Editor Note: The first half of this article directly deals with complaints filed about Bernie Sanders alleged violations of Federal Election Commission rules. Then we dive into an FEC ruling that his campaign illegally accepted donations from a foreign country.

At Law Enforcement Today, we believe in law and order, and so we explore topics about all things law enforcement in America.

For those interested in how Bernie Sanders feels about police, we’ve included a series of his direct quotes in the second half of this article, which you’ll find by scrolling down.

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Bernie Sanders is in a complete meltdown tonight, with Attorney General Barr having released a report showing “no collusion” between the Trump campaign and Russia.

I don’t want a summary of the Mueller report. I want the whole damn report. https://t.co/VU1oNfBMK0 — Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) March 24, 2019

“I don’t want a summary of the Mueller report. I want the whole damn report,” he said.

Bernie Sanders and his party have been screaming “collusion” and “foreign interference” at President Donald Trump, despite no facts to support that.

Just two days ago, he took to Twitter to let America know that nobody is above the law.

“As Donald Trump said, ‘Let it come out.’ I call on the Trump administration to make Special Counsel Mueller’s full report public as soon as possible. No one, including the president, is above the law,” he said.

As Donald Trump said, “Let it come out." I call on the Trump administration to make Special Counsel Mueller's full report public as soon as possible. No one, including the president, is above the law. — Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) March 22, 2019

But now it’s Sanders who some say is being influenced by foreign nationals.

This week, Bernie Sanders was hit with a complaint that claims his presidential campaign violated federal election laws by employing non-Americans in advisory positions.

The complaint was filed by the Coolidge Reagan Foundation with the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

It noted that three members of the Sanders campaign are foreign nationals, and that’s a clear violation of federal election laws that prohibit foreign interference.

Among those staffers named in the complaint was Maria Belén Sisa, Sanders’ deputy national press secretary who joined the campaign last month.

Sisa says she’s an illegal immigrant whose residency is protected under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). DACA is an Obama-era program for assisting illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children.

You may recall hearing about Sisa in the news recently. This, after she invoked an anti-Semitic “dual allegiance” trope of Jewish Americans while defending Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and questioning whether American Jews, including Sanders, were loyal to the United States.

According to the complaint, Sisa didn’t just receive a salary from Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign, she also donated to it and is now serving in “an advisory position” in the 2020 campaign. According to the complaint, these are all “direct and serious violations” of federal election laws.

“Senator Sanders and Bernie 2020 is permitting a foreign national, Ms. Sisa, to serve in an advisory position which allows her to directly or indirectly participate in the decision-making process of persons with regard to election-related activities in violation of FEC regulations,” the complaint reads. “Senator Sanders and Bernie 2020 is permitting a foreign national, Ms. Sisa, to serve in an advisory position which allows her to directly or indirectly participate in the decision-making process of persons with regard to election-related activities in violation of FEC regulations.”

FEC rules are very clear that foreign nationals, who aren’t lawfully admitted permanent residents, cannot directly or indirectly participate in political campaigns. They also aren’t allowed to make political contibutions.

Two other foreign nationals on the Sanders’ 2016 campaign are also named in the complaint. They are immigration activists Erika Andiola and Cesar Vargas, who worked as the campaign’s national Latino outreach strategist and press secretary for Latino outreach.

The complaint goes on to state:

“Due to the high profile of Cesar Vargas, Erika Andiola, and Maria Belén Sisa as leading activists in the undocumented community, there is reason to believe that respondents are ‘foreign nationals’ within the meaning of 52 U.S.C. § 301219b)(2), and in violation of 11 C.F.R. § 110.20 (i) and A.O. 2004-26, directly or indirectly participated in the decision-making process of persons with regard to the election-related activities of Bernie 2016.” “There is reason to believe, having previously employed Ms. Sisa, that Bernie 2020 is currently, and knowingly, permitting a ‘foreign national’ … to directly or indirectly participate in the decision-making process of persons with regard to the election-related activities of Bernie 2020.”

The complaint asks the FEC to investigate both the 2016 and the current presidential campaigns and take action to curb the violations.

“The Commission should determine and impose appropriate sanctions for any and all violations,” the complaint read. “Further, the Commission should enjoin respondents from any future violations and impose any necessary and appropriate remedies to ensure respondents’ future compliance with the Federal Election Campaign Act.”

Last February, Sanders was mum on revelations that Russian actors tried to boost his presidential primary campaign to sink Hillary Clinton in 2016. Instead of addressing the accusations, he put out a statement blaming President Trump:

“It has been clear to everyone (except Donald Trump) that Russia was deeply involved in the 2016 elections and intends to be involved in the 2018 elections. It is the American people who should be deciding the political future of our country, not Mr. Putin and the Russian oligarchs,” Sanders said. “It is absolutely imperative that the Mueller investigation be allowed to go forward without obstruction from the Trump administration or Congress.”

