“The Trump Administration Is Going After Our Elections Too”

Larry Norden and Derek Tisler at Slate:

In its crusade against federal agencies, the Trump administration is targeting our election system, making potentially dangerous reductions to protections that help keep elections free, fair, and secure. On Friday, the acting director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency sent a memo to all agency staff notifying them that “all election security activities” would be paused pending the results of an internal investigation. The memo also stated that the administration was cutting off all funds to the Election Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center—a Department of Homeland Security–funded organization that helps state and local officials monitor, analyze, and respond to cyberattacks targeting the nation’s election hardware and software.

The work of CISA and the EI-ISAC has been central to election security in the United States for most of the past decade, providing state and local election officials with critical tools and assistance to defend against cyber and physical threats to election systems. These steps and other recent blows to federal election guardrails were foretold in Project 2025. Understanding the playbook will help us be ready to push back when the next shoes drop.

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Wisconsin: “Crawford, Schimel won’t pledge to recuse from cases involving political parties”

Wisconsin Public Radio:

With Wisconsin’s Supreme Court election on track to be the most expensive judiciary election in history, neither candidate has pledged to recuse themselves from hearing cases involving the political parties backing their races.

In an interview with WPR, liberal candidate Susan Crawford said that, much as she will not prejudge cases, she will also not prejudge the parties that bring them.

“I think it really comes down to, what kind of dispute is it? Who’s the other party in the case? What kind of legal issues are they raising? And only then make a decision about whether I could be fair and impartial in such a case or not,” she said at a campaign stop in western Wisconsin on Saturday.

That includes the state Democratic Party, she said, which has donated about $2 million in support of her campaign to date.

In a written statement, her conservative opponent, Brad Schimel, said he will set “personal history aside” when ruling, but he did not respond to questions about recusing from cases involving the Republican Party of Wisconsin.

“Before each case, I search my conscience and decide truthfully whether I can rule objectively. I will hold myself to that same process when I serve on the Wisconsin Supreme Court,” he said.

Schimel has received about $1.7 million from the state GOP….

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“NC elections officials seek to fast-track state Supreme Court race battle”

WRAL:

The North Carolina Board of Elections asked the state Supreme Court to use its power to bypass the state Court of Appeals and take up Republican Jefferson Griffin’s election challenge — a case that could determine whether Griffin wins a seat on the high court.

Griffin, currently a state appeals judge, finished the November general election more than 700 votes behind Democratic incumbent Justice Allison Riggs. The slim margin was upheld by two statewide recounts, but the result hasn’t been certified while Griffin challenges the eligibility of tens of thousands of voters….

A Feb. 7 hearing in Wake County Superior Court resulted in a ruling in the election board’s favor, denying Griffin’s request to throw out the challenged votes. Griffin has appealed that ruling.

In its petition to the Supreme Court, the state elections board says the case raises legal issues of “exceptional public importance,” and should be settled as soon as possible….

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“Trump Suggests No Laws Are Broken if He’s ‘Saving His Country'”

NYT:

President Trump on Saturday posted on social media a single sentence that appears to encapsulate his attitude as he tests the nation’s legal and constitutional boundaries in the process of upending the federal government and punishing his perceived enemies.

“He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” Mr. Trump wrote, first on his social media platform Truth Social, and then on the website X.

By late afternoon, Mr. Trump had pinned the statement to the top of his Truth Social feed, making it clear it was not a passing thought but one he wanted people to absorb. The official White House account on X posted his message in the evening.

The quote is a variation of one sometimes attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, although its origin is unclear.

Nonetheless, the sentiment was familiar: Mr. Trump, through his words and actions, has repeatedly suggested that surviving two assassination attempts is evidence that he has divine backing to enforce his will.

He has brought a far more aggressive attitude toward his use of power to the White House in his second term than he did at the start of his first. The powers of the presidency that he returned to were bolstered by last year’s Supreme Court ruling that he is presumptively immune from prosecution for any crimes he may commit using his official powers.

