Lawless President Recklessly Invites Foreign Countries to Interfere in U.S. Elections – Wertheimer Statement

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President Trump’s comment yesterday that he sees nothing wrong with accepting opposition research from a foreign country seeking to influence our elections, shocking as it is, should come as no surprise to anyone.Trump made his position on this clear during the 2016 presidential campaign when he publicly called on Russia to find and make available Hillary Clinton’s emails and when he kept calling on Wikileaks to provide information hacked from the Clinton campaign. Trump also made his views clear when he defended Donald Trump Jr.’s infamous Trump Tower meeting with Russian agents, which involved soliciting Russia to provide dirt on Hillary Clinton.

Special Counsel Mueller’s failure to take action against Trump Jr. for soliciting “opposition research” from Russia was based on a misguided interpretation of the campaign finance laws. Mueller concluded that he could not apply to Trump Jr. the prohibition on soliciting “a thing of value” from a foreign country because Mueller could not determine a monetary value to place on the “opposition research” Trump Jr. was soliciting.

In an op-ed published by Just Security entitled “Loopholes Allow Foreign Adversaries to Legally Interfere in U.S. Elections,” I discussed legislative proposals that Democracy 21 has worked with Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and John Sarbanes (D-MD) to develop to strengthen the ban on foreign countries interfering in our elections.

The proposals include a fix to Mueller’s misreading of the law. The fix would provide that opposition research or other campaign-related information is not required to have a monetary value in order to be considered a “thing of value” for purposes of the criminal penalties on violations of the foreign ban, when such information is solicited from or donated by a foreign country.

Furthermore, when Trump was told yesterday that the FBI Director had said that anyone who is offered campaign assistance by a foreign country should notify the FBI, Trump’s response was that “the FBI Director is wrong.” This was Trump yet again showing his disdain for the efforts of our intelligence agencies to protect the country from foreign attacks on our elections.At the same time, the New York Times revealed today that Attorney General Barr is investigating the CIA’s findings that Russia invaded the 2016 presidential campaign to assist Trump’s election. This comes on top of Barr’s previous announcement that he is going to conduct an investigation of the origins of the 2016 FBI investigation into the relationship between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Barr is operating as the President’s shield and his sword, not as the nation’s Attorney General, in personally going after the President’s perceived enemies.

Barr is investigating the investigators and it raises a profound question: Who is going to investigate the investigator of the investigators? Because Barr’s actions certainly need investigating.

Meanwhile, President Trump’s comments yesterday provided an open invitation to foreign adversaries to invade the 2020 presidential campaign and to attack our democracy once again.

President Trump is a lawless, authoritarian president who poses a direct and unprecedented threat to our constitutional system of government, our democracy and the rule of law.