[EL] ELB News and Commentary 7/20/18

[Rick Hasen]

“Michael Cohen Taped Conversation With Trump About Buying Rights to Playmate’s Story”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=100188>
Posted on July 20, 2018 2:35 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=100188> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WSJ:<https://www.wsj.com/articles/michael-cohen-taped-conversation-with-trump-about-buying-rights-to-playmates-story-1532112954>

MIchael Cohen taped a conversation in person with Donald Trump in which the two men discussed buying the rights to a former Playboy Playmate’s story that she had an affair with Mr. Trump more than a decade ago, according to people familiar with the matter.

The conversation, between the then-GOP presidential nominee and his longtime personal lawyer, took place in September 2016, the people said. That was a month after American Media Inc., the publisher of the National Enquirer, bought the life rights to Karen McDougal’s story of the extramarital affair, which she has said began in 2006 and lasted nearly a year. Representatives of Mr. Trump have denied the affair took place.

In the conversation, Mr. Cohen told Mr. Trump about the American Media deal<https://www.wsj.com/articles/former-playboy-playmate-karen-mcdougal-and-publisher-settle-lawsuit-1524097859?mod=article_inline> and suggested that they consider acquiring the rights to Ms. McDougal’s story themselves, the people with knowledge of the matter said. Mr. Trump, appearing open to the suggestion, asked how to proceed and whether he should write a check or pay in another manner, they said.

It isn’t clear why Mr. Cohen and Mr. Trump didn’t ultimately acquire the rights from American Media. A company spokesman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The recording of the conversation, reported earlier Friday by The New York Times, was less than two minutes long and cut off before the conversation ended, the people said. There were some interruptions during the conversation between Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen, including someone entering the room to bring the candidate a Diet Coke he appeared to have requested, one of the people said.

NYT:<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/20/us/politics/michael-cohen-trump-tape.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news>

The F.B.I. seized the recording this year during a raid on Mr. Cohen’s office. The Justice Department is investigating Mr. Cohen’s involvement in paying women to tamp down embarrassing news stories about Mr. Trump ahead of the 2016 election. Prosecutors want to know whether that violated federal campaign finance laws, and any conversation with Mr. Trump about those payments would be of keen interest to them.

The recording’s existence appears to undercut the Trump campaign’s denial of any knowledge of payments to the model. And it further draws Mr. Trump into questions about tactics he and his associates used to keep aspects of his personal and business life a secret. And it highlights the potential legal and political danger that Mr. Cohen represents to Mr. Trump. Once the keeper of many of Mr. Trump’s secrets, Mr. Cohen is now seen as increasingly willing to consider cooperating with prosecutors.


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Posted in campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, campaigns<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, chicanery<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>


“Russian firm indicted in special counsel probe cites Kavanaugh decision to argue that charge should be dismissed”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=100186>
Posted on July 20, 2018 2:20 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=100186> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Bob Barnes in WaPo:<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/russian-firm-indicted-in-special-counsel-probe-cites-kavanaugh-decision-to-argue-that-charges-should-be-dismissed/2018/07/19/0faace34-8aba-11e8-a345-a1bf7847b375_story.html?utm_term=.d42aa83e2c22>

A Russian company accused by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III of being part of an online operation to disrupt the 2016 presidential campaign is leaning in part on a decision by Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh to argue that the charge against it should be thrown out.

The 2011 decision by Kavanaugh, writing for a three-judge panel, concerned the role that foreign nationals may play in U.S. elections. It upheld a federal law that said foreigners temporarily in the country may not donate money to candidates, contribute to political parties and groups, or spend money advocating for or against candidates. But it did not rule out letting foreigners spend money on independent advocacy campaigns.

Kavanaugh “went out of his way to limit the decision,” said Daniel A. Petalas, a Washington lawyer and former interim general counsel for the Federal Election Commission…

The Supreme Court affirmed the decision<https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/010912zor.pdf> in 2012 in a one-sentence order, without noted dissent or scheduling the case for a hearing. The Obama administration had asked the opinion be affirmed, arguing in a brief that the federal law was narrowly tailored to respect the speech rights of foreigners.

Neither the law in question “nor any other provision of federal law prohibits foreign nationals from speaking out on issues of public policy,” wrote Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli. “The statute thus leaves open . . . a broad range of expressive activity, from contributing to issue groups, to creating advocacy websites, to funding mass television advertising.”

