An oligarch, by the Ukrainian definition, is somebody who:
-- Has "significant" influence over mass media,
-- Controls a business that exercises monopoly influence over a part of the economy,
-- Involves themselves in politics through funding politicians, political parties, political campaigns, or think tanks, etc. (the phrase used is "takes part in political life"), or,
-- Has a net worth of greater than $89 million.
Ukrainian oligarchs, under the new law:
-- Are included on an official register published by the government,
-- May not hold political office, may not fund political parties, or have influence over any meaningful part of "political life,"
-- May not purchase state assets that are privatized, and
-- Must disclose their assets in what the Financial Times calls "exhaustive declarations."
-- Government officials are also required to report any meeting with an oligarch on the government's list.
America once had a similar tradition and Americans want it back. So much so that they bought hook, line, and sinker the sales pitch from a professional con man who knew how frustrated working people are by our American oligarchs and their seizure of the GOP.
In the 2015 Republican primary, Donald Trump tapped into this longing, promising he would end the political corruption by oligarchs and the corporations that made them rich.
During the Republican primary election, Trump said of his GOP competitors:
"They will be bombarded by their lobbyists that donated a lot of money to them. Again, Jeb raised $107 million dollars, OK? They're not putting that money up because it's a wonderful charity. Well, it is a charity, but for them, not for America."
That was in July of 2015 when he was considered a long-shot, fully five months before President Obama said, "I continue to believe Mr. Trump will not be president."
Trump argued that normal, corruptible politicians would have to bend to the will of their campaign donors, even when that meant sending jobs overseas and otherwise screwing average Americans:
"So their lobbyists, their special interests and their donors will start calling President Bush, President Clinton, President Walker. Pretty much whoever is president other than me. Other than me. And they'll say: 'You have to do it. They gave you a million dollars to your campaign, two million, five million."
Across the auditorium heads were bobbing as Trump tossed out the punch line he used in hundreds of speeches:
"And the plant will be built in Mexico and [that's how] we just lost lots of plants all over our country."
Political bribery was a felony crime in the United States virtually from the beginning of our republic until just the past 40+ years.
Those laws were strengthened repeatedly at both the federal and state levels over the past 150+ years, including hundreds of prohibitions on oligarchs, corporations, and their officers bribing politicians.
The 1907 Tillman Act, much like Ukraine's de-oligarchization law, made it a federal crime for any wealthy executive of a large corporation to give any money or other support of any sort to any candidate for federal office.
Numerous state laws echoed the Tillman Act and other anti-oligarch, anti-bribery, and anti-corruption laws.
For example, Wisconsin's law was quite explicit:
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