Trump’s Ukraine Call Raises Questions About Campaign Finance Rules

Richard Hasen, a professor at the University of California Irvine School of Law, wrote in Slate Monday that Trump may have violated campaign finance law with the call, given the value that an investigation into Biden and his son could bring the Trump campaign in the event of a 2020 clash. Under federal law, campaigns are barred from accepting or soliciting a “thing of value” from foreign nationals or governments in connection with an election. “Certainly, the Ukrainian government spending money to investigate the family of Trump’s potential challenger would be of immense value to Trump’s reelection campaign, and requesting such a probe would bring the foreign national solicitation ban into play,” Brendan Fischer, director of federal reform at Campaign Legal Center, told OpenSecrets in an email.

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