The two men rang the bell at the Resource Center Matamoros, a migrant aid group in the Mexican border city, and, speaking in broken Spanish, said they were looking for volunteer work.
Security footage shared with The New York Times shows the pair standing on the sidewalk in shorts and flip flops as they talked via speakerphone with Gaby Zavala, the center’s founder. After about half an hour, they left.
Ms. Zavala didn’t know it yet, but the men were not volunteers. They were provocateurs building an online following with hidden camera exposés and ambushes that claim to uncover abuse and election fraud in the American immigration system.
Ms. Zavala realized something was off a few hours later, when the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, uploaded images of a flier with her group’s logo to social media, thrusting her organization into the center of a political firestorm.
The flier, written in Spanish and purportedly found hanging in portable toilets in the migrant camp across the street from the center, carried an explosive message to would-be immigrants: “reminder to vote for president Biden when you are in the united states. We need four more years of his administration in order to remain open.”
For many on the right, it was a smoking gun, confirming debunked theories about the left’s schemes to urge immigrants to vote illegally for Democrats. The post, uploaded on April 15, quickly racked up more than nine million views on X and was shared by multiple elected officials, including Tim Scott, the Republican senator from South Carolina and former presidential candidate.
The next morning, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, held up an oversized printout of the flier in a House Committee on Homeland Security hearing. “I would call it treason,” Ms. Greene said to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who was sitting before the committee.
Ms. Zavala calls the document a crude fake, and part of a plot to propel false, anti-immigration narratives in an election year. The phone number listed on the flier is out of date, she noted. Some of the language is lifted directly from her group’s English language website, but appears to be translated by software.
But perhaps the strongest evidence, she said, was the presence of Anthony and Joshua Rubin, brothers from Long Island known online as the Muckrakers, at the building earlier that same day, trying to gain access under false pretenses.
Mr. Secretary, the oversight project released a bombshell report last night on your connection to the dark money NGO industrial complex of illegal immigration. I know you saw this from one of my colleagues just earlier. They found flyers throughout the Resource Center Matamoros refugee camp in Mexico telling illegal aliens, “Reminder to vote for President Biden when you are in the United States. We need another four years of his term to stay open.” Eyewitnesses saw the flyers also being handed out to migrants who were using R.C.M. for assistance in coming to the United States. This is corruption at the deepest level. As a matter of fact, I would call it treason.
“I would never encourage immigrants to vote, because they can’t,” said Ms. Zavala, 41, who started the organization in 2019 and manages it from Texas. No one contacted her to verify the document before it was posted, she said, and she has since received some 50 death threats and racist emails. “I feel violated.”
In an interview with The Times, Anthony Rubin acknowledged that he and his brother falsely identified themselves as volunteers that day. But he said they did not plant the flier. Mike Howell, executive director of the Oversight Project, an arm of the Heritage Foundation that first posted the document on X, said he stood behind their claims.
“Nothing that we put online has been proven in the least bit inaccurate,” he said.
The Oversight Project is something of a departure for the once-wonkish think tank. The project’s website describes its mission as “innovative investigations utilizing cutting-edge resources and contacts” in order to drive “accountability of the destructive work of the radical, progressive Left.” Mr. Howell, who calls himself a “deportation scientist” on X, said his group had worked closely with the Rubin brothers before….
Monthly Archives: April 2024
Breaking: Three Judge Court, Breaking Along Party Lines, Says Louisiana Impermissibly Created a Second Black Congressional District, Orders Hearing on Remedy
Faced with a likely successful lawsuit by minority plaintiffs under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the Louisiana legislature drew a second black majority congressional district. After the districts were drawn, those who did not like Louisiana having a second black majority district challenged it as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander under the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. Such a claim requires proof that race was the predominant factor in drawing district lines and that doing so was not required by a compelling state interest.
The majority opinion, by two Trump appointees, found that race predominated and that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act did not justify drawing the district. A Bill Clinon appointee dissented, holding that race was not the predominant factor and in any case drawing the second district was required by Section 2 of the VRA.
