[EL] ELB News and Commentary 2/2/21

[Rick Hasen]

“Trump’s Sleight of Hand: Shouting Fraud, Pocketing Donors’ Cash for Future”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=120714>
Posted on February 2, 2021 8:18 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=120714> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT:<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/01/us/politics/trump-cash.html?searchResultPosition=2>

Former President Donald J. Trump and the Republican Party leveraged false claims of voter fraud and promises to overturn the election to raise more than a quarter-billion dollars in November and December as hundreds of thousands of trusting supporters listened and opened their wallets.

But the Trump campaign spent only a tiny fraction of its haul on lawyers and other legal bills related to those claims. Instead, Mr. Trump and the G.O.P. stored away much of the money — $175 million or so — even as they continued to issue breathless, aggressive and often misleading appeals for cash that promised it would help with recounts, the rooting out of election fraud and even the Republican candidates’ chances in the two Senate runoff races in Georgia.

What fraction of the money Mr. Trump did spend after the election was plowed mostly into a public-relations campaign and to keep his perpetual fund-raising machine whirring, with nearly $50 million going toward online advertising, text-message outreach and a small television ad campaign.

Only about $10 million spent by Mr. Trump’s campaign went to actual legal costs, according to an analysis of new Federal Election Commission filings from Nov. 4 through the end of the year.

Far more is now sitting in the coffers of a new political action committee, Save America, that Mr. Trump formed after the election<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/09/us/politics/trump-pac.html> and that provides him a fat war chest he can use to pay advisers, fund travel and maintain a political operation. Mr. Trump’s new PAC had $31 million in the bank at the end of 2020 and an estimated $40 million more sitting in a shared party account waiting to be transferred into it.

Mr. Trump’s extraordinary success raising money came mostly from grass-roots and online contributors drawn to his lie that the election result would soon be somehow wiped away. Only about a dozen donors gave $25,000 or more to one of Mr. Trump’s committees after Nov. 24. (The lone six-figure donation came from Elaine J. Wold, a major Republican donor in Florida.)
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>, fraudulent fraud squad<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>


Which Candidates Benefit Most from Small Donors?<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=120707>
Posted on February 2, 2021 8:17 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=120707> by Richard Pildes<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=7>

With the Democrats starting to push onto the agenda the package of political reforms titled the “For the People Act,” more attention is going to start getting focused on the provisions for campaign-finance reform. Those provisions involve a 6:1 small-donor matching program — for every $1 in small donations a candidate raises, $6 of federal matching funds would be provided, up to a certain amount.

I have written several pieces that look at the evidence regarding whether small donors tend to fuel the ideological extremes of the parties (see here<https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/02/06/small-dollars-big-changes/?arc404=true>, here<https://www.yalelawjournal.org/pdf/Pildes_SmallDonorBasedCampaignFinanceReformandPoliticalPolarization_1nbukg72.pdf>, and here<https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3611180>). For one initial perspective on that issue, here is a list from the Open Secrets website<https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/large-vs-small-donations?t0-total+money+raised=Raised+over+%24100k> of those members of Congress elected in 2018 who raised more than 50% of their funds from small donors (the data for 2020 is not yet available).

Member of Congress
Total from Small Donors
Percent from Small Donors
1
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D)
$14,773,247
78.18%
2
Matt Gaetz (R)
$3,870,740
65.09%
3
Jim Jordan (R)
$11,263,113
64.21%
4
Adam Schiff (D)
$11,427,347
58.96%
5
Ilhan Omar (D)
$3,301,638
57.74%
6
Nancy Pelosi (D)
$15,471,503
56.55%
7
Devin Nunes (R)
$14,122,078
52.64%
8
Katie Porter (D)
$8,647,559
52.01%
9
Dan Crenshaw (R)
$9,714,422
50.00%
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Trump’s New Lawyers Not Expected to Focus on False Election Claims in His Defense”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=120712>
Posted on February 2, 2021 8:15 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=120712> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT:<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/01/us/politics/trump-impeachment-defense.html>

The new legal team<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/31/us/politics/trump-impeachment-lawyers.html> that former President Donald J. Trump has brought in for his impeachment trial next week is unlikely to focus his defense on his baseless claims of widespread election fraud<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/31/us/trump-election-lie.html> and instead question whether the trial is even constitutional since he is no longer president, people close to the team said on Monday.

Several Trump advisers have told the former president that using his election claims as a defense for his role in the mob attack on the Capitol last month is unwise, according to a person close to the new lawyers, David Schoen and Bruce L. Castor Jr. The person said the former president’s advisers did not expect that it would be part of the arguments they make before the Senate.

In an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution<https://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta-news/trumps-impeachment-lawyer-from-atlanta-no-stranger-to-big-cases/EAFTABZ5WRCIJFZYSXGBSJXADI/> on Monday, Mr. Schoen confirmed that he would not make that argument. “I’m not in this case for that,” he said.

Mr. Schoen, an Atlanta-based criminal defense lawyer, and Mr. Castor, a former district attorney in Pennsylvania, replaced Butch Bowers and four other lawyers<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/30/us/politics/trump-butch-bowers-impeachment.html> working with him after they parted ways with the former president.

A person close to Mr. Trump said there was disagreement about the approach to strategy, as he pushed to have the legal team focus on election fraud. The person also said that the former president had no “chemistry” with Mr. Bowers, a South Carolina lawyer recommended to him by Senator Lindsey Graham<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/21/us/politics/butch-bowers-donald-trump-impeachment.html>, one of his most loyal supporters.

