Law Professor Ciara Torres-Spelliscy quoted on Bloomberg Government on foreign involvement in elections
Trump Ukraine Fracas Echoes Nixon, Clinton Campaign-Law Scandals
By Kenneth P. Doyle
Bloomberg Government
Nov. 7, 2019
Excerpt
What’s different now is that the episode at the heart of the probe involves not money but something that could be just as valuable–a foreign government investigation of a political rival, according to Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, a law professor at Stetson University, who’s studied the history of campaign finance law.
“It is beyond the pale,” Torres-Spelliscy said, to make the request Trump did in a phone call to Zelenskiy. The House clearly could determine this was an illegal solicitation of something valuable to the president as a candidate for re-election, she said, but lawmakers wouldn’t be able to point to a specific precedent.
Torres-Spelliscy has written that articles of impeachment drafted against [President Richard] Nixon but never voted on due to his resignation in 1974 included alleged campaign-finance violations.
This article was originally published on the Bloomberg Government website on Nov. 7, 2019, with the headline, “Trump Ukraine Fracas Echoes Nixon, Clinton Campaign-Law Scandals.”
Post date: Dec. 2, 2019
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