[m0zg]

Would the Clinton campaign have to report its (indirect) $1.02M payment for the Steele (who, let's not forget, is a foreign agent) "dossier" under this law? If not, it's not worth the paper it's written on.

I'm not a lawyer but upon cursory reading it looks like it would not, unless you were solicited by a foreign agent in the first place. If you go out and have your PAC hire Perkins Coie to pay for kompromat without explicit solicitation, it'd seem you don't have to report it.

Then there's a question of what happens after you report. Is your campaign then put under counterintelligence surveillance? How difficult is it to direct a foreign agent to solicit a payment from e.g. a dem campaign to lawfully trigger this? This is something that doesn't even have to be done by a campaign, some idiot from 4-chan could do it.

[johnsolo1701]

I am not sure tbh, I don't know enough about the situation you speak of. The text of the amendment is pretty straightforward though, I would give it a read and it should be pretty clear what situations it would apply to!

[tareqak]

Section 2 Reporting to the FEC b) Reporting meetings with foreign governments or their agents doesn't specify who had to have initiated the meeting, only that a meeting took place.