There will now be a hearing on the remedy. Once that remedy is approved by a court majority, there will be the question whether, under the Purcell Principle, it is too late to see the use of these new districts in the 2024 elections.
Expect this to end up at the Supreme Court on the shadow docket.
In election contest, Missouri Supreme Court throws out enacted state constitutional amendment on police funding for faulty ballot summary
The opinion has some really interesting ballot initiative issues, including the timing of election contests, and pre-election v. post-election challenges, with some dissents largely on procedural issues. From Lucas v. Ashcroft (lightly revised):
Continue reading In election contest, Missouri Supreme Court throws out enacted state constitutional amendment on police funding for faulty ballot summaryThird Circuit, Over the Dissent of Four Judges, Won’t Take Up En Banc the Case Holding That It Doesn’t Violate the Materiality Provision of the Civil Rights Act to Not Count Timely But Undated Absentee Ballots in Pennsylvania (Corrected title)
May 7 CAP Online Event on Citizens United Includes Sheldon Whitehouse, Shana Broussard, Jamie Raskin, Sarah Haan and Tom Moore
“Meta Faces E.U. Investigation Over Election Disinformation”
Meta, the American tech giant, is being investigated by European Union regulators for the spread of disinformation on its platforms Facebook and Instagram, poor oversight of deceptive advertisements and potential failure to protect the integrity of elections.
On Tuesday, European Union officials said Meta does not appear to have sufficient safeguards in place to combat misleading advertisements, deepfakes and other deceptive information that is being maliciously spread online to amplify political divisions and influence elections.
The announcement appears intended to pressure Meta to do more ahead of elections across all 27 E.U. countries this summer to elect new members of the European Parliament. The vote, taking place from June 6-9, is being closely watched for signs of foreign interference, particularly from Russia, which has sought to weaken European support for the war in Ukraine.
The Meta investigation shows how European regulators are taking a more aggressive approach to regulate online content than authorities in the United States, where free speech and other legal protections limit the role the government can play in policing online discourse. A new E.U. law, called the Digital Services Act, took effect last year and gives regulators broad authority to rein in Meta and other large online platforms over the content shared through their services.
Trump in TIME Interview: “I Think a Lot of People Like” Talk of Dictatorship
Toward the end of our conversation at Mar-a-Lago, I ask Trump to explain another troubling comment he made: that he wants to be dictator for a day. It came during a Fox News town hall with Sean Hannity, who gave Trump an opportunity to allay concerns that he would abuse power in office or seek retribution against political opponents. Trump said he would not be a dictator—“except for day one,” he added. “I want to close the border, and I want to drill, drill, drill.”
Trump says that the remark “was said in fun, in jest, sarcastically.” He compares it to an infamous moment from the 2016 campaign, when he encouraged the Russians to hack and leak Hillary Clinton’s emails. In Trump’s mind, the media sensationalized those remarks too. But the Russians weren’t joking: among many other efforts to influence the core exercise of American democracy that year, they hacked the Democratic National Committee’s servers and disseminated its emails through WikiLeaks.
Whether or not he was kidding about bringing a tyrannical end to our 248-year experiment in democracy, I ask him, Don’t you see why many Americans see such talk of dictatorship as contrary to our most cherished principles? Trump says no. Quite the opposite, he insists. “I think a lot of people like it.”
“Why an Immunity Ruling in Trump’s Favor Might Not Alter the Shape of His Trial”
Charlie Savage in the NYT:
If the Supreme Court rules that Donald J. Trump is immune from being charged with crimes over official actions he took as president, it would be a momentous decision for the future of executive power and American-style democracy.
But it is far from certain that such a ruling would derail the election subversion case against him. In fact, there is a scenario in which the court could render such a ruling without altering the charges or the array of evidence that the special counsel, Jack Smith, wants to present to a jury.