The exceptions, said Richard Hasen, an election-law expert at the University of California at Irvine, create “potentially a huge loophole for foreign and undisclosed issue ads on federal elections.”
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Posted in campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, chicanery<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>


New Brennan Center Report/Myrna Perez NYT Oped on Discriminatory Voter Purges<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=100184>
Posted on July 20, 2018 2:15 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=100184> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Myrna Perez NYT oped:<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/19/opinion/midterms-voting-purges-elections-registration.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region>

In the past decade, attacks on the vote have been treacherous: discriminatory voter ID laws, cutbacks in early voting and other complications that emerged from bad laws or policies formulated weeks, months or even years before Election Day.

For the most part, we could see those attacks coming, because of public debate in state legislatures or high-profile lawsuits challenging these bad policies in courthouses across the country.

But the threat landscape has grown. Our research shows that state and local processes<http://www.brennancenter.org/publication/purges-growing-threat-right-vote> to remove supposedly ineligible people from voter rolls are too often based on bad information — like “ineligible” lists that contain the names of eligible voters, or matching processes that confuse two different people for the same one.

Yet purge rates are on the rise across the country, and particularly in a cluster of Southern states no longer under certain protections of the Voting Rights Act. And unlike anti-voter legislation, bad purges often happen in an office with the stroke of keyboard — meaning that voters knocked off the rolls may not realize what’s happened until it’s too late.

Over the past 12 months, our team of researchers and attorneys has pored over data from 6,600 cities, towns and counties across the country and found the median rate of purging across the country has risen from 6.2 percent to 7.8 percent since 2008. That may seem like a small jump, but it’s statistically significant and cannot be explained by population growth. It amounts to about four million more people being purged.

We attribute much of that rise to ballooning purge rates in many of the places once subject to the preclearance section of the Voting Rights Act that protected against discrimination by requiring places with a troubled history to seek approval from the federal government or courts before they could make changes to voting laws.

You can read the Brennan Center’s new report at this link<https://www.brennancenter.org/publication/purges-growing-threat-right-vote>.


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Posted in election administration<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, The Voting Wars<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>


“All Expenses Paid – How Leadership PACs Became Politicians’ Preferred Ticket to Luxury Living”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=100182>
Posted on July 20, 2018 2:10 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=100182> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Release:<https://www.issueone.org/all-expenses-paid-how-leadership-pacs-became-politicians-preferred-ticket-to-luxury-living/>

A new report released today by Issue One<https://www.issueone.org/> and Campaign Legal Center (CLC)<https://campaignlegal.org/> called, “All Expenses Paid: How Leadership PACs Became Politicians’ Preferred Ticket to Luxury Living”<https://www.issueone.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/All-Expenses-Paid-How-Leadership-PACs-Became-Politicians-Preferred-Ticket-to-Luxury-Living-Report.pdf>reveals how many federal lawmakers continue to exploit loopholes and lax enforcement to tap their leadership PAC funds to pay for resorts, golf memberships and fine dining — spending that would likely be unlawful if the members used funds from their authorized campaign accounts.

Little-known beyond the beltway, leadership PACs are officeholder-controlled political committees that have frequently been described as slush funds. Nearly every member of Congress has one.

Leadership PACs were ushered into existence so that officeholders could make contributions to their colleagues. Yet the report found that only a minority of all leadership PAC spending – just 45 percent – went toward contributions to other federal candidates or other political committees.

Instead, over the past five years, a subset of members of Congress have used their leadership PACs to collectively spend at least $871,000 on golf-related dues and expenses, $614,000 in the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, and $469,000 at Disney properties. Leadership PAC funds have been used to spend $765,000 at West Virginia’s Greenbrier Sporting Club and $361,000 at Ritz-Carlton hotels.

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) has long prohibited politicians from spending official campaign funds on personal expenditures – and for good reason. Campaign donations present a much greater risk of corruption if they are funding the politician’s next round of golf, country club membership, clothing purchase, or trip to Disney World. But that is exactly what is happening with leadership PACs.
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Posted in campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, conflict of interest laws<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=20>


“National group holding hearing in Milwaukee on voter suppression”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=100180>
Posted on July 20, 2018 2:08 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=100180> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.<https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2018/07/19/national-group-holding-voter-suppression-hearing-milwaukee/795553002/?platform=hootsuite>
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Posted in Uncategorized<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


--
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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