Commissioner Ann Ravel goes the full Louis Renault:

Federal Election Commission member Ann Ravel on Tuesday proposed a ban on political contributions by domestic subsidiaries of foreign corporations.

Ravel’s proposal cites The Intercept series last week reporting that American Pacific International Capital, a California corporation owned by two Chinese nationals, donated $1.3 million to Right to Rise USA, the main Super PAC supporting Jeb Bush’s presidential run.

Ravel wrote that as a result of Citizens United and subsequent Supreme Court decisions, “our campaign finance system is vulnerable to influence from foreign nationals and foreign corporations through Domestic subsidiaries and affiliates in ways unimaginable a decade ago.”

Yes, Commissioner Ravel. Who could have possibly even remotely imagined that a former President and his Secretary of State spouse who also happen to run a multinational, billion dollar not-for-profit could (only hypothetically, mind you) have any dealings that might, perhaps, maybe, lead to the smidgen of the notion of an idea of the contemplation a foreign bribe?

Why that's preposterous!

US shell companies set up by foreign nationals to launder offshore campaign cash to American politicians. That's what we're talking about.

And it's legal.

The Spies memo explains that, while foreigners are strictly prohibited from making political contributions, the FEC “has repeatedly made clear that even if a corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of a foreign corporation … as long as the subsidiary is both organized under the laws of a U.S. state and has its principal place of business within the U.S., the subsidiary is not a foreign national.” In the case of APIC, the fact that it is incorporated in California makes it American for legal purposes.

Now throw in Citizen's United, which basically decriminalizes political bribery and so allows all that foreign cash to flow from the dummy companies straight into SuperPac coffers without any regard for the circumstances of the payment.

The 2010 Citizens United decision struck down the prohibition on corporations spending their own money on “independent expenditures,” thereby opening the possibility that foreign money could flow into elections that way.

Ravel, noting The Intercept’s stories, wrote that this was no longer “a hypothetical concern.”

I suppose it's a positive sign that the government agency charged with preventing international influence peddling has finally figured out that its actually happening, but the fact that it took them ten years to notice doesn't give me too much hope that they'll actually do something about it.