Mr. Trump faces four criminal counts over his efforts to overturn his loss of the 2020 election, but none are exclusively centered on conduct Mr. Trump undertook in his capacity as president. Rather, the indictment tells a story that mixes both official acts with private ones, meaning actions Mr. Trump took in his role as a candidate for office. It then declares that each charge arises from the entire picture.
Among the accusations: Mr. Trump spread false claims of voter fraud, plotted to recruit false slates of electors from swing states, pressured Vice President Mike Pence to use their existence to block Congress’s certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s Electoral College victory, and urged lawmakers to use the attack on the Capitol by his supporters to delay any vote.
As of yet, no court has decided which of Mr. Trump’s actions are considered official presidential conduct, versus private, unofficial campaign activity. But during oral arguments before the Supreme Court on Thursday, Justice Amy Coney Barrett floated the possibility that Mr. Smith could “just proceed based on the private conduct and drop the official conduct.”
Crucially, however, a lawyer for Mr. Smith, Michael R. Dreeben, said that even if the court ruled out basing charges on Mr. Trump’s official actions, prosecutors believed that they could still lawfully present evidence about the official conduct as relevant context that would help jurors understand Mr. Trump’s private acts.
“There’s really an integrated conspiracy here that had different components,” Mr. Dreeben said. Mr. Trump, he added, used his official powers to try to ensure his private efforts to overturn the election were more likely to succeed, and the jury will need to see the entire picture to understand the sequence, why each step occurred and the gravity of the conduct.
Mr. Dreeben added that the facts of Mr. Trump’s official acts are relevant for interpreting his “knowledge and intent” about his private conduct.
A lawyer for Mr. Trump, D. John Sauer, urged the court to adopt a very different remedy. Not only should it find that Mr. Trump had immunity for his official actions, he said, but it should omit them from the case. Still, he acknowledged that Mr. Trump could be charged over private actions while he was president.
“The official stuff has to be expunged completely from the indictment before the case can go forward,” Mr. Sauer maintained.
“How do you fix Congress?” (The missing answer.)
Twelve departing members of Congress offer their thoughts in a N.Y. Times opinion video. The responses focused on attempting to fix the culture of Congress–how members from opposite parties used to get along but now don’t. To the extent, they mentioned structural or institutional changes, these too were devoted to improving congressional culture–like the idea that orientation for new members be bipartisan. None mentioned the possibility of changing the way members of Congress are elected, not even a mention of the need to curtail aggressive partisan gerrymandering, or making districts more competitive so that there aren’t so many safe seats. Perhaps it’s not surprising that elected officeholders would not think to change the means by which they themselves were elected, but now that they are exiting the institution, perhaps they can give more thought to that component of the problem–as all of us who care about the future of American democracy should. As I wrote in my recent Virtues and Institutions essay, we must pursue electoral reforms that are centripetal in nature, to counteract the current extent of partisan polarization. If members of Congress were elected by means of voting procedures that were more centripetal than those currently in place, it would be much, much easier to foster the kind of consensus-seeking congressional culture that these exiting members of Congress so regret is lacking.
Louisiana Wants Entire 5th Circuit to Hear Its Appeal (Bypassing a 5th Circuit Panel) Arguing that Private Plaintiffs Don’t Have the Right to Sue Under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act
Federal courts toss challenges by state legislators in Pennsylvania, Michigan over lack of standing
The most recent edition of our federal courts casebook (with co-authors Arthur Hellman, David Stras, Ryan Scott, and Andy Hessick), I took some time reshape some of the focus of the chapter on “standing” to expound upon some increasing recurring themes. One of those themes was legislator and legislative standing. Legislators generally lack standing in federal court beyond what ordinary citizens or voters have, except in some rare (and perhaps isolated and unique) cases. In the elections context, these claims keep returning, with fairly predictable results.
