Former Green Party candidate Jill Stein is pushing back against Senate Intelligence Committee requests from her campaign as part of the Russian meddling witch hunt, calling their demands “unconstitutional.”
While looking into whether or not the Stein campaign was involved in “Russian meddling,” the committee has requested communication records with “all people of Russian descent.”
According to a report from the Intercept, Stein’s campaign is arguing that the broad request unfairly places suspicion on all people of Russian lineage, and are refusing to comply with the request.
The Intercept reports that the campaign has said they will absolutely “not be disclosing names of persons with whom they have ever communicated, including American political supporters, targeted because they happen to be Russian immigrants or of Russian descent. We reiterate here that the responding parties will not participate in a hunt for identification of persons based on nationality or descent.”
“The Green Party campaign will agree to turn over some documents, but raised constitutional objections to the breadth of the inquiry, which was first made in November 2017, arguing that elements of it infringe on basic political rights enshrined in the First Amendment,” the Intercept reports.
In a letter letter responding to committee chair Richard Burr, R-N.C., and ranking member Mark Warner, D-Va., stating that they will not comply with all requests, the lawyers for her campaign argued that it was “so overbroad in reach as to demand constitutionally protected materials.”
Some of the material they are refusing to provide includes the campaign’s internal communications regarding Russia policy, which the lawyers argued are “not pertinent to the subject of Russian interference.”
Stein’s campaign did provide the committee with all communications with “Russian media organizations, their employees, or associates.” The Green Party candidate frequently appeared on Russia Today, as the network was one of the only ones willing to give third party candidates a platform.