During his first weeks in office, Mr. Trump has signed numerous executive orders that pushed at the generally understood limits of presidential power, fired numerous officials and dismantled an agency in clear violation of statutory limits, and frozen spending authorized by Congress without clear authority. Many of his policy moves have been at least temporarily frozen by judges.

Such moves include trying to unilaterally rewrite the definition of birthright citizenship — a right enshrined in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment — to exclude babies born to undocumented mothers, and mass firings of public servants, ignoring civil service protection laws. He has all but shuttered the agency responsible for foreign aid, dismissed prosecutors who investigated him, and fired Senate-confirmed watchdogs without giving proper notice to Congress or justification.

Mr. Trump’s team has embraced an expansive version of the so-called unitary executive theory, a legal ideology that says that the Constitution should be understood as forbidding Congress from placing any limits on the president’s control of the executive branch, including by creating independent agencies or restricting the president’s ability to summarily fire any government official at will….

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“Venting at Democrats and Fearing Trump, Liberal Donors Pull Back Cash”

NYT:

The demoralization and fear gripping blue America in the early weeks of President Trump’s administration have left liberal groups and their allies struggling for cash, hurting their ability to effectively combat the right-wing transformation of the federal government.

The small-dollar online spigot that powered opposition to the first Trump administration has slowed to a trickle as shaken liberal voters withhold their donations.

Charitable foundations that have long supported causes like voting rights, L.G.B.T.Q. equality and immigrants’ rights are pulling back, devoting time to prepare for expected investigations from the Republican-led Congress.

And some of the country’s biggest liberal donors have paused giving, frustrated with what they see as Democrats’ lack of vision and worried about retaliation from a vengeful president. Some Democrats say a few of their reliable donors are now openly supporting Mr. Trump, or at least looking to curry favor with him.

Fund-raising slowdowns are common after a presidential defeat and before marquee midterm races fully begin. But interviews with more than 50 donors, strategists and leaders of activist organizations show that many Democrats believe this year is different.

While Mr. Trump has not taken action against any liberal groups or lawmakers, Democrats worry his frequent threats of retribution during the campaign have led to a chilling effect on the charitable foundations and nonprofit advocacy groups that have long been pillars of the country’s civil society.

Jeff Skoll, a Silicon Valley billionaire and a longtime friend of Elon Musk’s, said there was “an awful lot of pressure” to side with Mr. Trump.

This month, Mr. Skoll, who has donated tens of millions to Democratic candidates and causes in recent years but said he did not vote in the 2024 presidential election, posted a photo on social media of himself standing with Mr. Trump backstage at the inauguration. On Friday, he had breakfast in Palm Beach, Fla., with Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, where they discussed the prospect of Mr. Schumer’s using Mr. Skoll to back-channel ideas to the president, Mr. Skoll said.

Mr. Schumer recalls the conversation differently, according to an aide, Allison Biasotti.

In an interview, Mr. Skoll acknowledged his unique position, saying he had heard from many others who were frightened to fund opposition to the administration.

“There are people who were absolutely against Trump, never Trumpers, who fear that they’ll be retaliated against and they’ll have to leave the country,” Mr. Skoll said. “Folks who wish to oppose him — it may take some time before they gather up the courage.”

The result is a political environment that is strikingly different from 2017, when money poured into Democratic causes, fortifying existing organizations and seeding a flowering of new groups to fight different parts of Mr. Trump’s agenda.

Now, some of those same organizations are struggling to survive, in part because few new major liberal donors have emerged since 2017. Groups that support L.G.B.T.Q. rights, promote gender equity and champion other progressive causes have cut staffing and announced that longtime leaders are leaving.

End Citizens United, a left-leaning group that aims to overhaul campaign finance laws, laid off its six senior staff members last month as part of a restructuring. Run for Something, which works to elect liberal down-ballot candidates, laid off 35 percent of its staff late last year. And GLSEN, a group dedicated to protecting L.G.B.T.Q. students, laid off 25 people last month….

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