Quote Originally Posted by Greyblades View Post
it can safely be said that the law only bans exchanges of monetary value in any form
Quote Originally Posted by Greyblades View Post
His argument is predicated on the definition of contribution being able to contain information. The problem here is that the law does not define contribution nor refer to an outside definition.
Well, it's only two US experts on US law against some British wise guy who has the superior interpretation of the US law of course: https://www.justsecurity.org/42956/o...nation-russia/

The President stated publicly that he would like to have the Russians locate the stolen emails. Mr. Smith, indicating in various ways association with General Flynn, launches an initiative focused on finding these communications. A Russian national with government connections is able to schedule a meeting with the most senior circle of the campaign by pledging that she had negative information about Mrs. Clinton. In various ways, public and private, the campaign is making its interest clear, and, at a minimum, it is “assenting” to Russian plans to unearth information that constitutes a clear “thing of value” from a foreign source to influence an election.
http://www.businessinsider.de/donald...17-7?r=US&IR=T

Brendan Fischer, Federal Election Commission reform program director at the Campaign Legal Center, told Business Insider that the FEC has in past opinions interpreted the definition of "other thing of value" to include non-monetary contributions in relation to the foreign national ban.

"So getting opposition research or dirt on Hillary Clinton, or however they tried to portray it, would constitute a contribution both on the definition of a contribution and on the foreign national contribution ban," he said. "And then solicitation: Did Trump Jr. solicit the contribution? I think there the answer is also yes."
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017...t-to-know.html

Foreign nationals are prohibited from providing "anything of value" to campaigns, and that same law also bars solicitation of such assistance. The law typically applies to monetary campaign contributions, but courts could consider information such as opposition research to be something of value.

Bradley A. Smith, a former Bill Clinton-appointed Republican Federal Election Commission member, said that based on what's known about the meeting, Trump Jr.'s actions are unlikely to be considered illegal solicitation.

"It's not illegal to meet with someone to find out what they have to offer," Smith said.

But Larry Noble, a former general counsel at the FEC, said the situation "raises all sorts of red flags."
There, even FoxNews aren't sure whether they can jump onto your bandwagon.
I guess it all depends on the FEC now or whoever is meant to decide about it.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/nationa...a383baa1d.html

This one has a few opinions from legal experts, some of whom agree with you and some of whom don't. It's probably not as clear cut as you make it out to be either way.