Mike Thompson: “As a practical matter, I think there are no restraints. I think under the present situation, with the FEC…”

“As a practical matter, I think there are no restraints. I think under the present situation, with the FEC interpretations that have come down, with the Attorney General decisions and opinions that she has made, I literally think that you could call up someone, if you knew someone in Russia or China or Brazil, or wherever you wanted to-- or California for that matter--get them to send a suitcase full of a million dollars cash, launder it, if you needed to, put it into a soft money account, and as long as you used issue ads and did not say ``vote for'' or ``vote against'' under this current ridiculous setup of interpretations we have now, that is permissible. That is the system we have currently.”