We begin today’s roundup with Barbara McQuade’s examination of Donald Trump’s latest comments regarding accepting foreign intelligence against a political opponent:
Even sitting down and listening to an overture from a foreign government puts a candidate at risk of blackmail. Many intelligence operations are based on offering someone something that they want–money, access, sex–and then using that enticement as a trap to coerce compliance with demands. The foreign adversary doesn’t even need to say out loud that it will expose the person’s betrayal to his country. The mere knowledge that the foreign government could expose a person’s unpatriotic acts may be sufficient leverage to induce someone to act in the best interests of the adversary and contrary to the best interests of his own country. The meeting alone compromises the candidate [...] Trump’s comments that he would listen, and report to the FBI only if something was wrong, is wrong as a matter of good counterintelligence practice, and profoundly wrong as a matter of patriotism.
And, yes, as the FEC was forced to make clear, what Trump is proposing is wrong.
“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 U.S. election,“ wrote Ellen Weintraub, chairwoman of the FEC. “This is not a novel concept.“