Mayor Eric Adams’ re-election campaign submitted faked and fraudulently obtained petition signatures in his effort to secure a spot on the November ballot as an independent candidate, a Gothamist investigation has found.
Gothamist reviewed signatures submitted from across New York City and found people who said their names were forged, as well as people who said they were deceived into signing the petitions. In at least three instances, the campaign turned in signatures from dead people.
Under state law, Adams needed to submit at least 7,500 signatures from voters who wanted him on the general election ballot as an independent. The tactic enabled the incumbent mayor to avoid a crowded Democratic primary race that was shaping up as a referendum on the federal corruption charges he once faced and his growing ties to President Donald Trump.
The Adams campaign hired several companies to deploy employees across the city and gather signatures of registered voters in New York City who supported the mayor’s re-election.
Signature gatherers were required to sign a form pledging that each signature they collected was from the person whose name appeared on the sheet. But an executive from one company said he also warned the Adams campaign that it should run additional quality control measures – a suggestion he said the campaign rejected. In response to Gothamist’s inquiries, the campaign said it expected the companies it hired to follow the law but nevertheless pledged to now conduct its own review of the signatures….
Category Archives: chicanery
“‘Clinton Plan’ Emails Were Likely Made by Russian Spies, Declassified Report Shows”
The Trump-era special counsel who scoured the Russia investigation for wrongdoing gathered evidence that undermines a theory pushed by some Republicans that Hillary Clinton’s campaign conspired to frame Donald J. Trump for colluding with Moscow in the 2016 election, information declassified on Thursday shows.
The information, a 29-page annex to the special counsel’s 2023 report, reveals that a foundational document for that theory was most likely stitched together by Russian spies. The document is a purported email from July 27, 2016, that said Mrs. Clinton had approved a campaign proposal to tie Mr. Trump to Russia to distract from the scandal over her use of a private email server.
The release of the annex adds new details to the public’s understanding of a complex trove of 2016 Russian intelligence reports analyzing purported emails that Russian hackers stole from Americans. It also shows how the special counsel, John H. Durham, went to great lengths to try to prove that several of the emails were real, only to ultimately conclude otherwise….
Even as the releases shed more light on a seismic political period nearly a decade ago, Mr. Trump and his allies have wildly overstated what the documents show, accusing former President Barack Obama of “treason.”
The release of the annex was no exception. John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director, said in a statement that the materials proved that suspicions of Russian collusion stemmed from “a coordinated plan to prevent and destroy Donald Trump’s presidency.”
And Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, who has a long history of pushing false claims about the Russia investigation, declared on social media that the annex revealed “evidence that the Clinton campaign plotted to frame President Trump and fabricate the Russia collusion hoax.”
In reality, the annex shows the opposite, indicating that a key piece of supposed evidence for the claim that Mrs. Clinton approved a plan to tie Mr. Trump to Russia is not credible: Mr. Durham concluded that the email from July 27, 2016, and a related one dated two days earlier were probably manufactured.
“Smithsonian removes Trump from impeachment exhibit in American History Museum”
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in July removed references to President Donald Trump’s two impeachments from an exhibit display. A person familiar with the exhibit plans, who was not authorized to discuss them publicly, said the change came about as part of a content review that the Smithsonian agreed to undertake following pressure from the White House to remove an art museum director.
A temporary label including content about Trump’s impeachments had been on display since September 2021 at the Washington museum, a Smithsonian spokesperson told The Washington Post, adding that it was intended to be a short-term addition to address current events. Now, the exhibit notes that “only three presidents have seriously faced removal.”
In addition to describing Trump’s two impeachments, the temporary label — which read “Case under redesign (history happens)” — also offered information about the impeachments of presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton as well as Richard M. Nixon, who would have faced impeachment had he not resigned. The Washington Post viewed a photograph of the temporary signage….
“In reviewing our legacy content recently, it became clear that the ‘Limits of Presidential Power’ section in The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden exhibition needed to be addressed,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “The section of this exhibition covers Congress, The Supreme Court, Impeachment, and Public Opinion. Because the other topics in this section had not been updated since 2008, the decision was made to restore the Impeachment case back to its 2008 appearance.”
