Wednesday, May 29, 2019

Reestablishing Proper Standards of Behavior

A question raised by the Mueller Report is what are acceptable standards of behavior:

  • should political actors in the US accept money from noncitizens/nonresident?
  • should they accept valuable information from nonresidents?
  • should they accept advertising on their behalf paid for by nonresidents?
  • should they report attempts provide the above assistance to the FBI?
  • should they make public the above assistance?
  • should they lie about receiving such assistance?
There have been defenses of the Trump campaign arguing that searching for dirt on the opponent is standard campaign procedure.  Is that true, and if it is, should it be?  Where do you draw the lines?

Even as a devoted opponent of Trump's presidency I recognize that, with the First Amendment and the SCOTUS decisions in this area, the answers to these questions may not be what I'd like. But it does seems possible that there could be bipartisan agreement on some standards.

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