[EL] ELB News and Commentary 5/21/19

[Rick Hasen]

Canadian Billionaire May Have Violated Foreign Contribution Ban Via Domestic Subsidiary<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105224>
Posted on May 20, 2019 8:01 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105224> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/20/us/politics/hes-one-of-the-biggest-backers-of-trumps-push-to-protect-american-steel-and-hes-canadian.html>:

And Zekelman Industries made political donations in the United States — skirting or possibly violating a ban on contributions by foreigners — including $1.75 million last year to a group supporting President Trump…..

Federal Election Commission rules prohibit any foreigner from “directing, dictating, controlling, or directly or indirectly participating in the decision-making process” related to any campaign contribution, including super PACs<https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/taking-receipts-pac/contributions-to-super-pacs-and-hybrid-pacs/>.

Mr. Zekelman, who does not have United States citizenship, said in an interview that he did not play a role in the decision to donate. But he added that he did discuss the matter with other company executives, after a representative from America First Action approached one of Zekelman Industries’ lawyers and asked for a contribution.

“They contacted our people, our people brought it to me,” Mr. Zekelman said. “I said, great, I would love to find a way to support him.”
Mr. Zekelman said the donation was legal because the final decision was made by members of his board who are American citizens or legal residents of the United States, and the money was donated through Wheatland Tube, a United States-based subsidiary of Zekelman Industries, which he owns with his two brothers.

After The New York Times raised questions about the donation, Mickey McNamara, general counsel at Zekelman Industries and president of Wheatland Tube, said he did not recall discussing the matter with Mr. Zekelman. Mr. McNamara said he decided to make the donation without consulting with Mr. Zekelman.

In a statement, Brian O. Walsh, the president of America First Action, said the organization did not accept foreign contributions. “All contributors are expressly asked to affirm they are a U.S. citizen or permanent resident,” he said.

Adav Noti, a former associate general counsel at the Federal Election Commission, said that if Mr. Zekelman had discussed the matter with colleagues at work, he had most likely violated federal law, even if the formal decision to donate was made by others.

“This sounds pretty clearly unlawful to me,” said Mr. Noti, now chief of staff at Campaign Legal Center, which monitors election law compliance.
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>


Report: Russians Trying to Sow Racial Violence in U.S. as Late as 2018, with Plan to “recruit African-Americans and transport them to camps in Africa ‘for combat prep and training in sabotage.'”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105222>
Posted on May 20, 2019 7:48 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105222> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

The race-based aspects<https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/russian-documents-reveal-desire-sow-racial-discord-violence-u-s-n1008051> of Russian interference efforts in U.S. politics have not gotten sufficient attention:

Russians who were linked to interference in the 2016 U.S. election discussed ambitious plans to stoke unrest and even violence inside the U.S. as recently as 2018, according to documents reviewed by NBC News.
The documents — communications between associates of Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Kremlin-linked oligarch indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller for previous influence operations against the U.S. — laid out a new plot to manipulate and radicalize African-Americans. The plans show that Prigozhin’s circle has sought to exploit racial tensions well beyond Russia’s social media and misinformation efforts tied to the 2016 election….

The documents contained proposals for several ways to further exacerbate racial discord in the future, including a suggestion to recruit African-Americans and transport them to camps in Africa “for combat prep and training in sabotage.” Those recruits would then be sent back to America to foment violence and work to establish a pan-African state in the Southern U.S., including South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.
There is no indication that the plan — which is light on details — was ever put into action, but it offers a fresh example of the mindset around Russian efforts to sow discord in the U.S.
The blueprint, entitled “Development Strategy of a Pan-African State on U.S. Territory,” floated the idea of enlisting poor, formerly incarcerated African-Americans “who have experience in organized crime groups” as well as members of “radical black movements for participation in civil disobedience actions.”
The goal was to “destabilize the internal situation in the U.S.”
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Posted in chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>


“New Washington campaign-finance law targets ‘gray money’ PACs”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105220>
Posted on May 20, 2019 7:40 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105220> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Seattle Times<https://tdn.com/news/state-and-regional/new-washington-campaign-finance-law-targets-gray-money-pacs/article_9b1bba33-4006-5b1d-abc5-2732e38aa25c.html>:

For example, Conscience of the Progressives is actually funded by conservatives and last year sent election mailers to aid Republicans in swing-district legislative races. It is funded almost wholly by another PAC named Send A Message, whose prime donor is Peter Zieve, an aerospace entrepreneur who gave $1 million to support Donald Trump in 2016 and who has drawn scrutiny for expressing anti-Muslim sentiments.

