[EL] ELB News and Commentary 4/10/18

[Rick Hasen]

“White House stands behind Trump voter fraud claims”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98614>
Posted on April 9, 2018 8:31 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98614> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

The Hill:<http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/382332-white-house-stands-behind-trump-voter-fraud-claims>

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Monday defended President Trump<http://thehill.com/people/donald-trump>’s claims about widespread voter fraud in the 2016 election and argued the administration has no evidence to back up the claims because states have refused to cooperate with a federal review.

“The president still strongly feels there was a large amount of voter fraud and attempted to do a thorough review of it. A lot of the states didn’t want to cooperate and participate,” Sanders said.

WaPo: It doesn’t matter how Trump ‘feels’ about voter fraud. He’s wrong<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/04/09/it-doesnt-matter-how-trump-feels-about-voter-fraud-hes-wrong/?utm_term=.de61f794f04c>.
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Posted in fraudulent fraud squad<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>


“Trump attorney Cohen is being investigated for possible bank fraud, campaign finance violations”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98612>
Posted on April 9, 2018 8:21 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98612> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo:<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/fbi-seizes-records-related-to-stormy-daniels-in-raid-of-trump-attorney-michael-cohens-office/2018/04/09/e3e43cf4-3c30-11e8-974f-aacd97698cef_story.html?utm_term=.7223053e5f21>

Michael Cohen, the longtime attorney of President Trump, is under federal investigation for possible bank fraud, wire fraud and campaign finance violations, according to three people with knowledge of the case.

FBI agents on Monday raided Cohen’s Manhattan office, home and hotel room as part of the investigation, seizing records about Cohen’s clients and personal finances. Among the records taken were those related to a 2016 payment Cohen made to adult-film star Stormy Daniels, who claims to have had a sexual encounter with Trump, according to a fourth person familiar with the investigation….

Cohen used his Trump Organization email in negotiating the agreement with Davidson and in communicating with his bank about the funds.

In February, after a watchdog group filed a complaint about the payment with the Federal Election Commission, Cohen released a statement saying he “used my own personal funds to facilitate” the payment. He rejected the idea that the payment should have counted as a campaign contribution.

“The payment to Ms. Clifford was lawful, and was not a campaign contribution or a campaign expenditure by anyone,” he said, referring to Daniels’s real name, Stephanie Clifford.

While the timing of the payment — 12 days before the presidential election — might suggest an attempt to influence the outcome, timing is not enough to prove intent, said Rick Hasen, a professor specializing in election law at the University of California at Irvine.

“It would be very difficult to bring one of these cases without some good documentary evidence,” he said. “I think a lot of people are underestimating the hurdles that it takes to bring a criminal prosecution.”
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Posted in campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, chicanery<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>


“Facebook Launches New Initiative to Help Scholars Assess Social Media’s Impact on Elections”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98608>
Posted on April 9, 2018 8:15 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98608> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Release:<https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/04/new-elections-initiative/>

Today, Facebook is announcing a new initiative to help provide independent, credible research about the role of social media in elections, as well as democracy more generally. It will be funded by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, Democracy Fund, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Charles Koch Foundation, the Omidyar Network, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

At the heart of this initiative will be a group of scholars who will:
·         Define the research agenda;
·         Solicit proposals for independent research on a range of different topics; and
·         Manage a peer review process to select scholars who will receive funding for their research, as well as access to privacy-protected datasets from Facebook which they can analyze.

Facebook will not have any right to review or approve their research findings prior to publication….

Gary King of Harvard University and Nate Persily of Stanford Law School have been instrumental in developing this innovative model for academic collaboration. You can read more about their model here<http://garyking.org/partnerships>.
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Posted in campaigns<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, social media and social protests<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=58>


Watch Archived Video of Henry Weinstein Interviewing Me About My New Book on Justice Scalia’s Legacy<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98606>
Posted on April 9, 2018 3:04 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98606> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

My UCI Law colleague and former LA Times legal reporter Henry Weinstein  interviewed me about my new book<https://www.amazon.com/Justice-Contradictions-Antonin-Politics-Disruption/dp/0300228643/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1516904231&sr=8-1&keywords=richard+l.+hasen> on Justice Scalia’s complex legacy. It was a great discussion. Watch the archived video.<https://livestream.com/accounts/867536/events/8109636>
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Posted in Scalia<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=123>


“The Moscow Midterms: How Russia could steal our next election.”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98603>
Posted on April 9, 2018 2:03 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98603> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Claire Malone<https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-russia-could-steal-the-midterms/> for 538.
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Posted in campaigns<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, chicanery<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>


“Getting Foreign Funds Out of America’s Elections”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98599>
Posted on April 9, 2018 2:00 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98599> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Brennan Center:<https://www.brennancenter.org/publication/getting-foreign-funds-out-americas-elections>

Getting Foreign Funds Out of America’s Elections
Ian Vandewalker<https://www.brennancenter.org/expert/ian-vandewalker>, Lawrence Norden<https://www.brennancenter.org/expert/lawrence-norden>
April 6, 2018
 Russia-linked political ads on every major internet platform. The alleged flow of Russian money to the NRA. The Trump campaign’s solicitation of donations from foreign sources. Reports that Robert Mueller is investigating whether Russian oligarchs funneled money into the 2016 campaign. Each of these has broken as a separate news story, but in one important sense, they all belong to one same thread: Our country’s longstanding ban on political spending by foreign actors is in tatters.

This report is the first comprehensive package of campaign finance reforms to address the threat of foreign spending in American elections. It shows that platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Google are just a few of the many conduits hostile states can use to circumvent the ban on foreign political spending. And it lays out a roadmap that Congress, states and the social media companies can follow to proactively protect the integrity of our democracy from political spending.

Read the introduction<https://www.brennancenter.org/publication/getting-foreign-funds-out-americas-elections#INTRODUCTION>

Download the report<https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/publications/Getting%20Foreign%20Funds%20Out%20of%20America%27s%20Elections.%20Final_April9.pdf>
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Posted in campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>


--
Rick Hasen
Chancellor's Professor of Law and Political Science
UC Irvine School of Law
401 E. Peltason Dr., Suite 1000
Irvine, CA 92697-8000
949.824.3072 - office
rhasen at law.uci.edu<mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu>
http://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/full-time/hasen/
http://electionlawblog.org<http://electionlawblog.org/>


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