His statement came shortly after Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russian individuals and three Russian entities for helping the Kremlin interfere in the last presidential election starting as early as 2014.

That indictment revealed at the efforts included “operations primarily intended to communicate derogatory information about Hillary Clinton, to denigrate other candidates such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and to support Bernie Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump.”

Russian “specialists were instructed to post content that focused on ‘politics in the USA’ and to ‘use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except Sanders and Trump—we support them.),’” the indictment continued.

The indictment said the message was sent around February 10, 2016, the day after both Sanders and Trump won their respective parties’ all-important New Hampshire primary contest.

Clinton and her spokesman didn’t comment on the indictments.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez did.

“This indictment gives us a chilling look at just how sophisticated, well-funded and wide-ranging this attack on democracy really was. It should send chills up the spine of every American.”

But that’s not all.

Illegally Accepting Campaign Donations From Australia

Last February, Vice News reported on what the FEC said was a confirmed instance of illegal meddling in the election – between Bernie Sanders and the Australians.

According to the FEC, Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign illegally accepted contributions from the Australian Labor Party. The FED says the Australian Labor Party paid for volunteers to fly across the globe to volunteer on his campaign. Details can be found in this ruling. Not only that, but the volunteers even got $8,000 in stipends through an Australian government-funded education program to campaign for the Vermont senator in his 2016 run for the White House. Before you scream fake news – we can assure you it’s not. The FEC ruled the Sanders campaign took about $25,000 in in-kind donations from the Australians. Sanders was ordered to pay more than $14,500 in civil penalties for violating campaign law. According to Sanders’ campaign staffers, they knew that some of the Australian volunteers were getting stipends, but they claim they thought it was legal. The Sanders campaign pushed back against the FEC initially and then agreed to pay up, saying they wanted to “avoid an expensive legal fight with the FEC”. They swore they did nothing wrong.

“During the course of the campaign, thousands and thousands of young people from every state and many other countries volunteered. Among them were seven Australian young people who were receiving a modest stipend and airfare from the Australian Labor Party so they could learn about American politics,” the spokesperson said. “The folks on the campaign managing volunteers did not believe the stipend disqualified them from being volunteers. It all came out after William O’Brien, the Republican former New Hampshire House Speaker, filed a complaint with the FEC. He did it after seeing a video shot by Project Veritas that showed Australians pulling up law signs during the campaign.

Bernie Sanders On The Blue Family

At Law Enforcement Today, we believe it’s important to know where politicians stand pertaining to police officers.

That’s why, in a previously article, we pulled a series of quotes from Bernie Sanders himself about how he feels about police and the judicial system in America.

What you’re about to read is all sourced from debates Sanders was taking part in or directly from his book, Our Revolution.

You can come to your own conclusion on exactly how this socialist feels about police.

Bernie Sanders: The Way The Justice System Treats Black Men and Women Is A National Disgrace

The African-American situation with regard to criminal justice was a national disgrace. Jails from coast to coast were filled with African-Americans, many of whom lacked decent education or job skills appropriate for the twenty-first century. Unbelievably, if present trends continued, one out of four black males born today would end up in jail. During the campaign, I met frequently with members of the Black Lives Matter movement. This loosely knit organization was successfully educating the nation that in many black communities the police were not there protecting the people, but intimidating them. And time and time again, tragically, cell phone video cameras were recording horrific examples of extreme police brutality, the taking of innocent lives by overly aggressive police action. There was no question that, as a nation, we had made great advances in civil rights. But there was also no doubt in my mind that much, much more needed to be done.

Bernie Sanders: Black Lives Matter Nails It On Police Brutality

[It’s time to] end the absurdity of the US having more people in jail than any other country on earth. As the Black Lives Matter movement was pointing out, there were too many victims. Many American, and not just African-Americans and Latinos, are becoming increasingly outraged by police brutality. They are rightfully tired of turning on the television and seeing videos of unarmed blacks being shot & killed by police officers. They want criminal justice reform. They want police department reform. And I agree. The vast majority of police officers are honest and hardworking. But when a police officer breaks the law, that officer must be held accountable. Further, police officers must be trained to understand that lethal force is the last response, not, as is too often the case, the first response. I promised that I would make sure that all killings that took place when people were in police custody or being arrested would prompt a Department of Justice investigation.