The change coincides with broader concerns about political interference at the Smithsonian and how the institution charged with preserving American history could be shaped by the Trump Administration’s efforts to exert more control over its work.
D.C. Bar Committee Recommends that Jeffrey Clark, Who Tried to Help Trump Subvert the 2020 Presidential Election, Be Disbarred
From the report and recommendation:
Having reviewed the record in this matter, including the parties’ arguments before the Board, we reject Respondentís procedural arguments and dispositive motions. On the merits, we conclude that Disciplinary Counsel proved by clear and convincing evidence that Respondent attempted to make intentionally false statements when he continued to advocate that the Justice Department issue a letter containing falsehoods. Although the hearing witnesses agreed that Respondent had sincere personal concerns about the integrity of the 2020 election, they also agreed that the Justice Department had not identified potentially outcome-determinative issues in Georgia or other states. Respondent knew that because Messrs. Rosen and Donoghue told him so. Thus, Respondentís conduct constituted an attempt to make intentionally false statements about the results of the Justice Department’s investigation. We agree with the Hearing Committee that Disciplinary Counsel failed to prove that Respondent attempted to seriously interfere with the administration of justice, although for different reasons.
A majority of the Board recommends that Respondent be disbarred. [Footnote: Two Board Members recommend that Respondent be suspended for three years and be required to prove his fitness to practice prior to reinstatement.] We recognize that there are no factually comparable prior disciplinary cases. But that is not surprising given the underlying facts. In making this recommendation, we are mindful of the need to maintain the integrity of the legal profession and deter the respondent and other attorneys from engaging in similar misconduct. Lawyers must observe the highest standard of professional conduct. At a minimum, they must be honest. While dishonesty is always intolerable, the facts here are significantly aggravating to warrant disbarment: Respondent was prepared to cause the Justice Department to tell a lie about the status of its investigation of an important national issue (the integrity of the 2020 Presidential election). Lawyers cannot advocate for any outcome based on false statements and they certainly cannot urge others to do so. Respondent persistently and energetically sought to do just that on an important national issue. He should be disbarred as a consequence and to send a message to the rest of the Bar and to the public that this behavior will not be tolerated.
“Despite grand claims, a new report shows noncitizen voting hasn’t materialized”
Miles Parks for NPR:
After President Trump and many other Republicans warned that vast numbers of non-U.S. citizens would influence last year’s election, states and law enforcement have devoted more resources than ever before to root out those ineligible voters.
More than six months into Trump’s second term, they haven’t found much.
New research out Wednesday tracking state government efforts across the country confirms what election experts have said all along: Noncitizen voting occasionally happens but in minuscule numbers, and not in any coordinated way.
“Noncitizens are not a large threat to our election system currently,” said David Becker, the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research (CEIR), which conducted the research. “Even states that are looking everywhere to try to amplify the numbers of noncitizens … when they actually look, they find a surprisingly, shockingly small number.”
CEIR spent roughly four months reviewing states’ public disclosures about noncitizen voting, stretching back years. The organization shared its findings with NPR exclusively.
The report shows a wide disparity in how states have investigated the issue and what data officials in those states choose to make public. Many states have released no information, even though it’s illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections and all voting officials do some type of maintenance to their voter rolls.
Some states, such as Michigan and Georgia, have undertaken audits of their entire voter rolls, using resources from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to check for noncitizens. Michigan officials announced in April that a review found that “cases of noncitizens casting a ballot in Michigan elections are extremely rare.” The review found more than a dozen noncitizens appear to have illegally voted in the 2024 general election. That’s 0.00028% of the state’s total votes….
No state has found any coordinated effort to get noncitizens to vote in the 2024 election.
When UCLA election law professor Rick Hasen was presented with the CEIR findings, he said he wasn’t “surprised in the slightest.”
“It really is not a big problem, both because on the individual level, it would be hard to get noncitizens to agree to it,” Hasen said. “And on the broader level, it’s just not a very cost-effective way to try to steal an election.”
Election officials note there are safeguards to prevent noncitizens from registering to vote, but the biggest deterrent is the fact that immigrants without legal status generally don’t want to risk deportation to cast one ballot — especially because the inherent paper trail of voting makes it very easy to get caught.
