[EL] ELB News and Commentary 6/14/19

[Rick Hasen]

“Judge Reveals New Info About Trump Voter Fraud Panel Communications”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105626>
Posted on June 13, 2019 8:19 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105626> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

TPM<https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/trump-voter-fraud-commission-emails-democrats-kobach>:

Before they were formally named to President Trump’s now disbanded voter fraud commission, two conservative activists emailed the commission’s vice chair Kris Kobach about “potential Democratic commissioners,” a federal judge revealed Thursday.
The revelation came in a legal dispute over whether the Trump administration must turn over a batch of commission-related emails to a Democratic member of the panel, Maine Secretary of State Matt Dunlap.

While U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly had previously ordered that the emails in question be released to Dunlap, it now appears she is reconsidering that order, given that the conversations were happening before the commissioners — Hans von Spakovsky and J. Christian Adams — were officially appointed to the panel….

In considering the request, Kollar-Kotelly reviewed the emails herself, and earlier this week, she said that review<https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/muckraker/trump-voter-fraud-commission-appointments-date-order> prompted questions about when Adams and von Spakovsky were appointed. She questioned the accuracy of the government’s previous claims that Adams and von Spakovsky were appointed on July 11, 2017. The government, in a filing Thursday morning, insisted that date was accurate.<https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/voter-fraud-commission-appointment-dates-government-filing>

Her latest order shed some light why she was confused.

“Defendants’ ex parte submission of emails shows that these individuals were in communication with the Office of the Vice President about potential Democratic commissioners prior to their own appointments to the Commission,” her order said. “Although some of Mr. Kobach’s communications occurred after his appointment, his service as Vice-Chair is distinguishable from the role of other commissioners.”

Before her order Thursday, it was not known that the withheld emails were between Kobach, Adams and von Spakovsky.  It was also not previously known that the emails were in about potential Democratic commissioners in particular.
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Posted in fraudulent fraud squad<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>


“‘Let me make something 100% clear’: FEC chair lays down the law on foreign help”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105624>
Posted on June 13, 2019 8:11 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105624> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Politico<https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/13/fec-election-foreign-trump-1364598>:

The head of the Federal Election Commission released a statement on Thursday evening reiterating, emphatically, that foreign assistance is illegal in U.S. elections.

“Let me make something 100% clear to the American public and anyone running for public office: It is illegal for any person to solicit, accept, or receive anything of value from a foreign national in connection with a U.S. election,“ wrote Ellen Weintraub, chairwoman of the FEC. “This is not a novel concept.“

She also sent the statement via Twitter<https://twitter.com/EllenLWeintraub/status/1139309394968096768> with the introductory line: “I would not have thought that I needed to say this.“
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Posted in campaigns<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>, federal election commission<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=24>


“Trump smashed months of FBI work to thwart election interference”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105622>
Posted on June 13, 2019 8:05 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105622> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Politico:<https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/13/fbi-election-interference-fight-donald-trump-1364597>

Nearly two years ago, FBI Director Chris Wray set up an office tasked solely with stopping the type of Russian interference efforts that infected the 2016 campaign.

On Wednesday night, President Donald Trump undercut the whole operation in a matter of seconds.

In an ABC News interview, the president first proclaimed he would have no problem accepting dirt on his opponents from a foreign power, then said Wray was “wrong” to suggest the FBI needs to know about such offers.

The comments, according to interviews with nearly a dozen law enforcement veterans, have undone months of work, essentially inviting foreign spies to meddle with 2020 presidential campaigns and demoralizing the agents trying to stop them. And it has backed Wray into a corner, they added, putting him in a position where he might have to either publicly chastise the president and risk getting fired, or resign in protest….

Some linked Trump’s remarks to Mueller’s deliberation over whether his team could have charged anyone on the Trump campaign if they had obtained the promised hurtful information on Hillary Clinton from a Kremlin intermediate during a much-scrutinized Trump Tower meeting. Mueller’s report said he wasn’t sure the potential information had financial value, meaning it might not qualify as an illegal campaign contribution from a foreign entity. The report also raised questions about whether there was a free-speech right to receive the information.

“It’s turning the First Amendment into a suicide pact that allows our own government to be undermined,” said Rick Hasen, a professor at the University of California Irvine’s law school, who called the special counsel’s findings “a green light for foreign intervention in the 2020 election, and that was affirmed by what Trump said to ABC.”
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Posted in chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>


“Republican blocks bill requiring campaigns to alert FBI to foreign assistance”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105620>
Posted on June 13, 2019 1:50 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105620> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Axios:<https://www.axios.com/marsha-blackburn-foreign-offers-assistance-campaigns-fab324f4-a630-41aa-9b90-a6fc4ca5c5d0.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiospm&stream=top>

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) blocked an effort<https://twitter.com/frankthorp/status/1139262042953670656> by Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) to pass a bill via unanimous consent requiring campaigns to report any offers of foreign assistance to the FBI.
“We are all for free and fair and honest elections. … These reporting requirements are overbroad. Presidential campaigns would have to worry about disclosure at a variety of levels. So many different levels. Consider this: vendors that work for a campaign, people that are supplying some kind of voter service to a campaign. … It would apply to door knockers, it would apply to phone bankers, down to any person who shares their views with a candidate.”
Warner then countered that Blackburn’s reading of the legislationis “not accurate .., The only thing that would have to be reported is if the agent of a foreign government or national offered that something that was already prohibited.”
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Posted in chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>


