Does US law permit spending taxpayers' money to support foreign political parties?
score:3
The US does provide money abroad for humanitarian reasons, although I am sure some money can go through certain channels (or agencies) and find it's way to foreign political parties that are pro-US. This is certainly the case with governments which receive funds from the US in order to keep the party in power, or certainly influence a pro-US point of view. It happens, has happened and in many ways is legal as it's money spent under Foreign Aid, although it is becoming a political topic now that the US is heading into elections and our budget can't readily support such subsidies. If there are political parties being given money I don't know, but it probably happens and in many cases is probably done so it's untracable.
Political parties in power in the US do give money to support parts of their agenda, the most recent example I can think of is the Bush Administration stopped giving aid money to organizations that promoted abortion.
There are controversies, but many either blow over when a scandal comes up, or a new Administration comes to power and then reverts any foreign aid assistance guidelines imposed by the previous administration.
Upvote:0
According to the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), the State Department gave $349,276 in U.S. taxpayer-funded grants to a political group in Israel to build a campaign operation, which subsequently was used to try to influence Israelis to vote against conservative Benjamin Netanyahu in the March 2015 election for prime minister.
In the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations report about the State Department’s action, Chairman Bob Portman (R-Ohio) said, “It is completely unacceptable that U.S. taxpayer dollars were used to build a political campaign infrastructure that was deployed — immediately after the grant ended — against the leader [Netanyahu] of our closest ally in the Middle East. American resources should be used to help our allies in the region, not undermine them.”
Usually it wouldn't be directly, people don't like outsiders influencing politics, from the "A Call for Unity" letter by Southern clergy against Martin Luther King Jr., to accusations by the Bolsheviks against the White armies.
But the US has funded foreign political groups to influence elections to get a party elected.
Upvote:1
USA spent many time and money to win in the "cold" war, now USA just changed ways to protect their interests in Russia (main exUSSR country). Nothing has changed.
Upvote:4
You need to make distinctions between:
US government openly supporting a group (likely, not happening though for reasons of plausible deniability/optics rather than some law). This may be confused with legit spending on assorted humanitarian etc... programs though. The latter is legal as long as Congress appropriates the money for the purpose.
US government clandestinely supporting a group - e.g. via CIA. This is legal AFAIK, as long as all the bureaucratic ass-covering is done.
US non-governmental organizations doing this (in case of Russia, Soros seemed to be a big sugar daddy in 1990s/2000s). DEFINITELY not coordinated with US govt in case of Soros in 2000s, since Soros is politically a mortal enemy of GW Bush. Totally legal as long as one doesn't run afoul of anti-bribery/anti-corruption laws.
Upvote:7
Just as an interesting contra-discussion, the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 were largely influenced by the French government's desire to fund Jefferson during the election of 1796. Foreign governments have been involved in elections for a long time.
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