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A couple things. First, I think this is just a mistake. There are significant constitutional problems—both on 1st amdt & vagueness grounds—with construing “thing of value” so broadly it includes any kind of beneficial information. (Favorable media coverage? Praise?)
There may be narrow cases where it makes sense—data sets or information services from an entity that customarily sells those things at a market rate—but expanding it to the point where it covers any derogatory info about an opponent is just wildly untenable.
On that view anything you tell someone on a campaign is potentially a reportable campaign contribution whose monetary value has to be assessed. Nobody actually wants that to be the rule.
Second: Framing this as primarily a campaign finance violation is like obsessing over whether Jeffrey Dahmer complied with FDA nutritional labeling requirements for food products. It frankly trivializes the enormity of the abuse at issue here.
Third: Generally applicable federal statutes aren’t a great metric for presidential misconduct. Something could be an egregious, impeachable abuse of power (a “high crime”) without necessarily violating any federal statute. And plenty of statutory violations...
...would not necessarily rise to the level of impeachable conduct. And honestly, it feels like a symptom of moral degeneracy that we apparently can’t just make ethical judgments without finding some federal statute for support.
