Quote (Goomshill @ Aug 7 2018 04:16am)
Because that statute only applies to things of monetary value.
If a prosecutor attempted to extend 'things of value' to mean information, the prosecution would violate half the fucking constitution. It would be struck down on vagueness doctrine- the statute is unconstitutionally vague and the courts would give it a limited construction to say that 'things of value' refers only to things of monetary value, returning you to square one. It would be struck down as a violation of the 1st amendment. The government cannot pass laws that regulate forms of expression and pure non-commercial information as a campaign finance. And if it were applied as such, it would mean that half the journalists and political consultants in America have violated FEC rules and would need to be locked up, because just interviewing a non-citizen or holding a conversation would be a violation. It would be struck down as an ex post facto redefinition of a statute to retroactively apply to something that was not a crime at the time. And even though all that, its a statute with a minor penalty that has been historically punished with a slap on the wrist. Bernie Sanders was already fined by the FEC for receiving a 'thing of value' in the form of in-kind donations from the Australian Labor Party in the 2016 election; they sent volunteers to knock on doors using their own funding. He got fined $14,500. It didn't even make page 5 of the papers.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c3/%D0%9B%D0%B0%D0%B2%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%B9_%D0%91%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%8F%2C_1920-%D0%B5_%D0%B3%D0%BE%D0%B4%D1%8B.jpg/220px-%D0%9B%D0%B0%D0%B2%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%B9_%D0%91%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%8F%2C_1920-%D0%B5_%D0%B3%D0%BE%D0%B4%D1%8B.jpg
'show me the man', right?
opposition research is absolutely a thing of monetary value. But I agree (with bold), it's not anything that merits impeachment. Just saying it's pretty clear case of a Federal election violation...