Category Archives: chicanery

“Hacking the Vote: Who Helped Whom?”

July 19, 2017, 8:36 pmchicaneryRick Hasen

NYR Daily: Similarly, bots can be programmed to search for certain keywords and particular users. That could account for why Russian bots were propagating anti-Clinton messages in places like Wisconsin: they might have simply been following the lead of other… Continue reading

Applying the Foreign Solicitation Ban Against the Russian Government Consistent with the First Amendment

July 19, 2017, 8:11 pmcampaign finance, chicaneryRick Hasen

One issue which has arisen over possible campaign finance charges against Donald Trump Jr. concerns whether the statute is substantially overbroad in violation of the First Amendment. Eugene Volokh makes the case here, and I argue against application of… Continue reading

“Fake news microtargeting now part of Russia investigation”

July 18, 2017, 9:44 pmcampaigns, chicaneryRick Hasen

KCRW- To the Point: “Hillary Clinton is running a child sex ring out of a pizza shop.” “Democrats want to impose Sharia law in Florida” These are just some of the headlines you may have seen online last fall. Among… Continue reading

“Former Clinton and Romney campaign chiefs join forces to fight election hacking”

July 18, 2017, 9:54 amchicanery, The Voting Wars, voting technologyRick Hasen

WaPo: The former managers of Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney’s presidential campaigns are leading a new initiative called “Defending Digital Democracy” in the hopes of preventing a repeat of Russia’s 2016 election interference. Robby Mook, Clinton’s 2016 campaign chief, and… Continue reading

“The 2016 U.S. Voting Wars: From Bad to Worse”

July 17, 2017, 8:39 amchicanery, election administration, Supreme Court, The Voting Wars, Voting Rights Act, voting technologyRick Hasen

I have posted this new draft on SSRN (for the pre-APSA event, Protecting Electoral Security and Voting Rights: The 2016 U.S. Elections in Comparative Perspective). Here is the abstract: If the “voting wars” which have broken out across the… Continue reading

Will Trump Jr’s Ignorance of Campaign Finance Law Let Him Off The Hook? What About Manafort?

July 16, 2017, 10:47 amcampaign finance, chicaneryRick Hasen

Andy Grewal makes a careful and good case that based on what we know, there might not be enough wilfulness on the part of Donald Trump Jr. for him to be criminally prosecuted. This is an important point and much… Continue reading

150,000 Attempts on Election Day to Hack into South Carolina Voter Database

July 16, 2017, 8:12 amchicanery, election administration, The Voting WarsRick Hasen

WSJ: To understand the scale of the hacking attempts against election systems in the 2016 presidential election, consider South Carolina. On Election Day alone, there were nearly 150,000 attempts to penetrate the state’s voter-registration system, according to a postelection report… Continue reading

“Russia will be back. Here’s how to hack-proof the next election.”

July 15, 2017, 8:59 amchicanery, The Voting WarsRick Hasen

Former National Security Adviser Tom Donilon in WaPo: We now know that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a comprehensive effort to interfere with the 2016 presidential election. This mission involved the cybertheft and strategic publication of politically sensitive emails,… Continue reading

Republican FEC Commissioners Reject Comm’r Weintraub Proposal for Foreign Interference Rulemaking

July 14, 2017, 1:18 pmcampaign finance, chicanery, federal election commissionRick Hasen

Statement of reasons: The specter of any foreign government meddling in U.S. elections is an issue that we, like all Americans, take very seriously. Contributions and expenditures by foreign nationals in connection with U.S. elections are prohibited by the Federal… Continue reading

Updated: Witness at Meeting: Trump Jr. Asked Russian Attorney “for evidence of illicit money flowing to the Democratic National Committee”

July 14, 2017, 8:01 amcampaign finance, chicaneryRick Hasen

AP reports. Update: The updated version of the AP story now reads: In his first public interview about the meeting, Akhmetshin said he accompanied Veselnitskaya to Trump Tower where they met an interpreter who participated in the meeting. He said… Continue reading

Bauer: “Considering the Legal Defenses of the Trump Jr. Meeting”

July 14, 2017, 7:46 amcampaign finance, chicaneryRick Hasen

Bob Bauer at Just Security.

Tokaji: “What Trump Jr. Did Was Bad, But It Probably Didn’t Violate Federal Campaign Finance Law”

July 14, 2017, 7:43 amcampaign finance, chicaneryRick Hasen

Dan Tokaji at Just Security.

The Vare Precedent in the Senate–And Its Relevance to the Trump-Russia Inquiry

July 13, 2017, 2:54 pmchicaneryRick Hasen

New Ned Foley.

“Russia may sabotage the next election, too. What will Trump and Republicans do about it?”

July 13, 2017, 12:13 pmchicanery, The Voting Wars, voting technologyRick Hasen

Greg Sargent: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which oversees House races, has issued a formal request to its Republican counterpart, asking it to join in showing a “united front” and creating a “joint plan” against any Russian efforts to undermine… Continue reading