Separate research has found that when noncitizens do register to vote, it’s often due to bureaucratic errors or a misunderstanding about eligibility, as opposed to intentional fraud.
Still, the noncitizen voting myth has persisted for more than 100 years in American elections. Hasen expects it to come up again in 2026, even if states don’t find any data to support it.
“Most people who make claims that noncitizen voting is a big problem are doing so for political purposes,” Hasen said. “It’s a way of demonizing immigrants. It’s a way of trying to claim that Democrats cheat. And no amount of evidence is going to stop people from making politically expedient claims.”
Ellen Katz: “Redistricting Texas Now is Illegal and the U.S. Department of Justice is the Reason Why”
Ellen Katz has posted this draft on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
The U.S. Department of Justice sent a letter to the Texas Governor and Attorney General that claims four Texas congressional districts violate the Voting Rights Act and the Constitution. The letter seemingly demands that Texas alter the racial makeup of those districts. This short essay shows why the legal claims set forth in the DOJ letter are incorrect and why Texas would violate both the VRA and the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause were it to change its districting map to target these four districtsin response to the DOJ letter.
North Carolina: “All-GOP Appeals Court panel ruled against Stein in elections board dispute”
Three Republican members of the North Carolina Court of Appeals issued the April order that blocked a lower court ruling favoring Democratic Gov. Josh Stein in a dispute over state elections board appointments.
Appeals Court rules blocked release of the names of participating judges for 90 days. Now the court has revealed that Judges Julee Flood, Michael Stading, and Tom Murry issued the April 30 order.
All three are Republicans. Republicans outnumber Democrats, 12-3, on the state’s second-highest court.
The Appeals Court’s action paved the way for State Auditor Dave Boliek to make new appointments to state and county elections boards. The state Supreme Court later split, 5-2, in upholding appellate judges’ decision.
Boliek is a Republican. His appointments shifted elections board majorities from 3-2 in Democrats’ favor to 3-2 Republican majorities. Among the state board’s first actions was to replace executive director Karen Brinson Bell with Sam Hayes.
The legal dispute remains with the state Appeals Court.
The state Supreme Court decision split justices along party lines. The five Republicans made up the majority. The two Democrats dissented….
“DOJ Is Said to Plan to Contact All 50 States on Voting Systems”
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has said it intends to contact all 50 states about their compliance with federal voting law, a national association of state election officials told Democracy Docket.
“As states recently began to receive letters on the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and Help America Vote Act (HAVA) from the U.S. Department of Justice, NASS staff reached out to hopefully provide members with additional information and context,” Maria Benson, a spokesperson for the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) said in a statement. “DOJ staff told NASS staff that all states would be contacted eventually on NVRA and HAVA matters. We passed along this information to members.”
“NASS staff has also asked DOJ to join a future NASS Elections Committee virtual meeting to address questions on these letters,” Benson added.
In recent weeks, letters sent by DOJ’s Civil Rights division to numerous states of all political stripes have asked for sensitive voter roll data, which DOJ has said is needed to ensure compliance with the NVRA and HAVA. The inquiries appear intended to gather information that could boost the Trump administration’s hunt for illegal voting.
“Most of the letters are very vague about why the DOJ is asking for this data,” Justin Levitt, a constitutional law scholar and a former deputy assistant attorney general in the DOJ’s Civil Rights division, as well as a former voting adviser to former President Joe Biden, told Democracy Docket. “Most of these letters cite generally HAVA and the NVRA. That’s not good enough. HAVA and the NVRA have very particular requirements for state and local jurisdictions.”…
“Justice department asked California to give info on non-citizens on voter rolls”
The Department of Justice has asked several large California counties to provide detailed personal information of non-citizens who got on to the state voter rolls, an unusual request that comes as the Trump administration has asked about a dozen states to provide wide swaths of information about voters and election practices.
The justice department’s voting section sent identical letters to local election officials in Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego on 9 July. The request asks the officials to provide the total number of non-citizens who had their voter registrations cancelled since 2020 as well as a copy of their voter registration records, voting history, date of birth, driver’s license numbers, and the last four digits of a social security number. The department sent a similar request to Orange county last month and then sued the county after officials redacted some information….
