Category Archives: chicanery

“Top US Election Security Watchdog Forced to Stop Election Security Work”

chicanery, voting technology

Eric Geller for Wired:

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has frozen all of its election security work and is reviewing everything it has done to help state and local officials secure their elections for the past eight years, WIRED has learned. The move represents the first major example of the country’s cyberdefense agency accommodating President Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud and online censorship.

In a memo sent Friday to all CISA employees and obtained by WIRED, CISA’s acting director, Bridget Bean, said she was ordering “a review and assessment” of every position at the agency related to election security and countering mis- and disinformation, “as well as every election security and [mis-, dis-, and malinformation] product, activity, service, and program that has been carried out” since the federal government designated election systems as critical infrastructure in 2017.

“CISA will pause all elections security activities until the completion of this review,” Bean added. The agency is also cutting off funding for these activities at the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing & Analysis Center, a group funded by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that has served as a coordinating body for the elections community.

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“How the Trumps Turned an Election Victory Into a Cash Bonanza”

chicanery, conflict of interest laws

WSJ:

When Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos dined with Donald Trump and his wife Melania at Mar-a-Lago in December, there was a lot at stake for both men: Bezos, a titan of industry whose company is crucial to the U.S. economy, was rebuilding his relationship with a resurgent and powerful soon-to-be president.

A lot was at stake for Melania, too: She was looking for a buyer for a documentary about her transition back to first lady. Her agent had pitched the film, which she would executive produce, to a number of studios, including the one owned by Amazon. 

As the meeting approached, Melania consulted with director Brett Ratner on how to sell her idea to the world’s third-richest man. Melania regaled Bezos and his fiancée, Lauren Sánchez, with the project’s details at dinner.

Just over two weeks later, Amazon, a company that prides itself on frugality and sharp negotiating, agreed to pay $40 million to license the film—the most Amazon had ever spent on a documentary and nearly three times the next-closest offer. 

Netflix and Apple declined even to bid. Paramount made a lowball $4 million distribution-rights offer. Disney, the most interested studio besides Amazon, offered $14 million. 

“We licensed the upcoming Melania Trump documentary film and series for one reason and one reason only—because we think customers are going to love it,” said an Amazon spokesman. 

The first lady’s cut is more than 70% of the $40 million, according to people familiar with the matter. And they’re still looking for more: Melania’s agent has been trying to sell “sponsorships” for the film—starting at $10 million—to prominent CEOs and billionaires who were at the inauguration, according to people familiar with the matter. Buyers would get thanked at the end of the credits and be invited to the premiere. These overtures were made independently of the deal with Amazon, which was unaware of the outreach, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The Amazon deal is just one of the ways the new first family has benefited from its return to the White House. Companies have directed about $80 million to members of the Trump family and the Trump presidential library so far, as defendants settle lawsuits the president previously filed against them and corporations enter into new business ventures, including the documentary. This figure doesn’t include potential gains from crypto pursuits.

Much of the legal settlement money will go to a fund for the president’s library, a not-for-profit whose mission is to “preserve and steward” Trump’s legacy. But Trump’s share of a $10 million settlement Elon Musk’s X agreed to this week is expected to go to him directly, according to people familiar with the matter.

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“Order to Drop Adams Case Prompts Resignations in New York and Washington”

chicanery, Department of Justice

NYT:

Manhattan’s U.S. attorney on Thursday resigned rather than obey an order from a top Justice Department official to drop the corruption case against New York City’s mayor, Eric Adams.

Then, when Justice Department officials sought to transfer the case to the public integrity section in Washington, which oversees corruption cases, the two men who led that unit also resigned, according to five people with knowledge of the matter.

The resignations represent the most high-profile public resistance so far to President Trump’s tightening control over the Justice Department. They were a stunning repudiation of the administration’s attempt to force the dismissal of the charges against Mr. Adams.

The departures of the U.S. attorney, Danielle R. Sassoon, and the officials who oversaw the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, Kevin O. Driscoll and John Keller, came in rapid succession on Thursday. Days earlier, the acting No. 2 official at the Justice Department, Emil Bove III, had ordered Manhattan prosecutors to drop the case against Mr. Adams.

The agency’s justification for dropping the case was explicitly political; Mr. Bove had argued that the investigation would prevent Mr. Adams from fully cooperating with Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown. Mr. Bove made a point of saying that Washington officials had not evaluated the strength of the evidence or the legal theory behind the case.

Ms. Sassoon, in a remarkable letter addressed to Attorney General Pam Bondi, said that Mr. Bove’s order to dismiss the case was “inconsistent with my ability and duty to prosecute federal crimes without fear or favor and to advance good-faith arguments before the courts.”

