The Securities and Exchange Commission should adopt regulations to identify foreign-owned companies that spend corporate funds to influence elections, Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin and 15 other House Democrats say in a letter they plan to send Thursday.
The letter, shared first with CQ Roll Call, cites Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to underscore the urgent need for the action.
“Foreign interests have spent many millions of dollars in recent U.S. elections, often through ‘dark money’ channels, and we witnessed unprecedented foreign efforts to undermine our democracy during the 2016 election cycle,” the letter stated. “Further, as Russia continues its illegal war on Ukraine and the U.S. and its allies impose sanctions on President [Vladimir] Putin and Russia’s complicit oligarchs, we cannot forget that those same oligarchs likely have millions stowed away in U.S. corporations.”
