House Democrats Want to Make Accepting Dirt on Campaign Opponents from Foreign Governments a Crime

House Democrats are rolling out a new package of bills that, among other things, would make it a crime for President Donald Trump to accept damaging information about his 2020 Democratic opponents from foreign actors, after Trump said Wednesday he would be open to doing just that…. As Trump tried to walk back his comments in a long series of Thursday tweets, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that Democrats would soon roll out a “duty to report” bill that would require any campaign that either solicits or receives an offer of opposition research or “dirt” on an opponent from a foreign country to report it to the FBI. There’s also a separate bill to put new teeth into existing campaign finance law to enforce this. Here’s how that bill would work: It would include opposition research as a thing of value in the existing foreign contribution ban already in campaign finance law…. This could have made a difference in a major part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. Mueller ultimately did not charge Donald Trump Jr. and other Trump campaign officials for their infamous June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower with Russians promising “dirt” on Hillary Clinton precisely because he couldn’t determine if money changed hands, or the information had monetary value attached. If the law was updated, Mueller and others may be able to pursue charges for similar actions in the future…. Democrats have been working on this bill for a month, as part of a larger package of election security reforms to fix legal holes exposed by the Mueller investigation. But Trump’s comments on ABC spurred them to announce it immediately…. Senators are expected to have an election security briefing soon, and Democrats in the House hope it will spur further action in the upper chamber.