A second person close to Mr. Trump said that Mr. Bowers had seemed “overwhelmed” by the case and confirmed a report from Axios<https://www.axios.com/trump-legal-fees-impeachment-trial-8f6578e6-0662-4aea-8edc-aee2530c5165.html> that the lawyer had sought about $3 million for fees, researchers and other expenses.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


WaPo Fact Checker Gives Florida Senator Rick Scott “Four Pinocchios” for False Claims About Voter Fraud in His 2018 Senate Election<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=120710>
Posted on February 2, 2021 8:10 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=120710> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo fact checker<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/02/02/rick-scotts-zombie-claim-about-voter-fraud-2018/>.
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Posted in fraudulent fraud squad<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>


“Trump’s actions described as ‘a betrayal of historic proportions’ in trial brief filed by House impeachment managers”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=120708>
Posted on February 2, 2021 8:08 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=120708> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo:<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/house-impeachment-trial-brief/2021/02/02/8eca2f14-6557-11eb-8c64-9595888caa15_story.html>

House Democrats made their case to convict former president Donald Trump of inciting the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol in a sweeping impeachment brief filed with the Senate on Tuesday that accused Trump of whipping his supporters into a “frenzy” and described him as “singularly responsible” for the mayhem that ensued.

In the brief, the nine House impeachment managers argue that Trump is not protected by the First Amendment’s freedom of speech provision, which was never intended, they wrote, to allow a president to “provoke lawless action if he loses at the polls.”

“If provoking an insurrectionary riot against a Joint Session of Congress after losing an election is not an impeachable offense, it is hard to imagine what would be,” the brief states.

Democrats also rejected the claim embraced by many Republicans that it is unconstitutional to convict a president after he has left office — an argument that Trump’s lawyers are expected to make in his defense.

“There is no ‘January Exception’ to impeachment or any other provision of the Constitution,” the House Democrats wrote. “A president must answer comprehensively for his conduct in office from his first day in office through his last.”

Read the House brief for Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial<https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/read-the-house-brief-for-donald-trump-s-second-impeachment-trial/e51c93fa-db25-44ca-a89f-395f7b95539d/?itid=lk_interstitial_manual_9>

Later Tuesday, Trump’s legal team is set to file its initial response to the impeachment trial summons. The Senate trial is scheduled to begin Feb. 9.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Before 2024, we had better fix the election law failings we saw last year”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=120705>
Posted on February 2, 2021 8:03 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=120705> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo editorial.<https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/before-2024-we-had-better-fix-the-election-law-failings-we-saw-last-year/2021/01/31/4b3b1698-60e6-11eb-9430-e7c77b5b0297_story.html>
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


Boockvar Soon Out<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=120703>
Posted on February 1, 2021 8:35 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=120703> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Spotlight PA:<https://www.spotlightpa.org/news/2021/02/kathy-boockvar-resigns-pennsylvania-election-official-constitutional-amendment/>

Pennsylvania’s top election official is expected to resign her position after her agency’s staff discovered a mistake that will block voters from deciding this spring whether to allow survivors of decades-old sexual abuse to sue the perpetrators, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

The Department of State did not advertise, as required, a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would open a two-year window for litigation by survivors of child sexual abuse who have aged out of the statute of limitations for suing. Kathy Boockvar has led the agency since 2019, and oversaw a tense and difficult presidential election in a battleground state last year.

The change was a key recommendation in a blistering 2018 report by a statewide grand jury that investigated the coverup of decades of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. It is backed by the state’s community of survivors, who have been pushing for the change for nearly two decades.

The mistake means that the earliest voters can decide whether to create a two-year window is spring of 2023.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Text Messages Show Top Trump Campaign Fundraiser’s Key Role Planning the Rally That Preceded the Siege”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=120701>
Posted on February 1, 2021 7:48 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=120701> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

ProPublica:<https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-campaign-fundraiser-ellipse-rally>

In the week leading up to the Jan. 6 rally in Washington, D.C., that exploded into an attack on the Capitol, a top Trump campaign fundraiser issued a directive to a woman who had been overseeing planning for the event.

“Get the budget and vendors breakdown to me and Justin,” Caroline Wren wrote to Cindy Chafian, a self-described “constitutional conservative,” in a Dec. 28 text message obtained by ProPublica.

Wren was no ordinary event planner. She served as a deputy to Donald Trump Jr.’s girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle, at Trump Victory, a joint presidential fundraising committee during the 2020 campaign. The Justin mentioned in her text was Justin Caporale, a former top aide to first lady Melania Trump, whose production company helped put on the event at the Ellipse.

Text messages and an event-planning memo obtained by ProPublica, along with an interview with Chafian, indicate that Wren, a Washington insider with a low public profile, played an extensive role in managing operations for the event. The records show that Wren oversaw logistics, budgeting, funding and messaging for the Jan. 6 rally that featured President Donald Trump.

Chafian told ProPublica that Wren and others had pushed her aside as plans intensified, including as a late effort was made to get Trump to speak at the event….

Wren’s services were enlisted by a major donor to Trump’s presidential campaign, according to The Wall Street Journal<https://www.wsj.com/articles/jan-6-rally-funded-by-top-trump-donor-helped-by-alex-jones-organizers-say-11612012063?mod=hp_lead_pos1>, which reported Saturday that Julie Jenkins Fancelli, the heiress to Publix Super Markets, committed some $300,000 to fund the Jan. 6 rally.

The funding commitment by Fancelli, who Federal Election Commission records show has donated more than $1 million to Trump Victory, the president’s campaign and the Republican National Committee since 2018, was facilitated by the right-wing conspiracy peddler<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/us/politics/alex-jones-business-infowars-conspiracy.html> Alex Jones, the Journal reported. Chafian told ProPublica that she herself had been directed by Jones to Wren, who, she was told, had ties to a wealthy donor who wanted to support the January affair. Chafian said the donor is a woman but wouldn’t disclose her name, citing a confidentiality agreement.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://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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