SOLICITATION RUNS IN THE FAMILY:

In our complaint filed Monday, Common Cause named both Donald Trump Jr. and the Trump campaign committee (Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.) as alleged violators of federal campaign finance law. To the extent any campaign finance laws were broken, Donald Trump Jr. is directly liable. He received and accepted the invitation for the meeting; he helped coordinate the meeting; he hosted and attended the meeting.

Why did we name the campaign committee? We named the Trump campaign committee because Donald Trump Jr. was an "agent" of the campaign committee under federal campaign finance law. FEC regulations define agent to include "any person who has actual authority, either express or implied, to ... solicit, receive, direct, transfer, or spend funds in connection with any election." Donald Trump Jr. played a leadership role in his father's presidential campaign and was authorized to solicit contributions--he headlined many fundraising events.

Why didn't we name Manafort or Kushner in our complaint? Although Manafort and Kushner attended the meeting, Donald Trump Jr. told the New York Times that he had not told Manafort and Kushner what the meeting was about. While I found it hard to believe that two incredibly busy individuals would agree to attend a meeting they knew nothing about, we opted to take Donald Trump Jr. at his word for the purposes of filing a complaint. And if Manafort and Kushner were actually in the dark heading into the meeting, it's possible they did not commit the campaign finance law violation alleged in our complaint.

Federal law prohibits a foreign national from directly or indirectly making a "contribution or donation of money or other thing of value" in connection with a U.S. election, and prohibits a person from soliciting, accepting or receiving such a contribution or donation from a foreign national. Federal law defines "contribution" to include "any gift ... of money or anything of value made by any person for the purpose of influencing any election for Federal office." And the FEC by regulation defines "solicit" to mean "to ask, request, or recommend, explicitly or implicitly, that another person make a contribution, donation, transfer of funds, or otherwise provide anything of value."

Donald Trump Jr. was offered opposition research on Hillary Clinton from a Russian. Opposition research is a thing of immense value to candidates--they regularly pay opposition research firms (like this one or this one) handsomely to produce opposition research. Donald Trump Jr. requested a telephonic meeting, which evolved into a face-to-face meeting, with a Russian in order to obtain this opposition research. Donald Trump Jr. then attended a meeting with the Russian lawyer, admittedly with the expectation of receiving this in-kind contribution of opposition research. (In his interview with Sean Hannity, and subsequent to our filing, Donald Trump Jr. also admits to "pressing" the Russian lawyer for the information that he was told to believe she had.)

The New York Times' revelation of these facts made clear to Common Cause that Donald Trump Jr. and, by extension, the Trump campaign, had violated the federal law ban on soliciting contributions from foreign nationals.

Here's the skinny: Emin Agalarov is a Russian pop star with minimal talent and, if his song "In Another Life" is any indication, an inadequate budget for paying songwriters to help his career along. If that were all there was to say about him...it would be good news for Donald Trump. Alas, Agalarov has a much more interesting backstory. His father, Aras Agalarov, is a Moscow real-estate tycoon with close ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin, according to the New York Times. The elder Agalarov also has ties to President Trump, having partnered with the Big Orange to stage the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. And to complete the circle, Agalarov Sr. and Trump Jr. also "worked together to bring a Trump Tower to Moscow," though those plans fell through.

It gets weirder. It was the younger Agalarov, the Times reports, who hatched the June 2016 meeting between Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya and Trump Jr.--a meeting that also included Jared Kushner and then-Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort--at Trump Tower in New York. Are the Agalarovs so enamored with Trump that they'd weasel their way into his most pressing affairs? Apparently, yes. They were only returning the favor. (That's Trump pictured above with Emin Agalarov at the 2013 Miss Universe Pageant.)

That, amazingly enough, brings us to the criminally stupid video for Agalarov's 2014 banger, "In Another Life," in which the scion doses off during a boring board meeting (as if anyone could sleep with that bargain-basement EDM going on) and awakens in a dream where he is surrounded and chased around by several frisky beauty-pageant contestants. He also sits down to play a piano when there is clearly no piano being played in the song. So far, so good. But just as Agalarov is starting to enjoy his house full of pageant beauties (which is probably how his waking life normally goes), he is jolted awake by the sound of the entire world's nightmare.

"Wake him up right now!" blares Trump, who has suddenly appeared at the head of the boardroom table in what, until yesterday, would have been a confusing cameo. 

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