“I have always considered it my obligation to pursue justice impartially, without favor to the wealthy or those who occupy important public office, or harsher treatment for the less powerful,” she said. “I therefore deem it necessary to the faithful discharge of my duties to raise the concerns expressed in this letter with you and to request an opportunity to meet to discuss them further.”

Ms. Sassoon, 38, made a startling accusation in her letter. She wrote that the mayor’s lawyers had “repeatedly urged what she said amounted to a quid pro quo, indicating that Adams would be in a position to assist with the Department’s enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed.”

She said that Mr. Bove had scolded a member of her team for taking notes during the meeting and ordered that the notes be collected at the meeting’s end….

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“US Homeland Security says election security personnel placed on leave”

authoritarian threats in US, chicanery, election subversion risk

Reuters:

The Department of Homeland Security, as part of an evaluation of its election security mission, said on Tuesday that personnel focused on misinformation, disinformation and foreign influence operations aimed at U.S. elections have been placed on administrative leave.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem is “undertaking an evaluation of how it has executed its election security mission with a particular focus on any work related to mis, dis and malinformation,” agency spokesperson Rhonda Lawson said in a statement in response to a Reuters query….

MORE from NPR.

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“Push to Drop Adams Charges Reveals a Justice Dept. Under Trump’s Sway”

chicanery, Department of Justice

NYT:

The Justice Department on Monday ordered federal prosecutors to drop the corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams of New York, a remarkable incursion into a continuing criminal case that raises questions about the fair administration of justice during President Trump’s second term.

The order was sent in a letter from the department’s acting No. 2 official, Emil Bove III, to Manhattan prosecutors who brought the charges against the mayor last year.

Mr. Bove justified the decision to ask for the dismissal by saying that the mayor’s indictment had limited Mr. Adams’s ability to cooperate in President Trump’s immigration crackdown. He also suggested that the indictment, which was handed up in September, threatened to interfere with the June 2025 mayoral primary, despite the nine-month interval between the two events.

Mr. Bove explicitly said that the Justice Department had made its decision without assessing the strength of the evidence against Mr. Adams or the legal theories undergirding the case. Instead, his letter criticized the U.S. attorney who brought it and former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. He offered expressly political arguments for dropping the charges of conspiracy, wire fraud, soliciting illegal foreign campaign contributions from foreign nationals and bribery, asserting the urgency of Mr. Trump’s immigration objectives.

It will now fall to the acting head of the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, Danielle R. Sassoon, whether to heed Mr. Bove’s order to dismiss the charges “as soon as is practicable” by filing a motion with the judge. A spokesman for Ms. Sassoon’s office declined to comment.

The letter was a remarkable intervention in a high-profile public corruption prosecution, one that cast the independence of federal prosecutors into doubt given the way Mr. Adams has curried favor with Mr. Trump. Mr. Bove directed that the charges against Mr. Adams be dismissed without prejudice, suggesting that the case could be revived if merited — or if it pleased the president….

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“Advocate of Jan. 6 Rioters Now Runs Office That Investigated Them”

authoritarian threats in US, chicanery, Department of Justice, election subversion risk

NYT:

Ed Martin was in the mob outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, posting on social media that the violent riot that day was marked by “faith and joy.”

He has often echoed President Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was rigged, declaring on the night before the Capitol was stormed that “true Americans” should work until their “last breath” to “stop the steal.”

He has spent the past four years raising money for — and in some cases defending — people charged with joining the mob. And when the House committee that investigated Jan. 6 sent him a subpoena, he never complied, risking criminal charges.

Now, Mr. Martin, 54, has been tapped by Mr. Trump to oversee the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington where he has been put in charge of dismantling the office’s signature project: the sprawling investigation of Jan. 6 that he has energetically opposed.

While his role, for now, is temporary — Mr. Trump has not yet chosen a full-time candidate — Mr. Martin is unlike anyone else who has run the agency that has taken the lead in charging more than 1,500 people in connection with the Capitol attack.

In his long legal career, he has never been a prosecutor, spending more time as a political operative and radio host. Moreover, he is saddled by an array of potential conflicts arising from his efforts to exonerate Jan. 6 defendants — including serving on the board of an organization that helped to pay their legal fees.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Washington is one of the most important field divisions in the Justice Department, which for decades has aimed to insulate itself from partisan politics. It often takes on cases of significance in the realms of national security, espionage and public corruption. In many instances, it is led by someone who has worked there.

Mr. Martin holds an obvious appeal for Mr. Trump. He is a loyal soldier and a savvy political player who has often spun untruths in a way that has favored the president. And because he oversees criminal cases in Washington, his office was just asked to join the Justice Department’s new “Weaponization Working Group,” which will turn the investigative powers of the government on several of Mr. Trump’s perceived enemies….

