Getting Foreign Funds Out of America’s Elections
April 6, 2018Russia-linked political ads on every major internet platform. The alleged flow of Russian money to the NRA. The Trump campaign’s solicitation of donations from foreign sources. Reports that Robert Mueller is investigating whether Russian oligarchs funneled money into the 2016 campaign. Each of these has broken as a separate news story, but in one important sense, they all belong to one same thread: Our country’s longstanding ban on political spending by foreign actors is in tatters.
This report is the first comprehensive package of campaign finance reforms to address the threat of foreign spending in American elections. It shows that platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Google are just a few of the many conduits hostile states can use to circumvent the ban on foreign political spending. And it lays out a roadmap that Congress, states and the social media companies can follow to proactively protect the integrity of our democracy from political spending.