Quote Originally Posted by Sarmatian View Post
It is not really that simple. Any foreign news organization would be guilty of breaking that law if they publish something negative about a candidate, because it could help the other candidate. And lot of news organizations receive money from their government in some way, shape or form.

Under your interpretation, that law was broken thousands of times during this campaign. Anyone foreign who published anything bad about Trump could be prosecuted.
Foreign news coverage is not normally something a campaign can control. It is not something to be accepted or rejected between principals. In itself it cannot be exchanged as a thing of value, and it is publicly available, and static once promulgated. Conspiracy to fix positive coverage between a campaign and foreign media, maybe it is covered by other election law, but under this one you would probably need adjacent factors.

The mere existence of coverage is clearly not prosecutable under this regulation.