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Eric Holder: “The Courts Must Stop This Judge From Stealing an Election”

chicanery, election subversion risk, judicial elections

Eric Holder NYT oped:

But there is no suggestion that any of these 60,000-plus voters acted improperly, deliberately cast illegal ballots or failed to produce required identification when voting. And when the State Board of Elections reviewed his claim, it concluded, in a meticulous written decision, that Judge Griffin’s allegations lacked substance. The issue that is now before the courts is whether a court can simply cast aside tens of thousands of appropriately cast ballots after an election is over. This shouldn’t be a question: The United States Constitution and other federal laws protect against such ballots from being retroactively discarded.

Ordinarily, a request like this one would be a nonstarter. That a sitting judge filed this lawsuit in the first place is, frankly, disturbing. As an officer of the court who has sworn an oath, Judge Griffin has an obligation to protect the electoral process, not undermine it with a shameless attempt to disenfranchise voters. What’s even more distressing, though, is that the North Carolina Supreme Court’s Republican majority has allowed such a lawsuit to proceed and, in doing so, has stopped the certification of the election results.

This action is a departure from the way courts on the whole acted in 2020. That year, federal and state judges across the country — including those affiliated with the Republican Party, all the way up to the conservative-dominated U.S. Supreme Court — refused Mr. Trump’s demands to throw out legal ballots. They refuted baseless claims that the presidential race was stolen. None of the courts ultimately stopped any states from certifying election results by their required deadlines — not one.

What’s happening in North Carolina, by contrast, should concern all Americans. Any judge operating in an independent and fair manner would maximize the chance that all of North Carolinians’ ballots are counted and ensure that the electoral result reflects the decision of the state’s citizens. But so far, the North Carolina Supreme Court has done the opposite, opening the door to mass disqualifications of legitimate voters — after the fact — to try to install a losing candidate from the court majority’s political party.

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“Trump and Musk Attack Journalists by Name in Social Media Posts”

authoritarian threats in US, cheap speech, chicanery

NYT:

President Trump has made clear his animus toward mainstream media organizations. Now he’s getting more personal.

Mr. Trump and his key lieutenant, Elon Musk, who has been empowered to run what they call the Department of Government Efficiency as a “special government employee,” have attacked journalists by name in recent days on the social media platforms they own: Truth Social and X….

Mr. Musk took aim at a Wall Street Journal investigative reporter, Katherine Long. Ms. Long was the first to reveal, in a report in The Journal on Thursday, that Marko Elez, one of Mr. Musk’s lieutenants in the Department of Government Efficiency, was linked to a since-deleted racist social media account that had posted statements like, “You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity.”

Mr. Elez resigned after The Journal approached the White House for comment, according to the article. It was Ms. Long’s first article in her new job at The Journal.

Mr. Musk said in separate replies on X on Friday that Ms. Long was “a disgusting and cruel person” and should be “fired immediately.”…

Vice President JD Vance also weighed in on X on Friday, saying that he disagreed with some of Mr. Elez’s posts but that they shouldn’t “ruin a kid’s life.” (Mr. Elez is 25 years old.)

“We shouldn’t reward journalists who try to destroy people. Ever,” Mr. Vance wrote.

The Wall Street Journal did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“Journalists have a job to do and should never be attacked by high-ranking government officials for doing it,” Timothy Richardson, the journalism and disinformation program director at PEN America, a free-expression nonprofit, said in a statement.

He added, “Musk’s call for this journalist’s firing contradicts his self-proclaimed free speech advocacy and reveals his hypocrisy.”…

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“Trump administration cuts teams that fight foreign election interference”

chicanery, election subversion risk

WaPo:

The Trump administration this week eliminated much of the federal government’s front line of defense against foreign interference in U.S. elections.

The move, which follows years of Trump and his allies disputing the role that Russian influence campaigns played in his first successful bid for president, alarmed state election officials and election security experts, who warned that safeguarding Americans from foreign disinformation campaigns will be difficult if no one at the federal level is doing that work.

On Wednesday, Attorney General Pam Bondi dissolved an FBI task force formed in response to Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential elections that worked to uncover covert efforts by Russia, China, Iran and other foreign adversaries to manipulate U.S. voters.

Separately, the Department of Homeland Security sent a letterWednesdayplacing at least seven federal employees who work on teams combating foreign disinformation within the election security arm of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, on administrative leave, according to a recipient who shared a copy of the letter with The Washington Post….

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“Trump continues federal purge, gutting cyber workers who combat disinformation”

cheap speech, chicanery, election subversion risk

Politico:

The Trump administration has moved to push out a swathe of federal workers previously involved in combating election-related disinformation, according to three people familiar with the matter, amid allegations from congressional Republicans that their work unfairly targeted conservative speech online.

Roughly half a dozen employees from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency who once worked in its Election Security and Resilience division were notified Thursday night they were being put on administrative leave, said the three people, who were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive personnel matters.

