Richard L. Hasen writes:

The news of Thursday’s indictments of two associates of Rudy Giuliani’s, who according to their lawyer (and former Trump lawyer) John Dowd, assisted Giuliani “in connection with his representation of President Trump” shows that foreign interference in American elections is a feature and not a bug of the Trump campaign and presidency. And the connections to the emerging Ukraine scandal show that the corruption runs deep in this administration.

The tale told in Thursday’s unsealed indictment is complex, and it will take a while to unravel all the parts. But here’s what we know so far. Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two Ukrainian-born American citizens, conspired with others, including a Russian citizen and businessman, to violate campaign finance laws for both personal and political gain. Among other things, Parnas and Fruman, along with their co-conspirators, funneled foreign money through a limited liability company and between each other to violate federal campaign finance laws barring foreign contributions to American campaigns and limiting how much any American citizen can give to a federal candidate for office.

Part of this was about good old fashioned influence buying. According to the indictment, the two were involved in a scheme to “funnel foreign money to candidates for federal and state office so that the defendants could buy potential influence with candidates, campaigns, and the candidates’ governments.” The defendants used a limited liability corporation to hide some of the contributions. Some of this was just about corrupt business, such as getting a recreational marijuana business going in Nevada. (They didn’t necessarily do it well. After using funding from “Foreign National 1” to support a lobbying campaign of state and federal officials to help with their license acquisition efforts, the group missed the deadline to apply for a marijuana license. At this point, one of the defendants allegedly told others of the missed deadline “2 months too late to the game unless we change the rules.”)

But more interesting than the details of the petty influence-peddling efforts are the allegations in the complaint that the purpose was to further the bigger political goals of the co-conspirators. According to the Wall Street Journal, the defendants funneled $325,000 to a pro-Trump super PAC. They then worked with the president’s personal attorney, Giuliani, to remove the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. (They further allegedly sought to lobby an unnamed congressman to seek the ambassador’s removal.) The apparent goal was to move her out of the way so Giuliani, on Trump’s behalf, could pressure Ukraine prosecutors to dig up or fabricate dirt on Joe Biden and his son Hunter. All of this is at the center of Congress’ impeachment inquiry of the president, and House Democrats were reportedly due to seek to depose the two men as critical witnesses prior to their arrest. [Continue reading…]

Trevor Potter and Delaney Marsco write:

Rudolph W. Giuliani is not the secretary of state. In fact, he has no official position in President Trump’s Cabinet or administration. Yet he is traveling the world holding himself out as a U.S. government operative, engaging in some unknown amount of “unofficial” diplomacy and insisting his work is not only officially sanctioned by the president but also assisted by the State Department. The president’s “private lawyer” is not charging Trump for his services, but he and his law firm are known to have dozens of clients — including foreign entities — who are paying for whatever services they think Giuliani can provide for them.

That is a very convenient setup for Giuliani — but it leaves the public in the dark about the wealthy special interests who might be subsidizing his gratis work for Trump — or for whom he might actually be working while invoking Trump’s name and that of the State Department. Because Giuliani is not officially a federal employee, he can sidestep ethics obligations that would require transparency behind the foreign or domestic interests who are paying him. [Continue reading…]