Bernie Sanders: Fix The Police And You Fight Racism

In the U.S. today we have more people in jail than any other country on earth. We are spending $80 billion a year to lock up 2.2 million Americans, disproportionately African-American, Latino, and Native American. To my mind, it makes a lot more sense to invest in education and jobs than in jails and incarceration. It’s time for real criminal justice reform. Among many other struggles we must engage in to combat racism in this country, we must stop police brutality and the killing of unarmed African-Americans. This has emerged as one of the great civil rights issue of the early twenty-first century. Too many African-Americans and other minorities find themselves subjected to a system that treats citizens who have not committed crimes like criminals. Because of over-policing in minority communities and racial profiling, African-Americans are twice as likely to be arrested and almost four times as likely to experience the use of force during encounters with the police than whites.

Bernie Sanders: Train Police To De-escalate Lethal Force

We must come together with a sense of shared purpose and demand policies to transform this country into a nation that affirms the value of all our people, regardless of race, income, or national origin. We need a criminal justice system that not only protects our people from crime, but is based on justice for all, nondiscriminatory policies, and the understanding that the prevention of crime is a much worthier approach than punishment.

We must reexamine honestly how we police America, and the federal government can play an important role in establishing a new model police training program that reorients us in the way we do law enforcement. First and foremost, we must develop new rules on the allowable use of force. Police officers need to be trained to de-escalate confrontations and to humanely interact with people, especially people who have mental illnesses. Lethal force should be the last response, not the first.

Bernie Sanders: Get Rid Of The Death Penalty

It is long past time for the United States of America to join almost every other advanced country on earth in abolishing the death penalty. The death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment. It is applied disproportionately to people of color. It has been proven to not deter violent crime. The inevitable endless judicial appeals tie up the courts for years, at the taxpayer’s expense. And far too many people are now thought, after they were put to death by the state, to have been innocent.

Bernie Sanders Buddies Up With Hillary Clinton On Police Reform

Hillary Clinton: We have to restore policing that will actually protect the communities that police officers are sworn to protect. But, I would also add this. There are other racial discrepancies. Really systemic racism in this state, as in others, education, in employment, in the kinds of factors that too often lead from a position where young people, particularly young men, are pushed out of school early, are denied employment opportunities. So, when we talk about criminal justice reform and ending the era of mass incarceration, we also have to talk about jobs, education, housing, and other ways of helping communities. Bernie Sanders: We need fundamental police reform. I would hope that we could all agree that we are sick and tired of seeing videos on television of unarmed people, often African-Americans, shot by police officers.

Bernie Sanders: Police Bust More Black Men And Women

What we have to do is end over-policing in African- American neighborhoods. The African-American community and the white community do marijuana at about equal rates. The reality is four times as many blacks get arrested for marijuana. Far more blacks get stopped for traffic violations. We need fundamental police reform when we talk about a criminal justice system. What we have got to do is make it clear that any police officer who breaks the law will be held accountable.

Bernie Sanders: De-militarize Police And Investigate Them

Question: I believe there’s a huge conflict of interest when local prosecutors investigate cases of police violence within their communities. Most recently, we saw this with a non-indictment of the officers involved in the case of 12-year-old Tamir Rice. How would you presidency ensure incidents of police violence are investigated and prosecuted fairly?

Bernie Sanders: This is a responsibility for the U.S. Justice Department to get involved:

Whenever anybody in this country is killed while in police custody, it should automatically trigger a U.S. attorney general’s investigation.

Second of all, if a police officer breaks the law, like any public official, that officer must be held accountable.

And thirdly, we have got to de-militarize our police departments so they don’t look like occupying armies. We’ve got to move toward community policing.

And fourthly, we have got to make our police departments look like the communities they serve in their diversity.

Bernie Sanders: Police Are Part Of Institutional Racism

Today we have more people in jail than any other country on earth, 2.2 million people. Predominantly African-American and Hispanic. We are spending $80 billion a year locking up Americans. I think we need a major effort to come together and end institutional racism. We need major reforms of a broken criminal justice system. What does that mean? Well, for a start it means that police officers should not be shooting unarmed people, predominantly African-Americans.

Bernie Sanders: Police Are Jailing And Killing Blacks

Black Americans are disproportionately overrepresented and overcharged in our current justice system. According to a 2013 report by the Sentencing Project, a research and advocacy group, one out of three black men can expect to go to prison in their lifetime, as compared to only one out of 17 whites.

Isn’t the justice system meant to protect all citizens? It should. But while black people make up only 13% of the population, they account for 31% of all victims killed by police. Blacks make up nearly 40% of unarmed individuals killed by police with a gun and 42% of unarmed individuals that are killed by police by means other than a gun. (And remember: statistics on police shootings are self-reported, so this data probably underestimates this depressing state of affairs.)

Special Thanks To “On The Issues” For Publishing Sanders Quotes