Thus, an election ad by Conscience of the Progressives last year showed Send A Message PAC as the only top donor.

On the other side, New Direction PAC supports progressive candidates. In 2018, three of its top five donors were PACs, according to state campaign-finance records, including two Democratic Party spending groups. And the third PAC? Almost all of its funding came from those two same Democratic spending groups.

It’s a tactic called “gray money” and it’s a popular strategy in Washington and around the nation for shielding the flow of money. Through a series of “nesting doll” PACs, campaigns or political parties can cloak donations by individuals, corporations, industry associations or labor unions.
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>


“Miami Candidate’s Campaign Workers May Have Tampered With Absentee Ballots”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105218>
Posted on May 20, 2019 7:28 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105218> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Miami New Times<https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/alex-diaz-de-la-portilla-campaign-discussed-ballot-tampering-whatsapp-transcript-shows-11177865>:

An explosive, 150-page WhatsApp chat leaked to Miami New Times appears to show members of Miami-Dade County Commission District 5 candidate Alex Diaz de la Portilla’s 2018 campaign team discussing destroying or stealing absentee ballots from voters who selected one of Diaz de la Portilla’s opponents, Zoraida Barreiro.
In one message, a campaign worker posted an image of a ballot and joked that it had been stolen. In another text, someone took a photo of a ballot and wrote “Byebye.” In a third message, someone instructed a campaign worker to “tear up the ballot good.”

Diaz de la Portilla did not initially respond to messages from New Times this afternoon, including two on his personal cellphone.

But after this story was first published, Diaz de la Portilla texted New Times and claimed the chat logs were not associated with him in any way…

If Diaz de la Portilla’s campaign really did engage in ballot fraud, it didn’t work. The former Republican state senator came in third behind Barreiro and progressive candidate Eileen Higgins. Higgins later beat Barreiro in a runoff election and became the first non-Hispanic candidate in decades to represent the area. The Miami Herald endorsed Diaz de la Portilla in that race.<https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/article210348599.html>
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Posted in absentee ballots<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=53>, chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>


Kobach’s Demands to Be Trump’s Immigration Czar<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105216>
Posted on May 20, 2019 3:22 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105216> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT scoop:<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/20/us/politics/kris-kobach-trump.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share>

Access to a government jet 24 hours a day. An office in the West Wing, plus guaranteed weekends off for family time. And an assurance of being made secretary of homeland security by November.

Those were among a list of 10 conditions that Kris Kobach, the former Kansas secretary of state, has given to the White House if he is to become the administration’s “immigration czar,” a job President Trump has been looking to create to coordinate immigration policy across government agencies. The list was described by three people familiar with it.

Mr. Kobach, who once served as an adviser to the hard-line immigration Sheriff Joe Arpaio and helped write an Arizona law requiring local officials to verify the citizenship of anyone they had “reasonable suspicion” to believe was an unauthorized immigrant, said he would need to be the main television spokesman for the Trump administration on immigration policy. And he said he wanted a guarantee that cabinet secretaries whose portfolios relate to immigration would defer to him, with the president mediating disputes if need be.

The list was submitted by Mr. Kobach in recent weeks as he discussed his interest in the job. Other conditions included having a staff of seven reporting to him, “walk in” privileges to the Oval Office, a security detail if deemed necessary and the title of assistant to the president.

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Posted in fraudulent fraud squad<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>


“Happy Birthday to an Important Voting Rights Protection”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105214>
Posted on May 20, 2019 11:47 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105214> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Demos<https://www.demos.org/blog/happy-birthday-important-voting-rights-protection> on the 26th anniversary of the NVRA.
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Posted in NVRA (motor voter)<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=33>


--
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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