beginning or in the abstract of what that penalty might be. we ve assessed penalties from a few hundred dollars to millions of dollars. if donald trump took a million dollars from a foreign government, you d say, okay, that s a black and white thing of value. if you give donald trump the choice, would you rather have a million dollars from ukraine or dirt that s going to bring down your number one opponent, he would certainly choose the latter which shows it has more value than money. he so i don t think anyone company question there s value attached to it. fec chairwoman ellen weintraub, thank you as you always for your perspective on this. good to see you. thank you. david french, before we let you go there in nashville, you re one of the clearest, smartest thinkers out there, just want to get your thoughts as we head into a weekend on a wild week about how people should be thinking about all we ve had to digest over the last four or five days. you know, one of the key ques
they should investigate the bidens. likewise, china should start an investigation into the bidens. because what happened in china is just about as bad as what happened with with ukraine. shortly after the president made those comments, weintraub retweeted her statement from june along with an image of a microphone and the caption, is this thing on? fec chairwoman ellen weintraub joins us now. appreciate you being here today. i know you didn t want to get into the politics of all of this, so let me ask you about the law. could you restate what the fe krerks says abo c says about seeking the assistance of a foreign nation in a political campaign? the law is clear it is absolutely illegal for anyone to solicit, accept, or receive anything of value from a foreign national in connection with any election in the united states. so, ellen, then what is the thing of value?
because this is the gray area where the white house and president trump is playing. he s just saying we re looking into corruption in ukraine for example. is there a thing of value there? well, i don t want to comment on the specifics. i m just here to explain the law. that s part of my job and i think that this is a moment in america where it s really important that the american people understand what the law is. the fec has looked into all sorts of things of value over the years and it is clear from our precedence that information can be a thing of value, opposition research, polling data, mailing lists. we ve looked at all sorts of information in the context of the foreign national ban. sometimes information can be difficult to value, not just information, other kinds of things can be difficult to value. it could be hard to ascertain. but that doesn t mean that it doesn t have value. so just i want to ynd line that information and opposition
research can be a thing of value and therefore in violation of the law? i believe so. mike. so, ellen, even as limited as we are, we understand speak for yourself. we understand the law as you just explained it, what i want to know, i think what people want to know is what is the penalty for what donald trump has is doing? what s the penalty? well, penalty s vary. if the fec were to consider a complaint, and, again, i don t want to talk about the specifics of any particular fact person, but the fec has civil enforcement authority over the federal election campaign act which includes the foreign national ban, the justice department has criminal enforcement authority. when the fec looks at a complaint, it often will assess a monetary penalty at the end of an investigation. and it s very hard to say at the
charge of the budget for energy department said he thinks about rick perry. he says the rick perry choice is so perplexing. i think very few people understand that the energy department to a very substantial degree is dealing with nuclear weapons. and rick perry suggested the agency should be abolished. that suggests, he thinks, it doesn t have value. that was former senator byron dorgan. what do you think about that, marc? i think that rick like the senator, i think rick perry didn t understand the full scope of the department. and i think the best argument for rick persy t sry is what be made. he believes in shrinking government. to take it back to the diversity point for a moment, it s a compelling one, he has the right ideology and has experience implementing that ideology. i would be willing to wanler and anyone would agree that there are lots of people who have the same ideology and some level of experience doing that.