“Project Veritas Withdraws Lawsuit Against The New York Times”
NYT:
The conservative group Project Veritas this week dropped its yearslong libel lawsuit against The New York Times.
The lawsuit accused The Times of defamation for an article published in 2020 that reported that researchers from Stanford University and the University of Washington had described some videos produced by Project Veritas as probably part of a coordinated disinformation effort. The group also sued the researchers.
Project Veritas lost its defamation claims against the university researchers in 2022, and was ordered to pay Stanford nearly $150,000 in legal fees. But the group had continued to pursue its claims against The Times after defeating the news organization’s motion to dismiss.
“We are pleased that Project Veritas decided to withdraw its libel suit without any settlement,” Charlie Stadtlander, a Times spokesman, said in a statement, adding, “The claim against The Times should never have been brought.”
Ballot Stuffing in Brooklyn?
From the NYT, reports of what sounds like old-fashioned election fraud in a GOP city council primary:
The New York City Board of Elections asked prosecutors on Friday to investigate possible ballot stuffing and votes being cast by dead people in a hotly contested City Council race in southern Brooklyn.
After a second day of hand recounting on Friday, George Sarantopoulos, a businessman, led Richie Barsamian, chairman of the Republican Party in Brooklyn, by a mere 16 votes in the G.O.P. primary in District 47.
Particularly troubling for election authorities was the late discovery of 22 paper ballots that officials said were not scanned by the voting machines on election night. The surprise comes on the heels of a report in The New York Post that two absentee ballots were cast by voters who are dead and another by a man who said he did not vote and has no primary voting history going back to the 1980s.
One of the dead voters would be 107 years old, the other 101, records show.
Rick comments here. While there’s usually less than meets the eye when fraud is alleged, this one seems like it could potentially be real.
“Under Siege From Trump and Musk, a Top Liberal Group Falls Into Crisis”
Fascinating NYT story about the financial difficulties facing Media Matters. The Times reports that it “has racked up about $15 million in legal fees over the past 20 months to defend itself against lawsuits by Elon Musk, in addition to investigations by Mr. Trump’s Federal Trade Commission and Republican state attorneys general.” The story also reports on the group’s tension with its lawyers:
In early February, frustrated by what some at Media Matters saw as the high cost and slow pace of their lawyers at the influential Democratic firm Elias Law Group, the advocacy group began transitioning the X cases to different law firms. An Elias lawyer notified the group that it owed roughly $4 million.
“We understand this case has been and remains very difficult for everyone involved, as was Musk’s intention when he brought it,” Ezra Reese, the chair of Elias’s political law group, wrote in an email to Mr. Carusone and Media Matters’s lead fund-raiser, Mary Pat Bonner.
Mr. Reese offered to wipe away about half of the unpaid tally in exchange for payment of $2.25 million within about a week. If the group did not commit to the payment plan, Mr. Reese wrote, his firm would expect full payment of the original amount and would “go pens down and take steps to withdraw from the case by the end of the month.”
The ultimatum did not sit well inside Media Matters.
“You must be kidding!!” Ms. Bonner responded to Mr. Reese. “This is how you treat people who have been clients for 16 years and are friends?”
In a statement to The New York Times, Mr. Reese defended his firm’s work, noting that it helped with matters including the effort to shut down the state attorneys general investigations. “These victories,” he predicted, would help Media Matters and other organizations “stand up to politically-motivated investigations and lawsuits brought by the right wing.”
Trump’s False and Malicious Claims That Former President Obama Engaged in “Treason” in Connection with the 2016 and 2020 Elections Merits Mention Only on Page A17 of the NY Times and Is Barely a Blip Elsewhere
Displaying a willingness to weaponize the federal government in ways that were as novel as they were audacious, he took on a wide variety of individuals and institutions — from law firms and universities to journalists and federal bureaucrats — that he felt had crossed him, failed to fall in line or embodied ideological values that he rejected.