“Trump Is Urged to Fire Kellyanne Conway for Hatch Act Violations”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105618>
Posted on June 13, 2019 1:49 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105618> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT:<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/13/us/politics/kellyanne-conway-hatch-act.html>

An independent government agency recommended on Thursday that President Trump fire Kellyanne Conway, his White House counselor, for repeated violations of an ethics law barring partisan politics from the federal workplace.
In a letter accompanying a report to Mr. Trump<https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/1169-osc-report-on-kellyanne-conway/11f2a2d73d1e14d197f3/optimized/full.pdf#page=1>, the agency called Ms. Conway a “repeat offender” of the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in campaign politics at work, saying that her flagrant defiance of the law justified her dismissal from the White House.
“As a highly visible member of the administration, Ms. Conway’s violations, if left unpunished, send a message to all federal employees that they need not abide by the Hatch Act’s restrictions,” said the letter to the president, signed by Henry J. Kerner, the head of the agency. “Her actions erode the principal foundation of our democratic system — the rule of law.”
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Posted in conflict of interest laws<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=20>, ethics investigations<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=42>


“Margaret Hunter admits guilt in campaign-finance scandal”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105616>
Posted on June 13, 2019 1:46 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105616> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

San Diego Union-Tribune:<https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/watchdog/story/2019-06-13/margaret-hunter-admits-guilt-in-campaign-finance-scandal>

Years of cavalier spending of her husband’s political contributions culminated in a guilty plea Thursday for Margaret Hunter, the wife of Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter who was co-indicted last year in a sweeping campaign-finance investigation.

During a change-of-plea hearing in the federal courthouse in San Diego, Margaret Hunter formally admitted that she illegally used thousands of dollars in campaign donations for her personal expenses.
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>


“Cyber security concerns lead NC officials to delay approval of new voting machines”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105614>
Posted on June 13, 2019 1:39 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105614> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

News and Observer:<https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article231523978.html>

North Carolina election officials were supposed to certify new voting machines on Thursday for millions of voters to start using in 2020.
But they declined to make any decisions, citing uncertainty over who owns the three companies that were seeking approval to sell voting machines here. The state gave the them until next week to divulge everyone who owns at least 5 percent of their companies or any parent or subsidiary company.

“I believe this follows along with the cyber security concerns we have found in the Mueller report and other documentation that has been furnished to our board,” Robert Cordle, the chairman of the State Board of Elections, said Thursday when the board announced its surprise decision.

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Posted in election administration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>


“Brace for a Voter-Turnout Tsunami”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105612>
Posted on June 13, 2019 12:03 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105612> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Ron Brownstein <https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/06/2020-election-voter-turnout-could-be-record-breaking/591607/> for the Atlantic.
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Posted in voting<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=31>


Listen to Michael Li and Me on Warren Olney’s “To the Point” Podcast (KCRW) Talking Census, Partisan Gerrymandering and SCOTUS<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105610>
Posted on June 13, 2019 11:48 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105610> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Listen here.<https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/to-the-point/gerrymandering-and-the-us-census-put-the-supreme-court-in-the-political-thicket>
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“The Technology 202: It’s time for Congress to address deepfakes, experts say”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105608>
Posted on June 13, 2019 11:27 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105608> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo reports.<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-technology-202/2019/06/13/the-technology-202-it-s-time-for-congress-to-address-deepfakes-experts-say/5d01687aa7a0a4586bb2da85/?utm_term=.68de23b346eb>
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Posted in campaigns<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>, social media and social protests<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=58>


Kansas: “Democrats plan to try ranked-choice voting in 2020 primary to select Trump’s opponent”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105606>
Posted on June 13, 2019 11:23 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105606> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Wichita Eagle reports.<https://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/election/article231397443.html>
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Posted in alternative voting systems<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=63>, primaries<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=32>


DOJ Relents and Releases Additional Names (Charles Cooper and John Fund) Which Were Redacted on “Inflammatory” von Spakovsky Email About Pence-Kobach “Voter Fraud” Commission<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105602>
Posted on June 13, 2019 11:18 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105602> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Campaign Legal Center<https://campaignlegal.org/document/unredacted-email-chain-pence-kobach-commission>:

After nearly two years of seeking to hide the names of individuals involved in an inflammatory email to Attorney General Sessions regarding the Pence-Kobach Commission, the Department of Justice has relented in light of a district court opinion ordering disclosure of the email without the challenged redactions.  The newly released document reveals the involvement or mention of Charles J. Cooper, J. Christian Adams, and John Fund.
[https://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/6-13-Re-Release-Pages_Page_2-724x1024.png]

My guess about one of the names was incorrect.
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Posted in fraudulent fraud squad<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>


“Governor signs bill to change the way Oregon helps choose the president”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105600>
Posted on June 13, 2019 11:09 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105600> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Oregon Live reports<https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2019/06/governor-signs-bill-to-change-the-way-oregon-helps-choose-the-president.html>.
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Posted in electoral college<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=44>


--
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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