The move comes shortly after the installment of new DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, a close Trump ally. The former South Dakota governor told congressional Republicans in her confirmation hearing last month she shared their view that CISA should no longer be involved in efforts to combat the scores of online hoaxes peddled by the likes of Russia, China and Iran.

“As Secretary Noem stated during her confirmation hearing, CISA needs to refocus on its mission, and we are starting with election security,” Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for Public Affairs at CISA, said in a statement.

McLaughlin added that the agency is “undertaking an evaluation” of how it handles election security, and “personnel who worked on mis-, dis-, and malinformation, as well as foreign influence operations and disinformation, have been placed on administrative leave.”

The ousters are the latest example of how the administration is targeting career government officials with prior connections, however tenuous, to efforts it disagrees with or that interfere with Trump’s agenda….

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Trump Purports to Fire FEC Commissioner Ellen Weintraub

chicanery, federal election commission

Commissioner Weintraub:

Received a letter from POTUS today purporting to remove me as Commissioner and Chair of the FEC. There's a legal way to replace FEC commissioners-this isn't it. I've been so fortunate to serve the American people and stir up some good trouble along the way. That's not changing anytime soon.

— Ellen L. Weintraub (@ellenlweintraub.bsky.social) 2025-02-06T23:41:05.134Z

Tom Moore:

(@ellenlweintraub.bsky.social) must be kept on the payroll and on the computer systems, her access to FEC HQ unimpeded. The FEC general counsel needs to do her job and enforce the Federal Election Campaign Act. She does NOT need a vote of the Commission to do so.

— Tom Moore (@thmoore.bsky.social) 2025-02-06T23:44:36.558Z
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“Trump’s Justice Department shutters specialized FBI team combatting foreign election interference threats”

chicanery, election subversion risk

CNN:

The FBI is preparing to disband a team of specialists charged with combatting foreign threats to US elections, a source familiar tells CNN.

The shuttering of the FBI Foreign Influence Task Force and planned reassigning of team members follows a directive from incoming US Attorney General Pam Bondi dissolving the team.

“To free resources to address more pressing priorities, and end risks of further weaponization and abuses of prosecutorial discretion, the Foreign Influence Task Force shall be disbanded,” Bondi wrote in a memo issued Wednesday.

The special task force was established by former FBI Director Christopher Wray in 2017 following a wave of foreign influence operations targeting the US electoral process, including Russia’s efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election that Trump won….

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“Justice Dept. Says It Will Not Bring Charges in Investigation of Project Veritas”

chicanery

NYT:

The Justice Department said on Wednesday that it would not bring charges against anyone affiliated with the group Project Veritas over their role in trying to publish the contents of a diary that had been stolen from Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s daughter in the final weeks of the 2020 election campaign.

The prosecutors, who made their announcement in a one-paragraph letter to a judge overseeing the matter, did not say why they were declining to bring additional charges in the long running investigation. In court filings in related cases, the Justice Department had laid out evidence of the group’s involvement in the effort to acquire and publish the diary, and had fought in court for access to evidence that investigators had obtained from the group’s operatives.

The investigation had raised difficult legal questions about the extent to which the First Amendment protected the publication of stolen materials. But it was unclear whether the decision was part of a larger pattern by the Justice Department since President Trump took office to walk away from cases involving his allies. Project Veritas and its founder, James O’Keefe, have long been favorites of Mr. Trump’s and gained attention by using sting operations and undercover videos to seek to embarrass liberal groups and mainstream news organizations, among others….

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Florida: “Russian, Uzbek nationals filed 132 fake voter registration applications in Pinellas County: DOJ”

chicanery

WFLA:

 A Russian national and an Uzbek national have been arrested for allegedly submitting over 100 fake voter registration applications in Pinellas County, the U.S. Department of Justice said Monday.

Dmitry Shushlebin, 45, and Sanjar Jamilov, 33, were both charged with one count of conspiring to submit fraudulent voter registration applications and give false information in registering to vote.Law firm sues owner of St. Pete building hit by collapsed crane during Hurricane Milton

Shushlebin, who is from Russia, was living in Miami Beach at the time of the alleged crimes, while Jamilov, who is from Uzbekistan, was living in St. Petersburg, the DOJ said.

The Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections became suspicious after receiving the voter applications in February and March 2023, according to a criminal complaint filed in the Middle District of Florida.

The 132 applications were submitted in envelopes with “identically formatted return and address labels,” the complaint said. Each listed a real residential address in Pinellas County, but bore the name, date of birth, and social security number of what appeared to be a fictitious person….

Officials said there were also several other red flags, including that none of the applicants had middle names, multiple shared the same date of birth and nearly all of the addresses listed appeared at least twice within the 132 applications….

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