Federal Election Commission chair Ellen Weintraub issued a statement today clarifying that soliciting or accepting information from a foreign national, as Trump professed to being willing to do in an interview released Wednesday evening, is a criminal act. Weintraub published the statement to Twitter with the preface: “I would not have thought that I needed to say this.”
Let me make something 100% clear to the American public and anyone running for public office: It is illegal for any person to solicit, accept, or receive anything of value from a foreign national in connection with a US election. (1) This is not a novel concept. Electoral intervention from foreign governments has been considered unacceptable since the beginnings of our nation. Our Founding Fathers sounded the alarm about “foreign Interference, Intrigue, and Influence.” They knew that when foreign governments seek to influence American politics, it is always to advance their own interests, not America’s. Anyone who solicits or accepts foreign assistance risks being on the wrong end of a federal investigation. Any political campaign that receives an offer of a prohibited donation from a foreign source should report that offer to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
(1) 52 USC S 30121(a)(2)
Weintraub’s statement comes after a day of Republican defenses of Trump’s statement that “I think I’d take” such offered information, claiming that “the FBI Director is wrong” in saying that informing the FBI would be required.