re: What is "value?"

Thanks. That's interesting and in keeping with some other things I'm reading. Seems like it would be a somewhat novel application and not a slam-dunk.

From the Times today:

quote:

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Robert Bauer, an election-law specialist who served as White House counsel in the Obama administration, argued that this statute covers the Russian government’s paying its spies and hackers to collect and disseminate negative information about Mrs. Clinton to help Mr. Trump win the 2016 election.

“There are firms in the United States that do negative research and sell it to campaigns,” Mr. Bauer argued. “There is no way to take information someone has compiled using resources and say it’s just information and dirt. It’s valuable information and counts as a contribution when given to or distributed for the benefit of a campaign.”

But Orin S. Kerr, a George Washington University professor and former federal prosecutor, said the notion struck him as a stretch.

“The phrase ‘contribution or donation’ sounds like a gift to help fund the campaign or give them something they otherwise would buy,” Mr. Kerr argued. “If that is the standard, that doesn’t seem to be met, based on what we know so far, because this wasn’t something that someone else could have gathered that was for sale in a market or would be otherwise purchasable.”

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Collusion and Trump Campaign

In any case, I think the facts as the weeks and months pass will make our current knowledge seem quaint.