at least three separate occasions. pic.twitter.com/zHg0qYvdAM
— Paul Seamus Ryan **PROTECT MUELLER** (@ThePaulSRyan) January 25, 2019
The finishing thoughts:
Opposition research (i.e., damaging info about opponent) is of immense value to candidates—they regularly pay research firms big $ for it.
A donation of opposition research to a candidate is clearly a “contribution” under federal campaign finance law.
In this case, the source of the opposition research (i.e., “contribution”) was one or more foreign nationals–Julian Assange and Russian hackers.
If indictment allegations are true, it certainly appears Donald Trump or another high official in his campaign illegally solicited a campaign contribution from a foreign national–in the form of requests that Stone obtain damaging information on Clinton for the Trump campaign.
This is true even if the Trump campaign never received any hacked emails or other oppo research on Clinton privately and, instead, only saw the hacked emails when Wikileaks released them to the public.
If the Trump campaign sought this info, and let’s not forget that Trump himself asked Russia for help finding Clinton’s emails during a public speech, they allowed a foreign national to influence a U.S. election.
It should be obvious why that is against the law, but for the record, that is the opposite of how a person “Makes America Great Again.”
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