This is a massive stretch, when it comes to the “Anything of value” definition.
If a foreign national knows that Hillary Broke a serious law, it’s illegal for the president of the United States to know about it, then research it and prove it true?
This could only be used to better the standing of the foreign state, and couldn’t help our own.
This woman has served too long.
Bush again...
The logic of this is so twisted. It could only help a foreign state?
So if the president of the United States is told by a foreign national that there is a nuclear plot focused on the U. S., it could only help that foreign state, and not the U. S.?
This person is a mental midget.
Agreed. This language is clearly referring to Bribery involving items of monetary value, no matter how small; and not information.
Yes. When you define information as a thing of value, any conversation or any news report theoretically becomes a potential "campaign contribution." And that would be an idiotic standard.
By a strict reading of Ms. Weintraub's statement, I suppose we now should jail any candidate for federal office, including all the congressional and senate candidates, who had a conversation with a foreign national or read any foreign source news story.
We would have to lock them all up. As attractive as this might sound at first glance, I don't think it is a standard we really want to enforce.
Someone who is up on the FEC needs to weigh in. (Perhaps someone already has later in the thread.) It looks like the nomination and confirmation process for the FEC has completely collapsed. There are supposed to be three Republican and three Democratic commissioners. These were traditionally named by their respective parties, with those nominations being accepted by the other party. I recall a controversy some years ago when the collegiality broke down; I think this was when the Democrats went into full resistance mode against Bush 43, but I could be wrong. I wasn't paying close attention and had supposed that was in the past. Apparently it is still going on. Two of the six seats on the FEC are vacant, and have been vacant for years. Of the four members, the terms of ALL FOUR have expired, and they are serving provisionally until their successors are confirmed. But this has been the situation for more than ten years. (!!!) The chairmanship rotates among the sitting members. This happens to be Ms. Weintraub's year, so she has the chairman line on the letterhead, but this is a Dead Agency Walking.
The exact wording from the statute is “money or other thing of value”. Her paraphrase completely changes the meaning of the statute.