Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., unveiled new legislation Tuesday to help prevent foreign interference in future elections.
“We must learn the lessons of 2016 – our democracy is too important to leave vulnerable,” Swalwell, a candidate in the Democratic primary, tweeted Tuesday.
Today, I introduced the Duty to Report Act with @SenBlumenthal, which requires political campaigns offered assistance by foreign agents to notify the FBI. We must learn the lessons of 2016 – our democracy is too important to leave vulnerable. https://t.co/nB6IyRLxmR
— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) April 30, 2019
The legislation, known as the Duty to Report Act, would legally require federal campaigns, candidates, and PACs to report to the Federal Election Commission and the FBI when and if foreign nationals reach out to provide assistance. Candidates and campaign officials would also be required to disclose any meetings that occur with agents of foreign governments, with the exception of meetings that a candidate is conducting as an elected official.
The legislation comes after special counsel Robert Mueller’s report was released earlier this month. The report described how the Internet Research Agency, a company based in St. Petersburg that Mueller charged with interference during the 2016 election, generated discord among American voters through a disinformation campaign and social media operations.
[Related: WikiLeaks lawyer says he helped pass info to Don Jr.]
Additionally, the report outlines efforts from Russian military intelligence services to hack into computers and obtain documents from people within the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Such documents were shared with DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0, along with WikiLeaks for publication.
It also confirmed that President Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., accepted a meeting with a Russian intelligence intermediary, Natalia Veselnitskaya, in 2016 under the assumption that he would receive “dirt” on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
“A duty to report foreign sabotage of our democracy is a matter of simple patriotism and common sense — but now needs to be an explicit legal duty too,” Blumenthal said in a statement. “If a foreign adversary offers a candidate for U.S. office illegal assistance, the first call should be to federal law enforcers not to criminal co-conspirators.”
Mueller, who wrapped up his 22-month long investigation in March, determined that the Trump campaign did not collude with the Kremlin. But the report did not clear Trump from obstruction of justice.
[Also read: Trump says he knows ‘nothing’ about Julian Assange or WikiLeaks]