But on Tuesday Mr. Trump reverted to earlier form, resurfacing — in a remarkably unfiltered and aggressive rant — his grievances against Mr. Obama, prominent figures in past administrations and others he associated with what he considers a long campaign of persecution dating back to the 2016 election.
Seeking to change the topic at a time when he is under bipartisan political pressure over his unwillingness to do more to release investigative files into Jeffrey Epstein, he said the time had come for his predecessors to face criminal charges.
“I let her off the hook, and I’m very happy I did, but it’s time to start after what they did to me,” Mr. Trump said of Hillary Clinton, adding: “Whether it’s right or wrong, it’s time to go after people. Obama’s been caught directly.”
“He’s guilty,” he added. “This was treason. This was every word you can think of.”
But if his enemies list was familiar, his capacity to pursue retribution appears to be expanding.
Note: “A version of this article appears in print on July 24, 2025, Section A, Page 17 of the New York edition with the headline: Trump’s Retribution Takes Another Turn, Targeting Obama.”
Such is the state of the current media environment and Trump’s successful efforts to “flood the zone with shit.”
And yet, the claim of “treason” is laughably false and a dangerous real weaponization of government. Here’s the AP, Gabbard’s Claims of an Anti-Trump Conspiracy are Not Supported by Declassified Documents:
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard this month declassified material she claimed proved a “treasonous conspiracy” by the Obama administration in 2016 to politicize U.S. intelligence in service of casting doubt on the legitimacy of Donald Trump’s presidential election victory.
As evidence, Gabbard cited newly declassified emails from Obama officials and a 5-year-old classified House report in hopes of undermining the intelligence community’s conclusion Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to boost Trump and denigrate his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.
Russia’s activities during the 2016 election remain some of the most examined events in recent history. The Kremlin’s campaign and the subsequent U.S. government response were the subject of at least five major investigations by the Republican-led House and Senate intelligence committee; two Justice Department special counsels; and the department’s inspector general.
Those investigations either concluded — or accepted the conclusion — that Russia embarked on a campaign to interfere in the election through the use of social media and hacked material.
The House-led probe, conducted by Trump allies, also concurred Russia ran an election interference campaign but said the purpose was to sow chaos in the U.S. rather than boost Trump. Several of the reports criticize the actions of Obama administration officials, particularly at the FBI, but don’t dispute the fundamental findings Moscow sought to interfere in the election.
The Associated Press has reviewed those reports to evaluate how Gabbard’s claims stack up…
“Kenneth Chesebro and the Ethics of Election Subversion”
Sung Hui Kim has posted this draft on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
This Article examines the role of attorney Kenneth Chesebro in orchestrating the “fake electors plot” following the 2020 U.S. presidential election. It traces Chesebro’s transformation from a Harvard-educated lawyer with Democratic ties to a key architect of Donald Trump’s post-election strategy to derail the transfer of power to Joseph Biden. Part I provides a detailed chronology of Chesebro’s activities between November 2020 and January 2021, revealing how his legal advice evolved from preserving legal rights in Wisconsin to a coordinated plan to impanel alternate electors across multiple battleground states as a pretext for the Vice President to intervene unilaterally in the Congressional certification of the national election on January 6. Part II analyzes the professional discipline case against Chesebro under Model Rule 8.4(c). It examines the principal elements of Chesebro’s strategy and argues that his conduct appears to have involved dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation, warranting professional discipline. Part III interrogates Chesebro’s moral culpability, contending that his actions represent not merely a violation of professional conduct rules but a profound betrayal of public trust and democratic principles. This Article concludes that Chesebro’s moral culpability transcends his violations of the professional conduct rules. By pursuing increasingly aggressive strategies to overturn Biden’s legitimate victory without evidence of outcome-changing fraud, by offering a would-be autocrat with a blueprint for how to subvert the collective will of the voters in contravention of the U.S. Constitution, federal and state laws, and by using his legal expertise to peddle implausible theories designed to exploit procedural leverage to advance a naked power grab, he demonstrated a mind-blowing willingness to undermine democracy itself. Chesebro betrayed the public trust in ways that existing professional conduct rules, which lack explicit duties to preserve democracy, cannot adequately capture or address.