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U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Livermore) recently reintroduced four federal bills addressing foreign corruption in U.S. elections and another to issue grants for gun relinquishment programs established by states.
Calling domestic violence “a persistent threat to many Americans” that can be escalated by firearm ownership, the Tri-Valley congressman again proposed the “No Guns for Abusers Act” on Feb. 26.
Federal law prohibits convicted abusers or those subject to a protection order from buying firearms, but the bill would provide analysis and make recommendations for states and localities to set up the best relinquishment system.
“The pandemic has brought on stay-at-home orders nationwide, increasing the risk of intimate partner violence,” Swalwell said in a statement. “Never has it been more important to take action to prevent guns from remaining in the hands of domestic abusers. We have a clear opportunity to save lives with this legislation — it should not be a partisan issue.”
According to Swalwell, firearm ownership can escalate abuse, and the risk of intimate partner homicide is five times greater when an abuser has access to a firearm.
The bill is supported by Everytown for Gun Safety and the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
Swalwell also reintroduced four bills last month that would “require candidates, campaigns, and companies to report foreign interference in U.S. elections; enhance protections for whistleblowers who come forward to expose official wrongdoing; and make it a criminal offense for the President, Vice President, or their families to enrich themselves from foreign sources.”
After serving as impeachment manager for former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial last month (which saw the Senate acquit Trump with 57 Yes votes to 43 No, with two-thirds required for conviction), Swalwell said, “Congress must make sure these expectations are spelled out explicitly in law and are punished when violated. America needs these reforms to move ahead.”
Previously introduced in 2018 and 2019, the “Duty to Report Act” would “impose a legal duty on federal campaigns, candidates, and PACs to report offers of assistance from foreign nationals, including material, non-public information, to the Federal Election Commission and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
All meetings between candidates or campaign officials and agents of foreign governments, and those “held in a candidate’s official capacity as an elected representative” would also require disclosure.
Also introduced originally in 2019, the “Corporate Duty to Report Act” requires companies to “disclose to the government when a foreign person, country, or organization attempts to subvert our election once again with political ads,” and levy criminal fines of up to $1 million per incident on a corporation that “fails to report to the FBI any instance in which a person it knew was a foreign national paid for a political message.”
Civil fines up to $500,000 could also be issued if a corporation fails to ask, “in cases in which it received funds intended for a political message, whether the funds amounted to an independent expenditure or electioneering communication and, if so, if the provider of the funds was a foreign national.”
“If we’ve learned anything from recent elections, it’s that we can no longer let our own social media infrastructure be used against us,” Swalwell said. “We must act to thwart our foreign adversaries’ future election interference attempts.”
The “Enhancing Protections for Whistleblower Anonymity Act” was first introduced in June 2020, and imposes criminal penalties “on any federal official who knowingly communicates the identity of a whistleblower, or information which would reveal such a person’s identity, except to other government officials when permitted by existing law.”
Whistleblowers whose identities are illegally disclosed can also sue for injunctive relief or monetary damages under the bill, which Swalwell began drafting in 2019.
The “Prevent Corrupting Foreign Influence Act” was previously introduced twice — in 2018 and again in 2019 — and “would make it a criminal offense for the President, the Vice President, their families, or companies in which they have at least half-ownership to accept or receive anything of value from a foreign power or from any company that is more than 50% controlled by a foreign power.”
The Constitution and other laws civilly prohibit government employees — including elected officials but not their family — from receiving “emoluments” or gifts from foreign states, with some exceptions as allowed by Congress, but Swalwell’s bill seeks to include “anything of value” and “expand the prohibition’s application: for sources, to include companies controlled by foreign countries; and for recipients, to include the President’s and Vice President’s immediate family members and companies they control.”
“Americans deserve to know that their President is working for them and only them, not having his own wallet fattened by foreign interests,” Swalwell said.
