AGAIN with the “They appear to…”, “They also are alleged to…”, “Finally, they are alleged to…”.
WTF!!! Produce some concrete evidence instead of making this baseless allegations! Mueller has been at it for almost two years now, If there had been ANYTHING of real substance, it would had been leaked already.
Facebook postings and Twitter tweets??? There are millions of Facebook postings and Twitter tweets flowing into the internet every day coming from the far Left to the far Right and every place in between and yet somehow a few postings and tweets from Russians managed to influence the 2016 election to the point where one candidate won over the other one? Many of the Russian postings and tweets were anti Trump and pro Hillary. Are you really saying 100% of the postings and tweets were pro Trump?
The Right is often blamed for coming up with weird and crazy conspiracy theories, but this one from the Left takes the cake.
Trump was a better candidate than Hillary. Trump won, Hillary lost. Get over it! As Obama famously said, “Elections have consequences”.
Funny how Hillary and the Left made a big deal about whether or not Trump would accept the results of the 2016 election, yet here it is almost 2 years after the election and Hillary and the Left STILL haven’t accepted the result.
As others have said, I do believe this would be illegal to use.
Now, the legal wrinkle appears to be that you can hire an investigator (or, more precisely, your attorneys can hire an investigator) to go to Luxembourg and obtain the picture. You just can’t coordinate it, or have verifiable knowledge of where it came from.
The answer to the collusion question is pretty blunt. The Russian government offered the Trump campaign stolen/hacked data from the Clinton campaign, which the Trump campaign gleefully accepted. And Trump knew, and approved of it all.
3> The 5 immigrants have not obtained any videos (or documentation illegally). It is well established that the Russians obtained the information illegally.
Come up with a better analogy, please. This one sucks.
The Mueller indictments give a pretty detailed account of how Russian agents phished for access and then installed keyloggers, worms and other malware in various computer systems.
Or just not receive it as a gift from a foreigner. If the campaign pays for it, then it’s not a campaign contribution. And if the picture was obtained legally to begin with (e.g. photo taken by a paparazzi in public), then there would be no crime.
There is a volunteer exception to federal laws regarding campaign finance contributions. Case law and administrative FEC decisions have made that a hole big enough to cram a lot of contribution through.
For example Elton John, a well known foreign national performer, can headline a concert to raise funds for a political campaign of Hillary Clinton so long as the campaign does not directly pay the performer and the campaign covers costs such as renting the venue and providing security. Further the performer did not commit a violation when he sent out an email promoting the concert and soliciting funds for the campaign. The performance arguably has significant value in that the performer is normally paid for his services. But so long as the Hillary Clinton campaign did not pay Elton John for that particular performance it was was legal with respect to campaign finance regulations. Scroll down to MUR 5987
In another example the US Supreme Court upheld the ruling of the US District Court for the District of Columbia that the ban of contributions by foreigners “does not restrain foreign nationals from speaking out about issues or spending money to advocate their views about issues. It restrains them only from a certain form of expressive activity closely tied to the voting process—providing money for a candidate or political party or spending money in order to expressly advocate for or against the election of a candidate.” So the Russian government spending money to speak out about issues and advocate their views is not in and of itself a campaign violation. Whether a specific expenditure would cross the line would have to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. See Bluman v FEC
So it is not as simple as saying anything coming from a foreigner is automatically illegal. Foreigners can make significant volunteer contributions of their labor and information, even if that information or the services volunteered had significant value.
The author of that opinion is a judge you might have heard of… Brett Kavanaugh.
The full text of the opinion he wrote can be found here.
While generally upholding bars on direct contributions to campaigns by foreigners he does make the distinction between issue advocacy and express advocacy.
Issue advocacy ads are familiar in election season. The NRA might run an ad saying something like “If you value your Second Amendment rights you need to know that Senator Whatshisname voted to support GunRegulationX. Tell Senator Whatshisname how you feel about your Second Amendment rights.” And such an issue advocacy ad would be perfectly legal for a foreign national to pay to run.
Express Advocacy ads take the form of encouraging a specific vote for or against a candidate. An ad that ends with “Vote No! on Proposition XYZ” or “Vote for Candidate John Doe” would not be legal for a foreign national to run. That specific call to vote a particular way for or against a candidate or ballot measure is what crosses the line into prohibited election activity if carried out or paid for by a foreign national*.
Foreign nationals who are admitted to the United States as Lawful Permanent Residents can legally engage in such express activity.
I’m not clear on what specific activity you’re asking about, but below you can read the indictment of Russian intelligence officers responsible for hacking the DNC and other Democratic organizations. They are charged with illegal entry to computer systems, money laundering, and some other stuff. While they resided abroad, the hacking took place within the U.S. jurisdiction, and the money laundering seems to involve crossing U.S. jurisdiction as well.
I’m not clear on that, but the same provision of law prohibits someone from receiving or soliciting foreign contributions, so it is entirely possible that a U.S. person may get in hot water (which goes back to the OP’s question).
What made it illegal is that they pretended to be Americans (because foreigners can’t directly campaign for candidates) and committed various crimes to hide their true Russian identity.
This is too political for GQ. Stick to the facts in GQ, please.
You have had several warnings for inappropriate politics in GQ and other forums. You would be wise to figure out where such statements are appropriate and where they are not so that you don’t end up with your posting privileges here coming under review.
Foreigners can plant disinformation in an effort to assist a political campaign so long as they stay away from the narrow scope of Express Advocacy. They can even lie about their identities or use online pseudonyms as they do so. It might violate a user agreement to post as John Smith from Kansas when you are really Yuri Kachenkov from Moscow, but a violation of a user agreement on Facebook is not a violation of the law.
So if the Russian GRU wants to take out ads on Facebook or post threads on internet discussion boards in an attempt to spread their point of view that “Crimea has always been a part of Russia. The people living there want to be governed by Russia. Other countries should support the Crimeans in making their free choice to be annexed into Russia and support leadership in their own countries that would respect the wishes of the Crimeans.” it is not, in and of itself, a violation of US campaign finance law even if that statement would tend to favor one candidate over another. Just don’t step over the line and say “Vote for Trump because he will support the Crimeans in their desire to be annexed into Russia.”
So the Mueller investigation may tend to focus more tightly on actions that are illegal without regard to the citizenship of the person who carries out those acts. Unauthorized hacking into computer systems is a crime. So perhaps an American might commit the crime of conspiracy by working with a foreign national to hack into his political opponent’s computer. And if Mueller can prove the elements of such criminal acts then he can bring charges, subject to any relevant constitutional limits.