In Keefer v. Biden (Pennsylvania) and Lindsey v. Whitmer (Michigan), federal courts in recent weeks have tossed challenges filed by state legislators under the Elections Clause. Both cases argued that some non-institutional legislature action, such as executive action (from President Biden) or ballot initiative (in Michigan), ran afoul of the Elections Clause. Both were thrown out for lack of standing. Despite the fact that the legislators wanted to challenge the action, their real concern was that the institutional legislature had been harmed.
Elections Clause challenges do not always fail for procedural reasons in federal court–see the recent New Jersey litigation citing Cook v. Gralike. But to the extent they attempt to assert something resembling the kinds of claims in Moore v. Harper, the paths forward remain quite limited.
But the cases are a constant reminder of the terrific number of election litigation challenges we continue to see, and how many fail to get to the merits for issues at the outset of the litigation.
“Michigan AG executes search warrants on Google and X in ongoing 2020 fake electors probe”
Marshall Cohen for CNN:
Google and X, formerly Twitter, recently provided hundreds of files to Michigan prosecutors for their 2020 election subversion probe, complying with search warrants that investigators obtained after CNN revealed secret social media accounts belonging to pro-Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro, who played a major role in the fake electors plot.
The previously unreported warrants gave prosecutors access to new Chesebro emails and his private direct messages on Twitter. The warrants make clear that Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is still gathering new information in her probe, nine months after she charged the state’s fake electors with forgery and other crimes for signing certificates falsely claiming Donald Trump won the state in 2020.
A top member of her team testified last week that the investigation is ongoing and that Trump is an unindicted co-conspirator in the case, which is not expected to go to trial before the November election.
Michigan is among a number of states to investigate fake electors schemes. Just last week, Arizona prosecutors filed criminal charges against the pro-Trump electors there and allies of the former president who were involved in the efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
According to the new documents provided to Michigan prosecutors, which were obtained by CNN, Chesebro fruitlessly tried to bring several controversial pro-Trump figures to Washington, DC, to watch his “fake electors” strategy unfold on January 6, 2021.
He offered to pay for airfare and lodging at Trump’s upscale DC hotel for former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, as well as for the founder of the Gateway Pundit conspiracy website, among others. It doesn’t appear that anyone accepted his offers.
These messages also show how Chesebro aggressively reached out to conservative pundits and right-wing figures after Trump lost the 2020 election, prodding them to publicly promote his long-shot theories for how to subvert the Electoral College process….
“Surprise Tactics and Legal Threats: Inside R.F.K. Jr.’s Ballot Access Fight”
As Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent presidential campaign mounts a bruising state-by-state battle for ballot access, he has often credited enthusiastic volunteers and grass-roots backers with driving the effort.
In fact, the operation has become increasingly reliant on consultants and paid petitioners whose signature-gathering work has yielded mixed results and raised questions of impropriety, even among Mr. Kennedy’s fans. In order to get Mr. Kennedy on the ballot in all 50 states, as is his goal, his campaign has deployed a multipart strategy: aggressive legal action, shrewd political alliances and surprise filing tactics meant to slow or prevent challenges.
In most states, Mr. Kennedy, 70, an environmental lawyer and heir to an American political dynasty, must produce thousands of signatures, under rules that are varied, intricate and confusing at times even to the local officials administering elections. The effort has already cost his campaign hundreds of thousands of dollars, and a supporting super PAC at least $2.4 million more, federal campaign finance records show. It has involved a number of professionals who specialize in getting people on the ground with clipboards and petitions, and helping candidates navigate the complicated process. Their success is what will make or break Mr. Kennedy’s campaign.
“Wisconsin Republicans recruiting legion of monitors to observe polls, set stage for lawsuits”
The Republican National Committee and Trump campaign plan to deploy tens of thousands of volunteers and attorneys to monitor and challenge voting processes in battleground states, including Wisconsin — an effort rooted in the former president’s false election claims, characterized as safeguarding from “Democrat tricks from 2020.”
GOP officials say they plan to recruit 100,000 people nationwide to observe election processes and voting, an expansion of typical activities for political parties in election years. The party’s rhetoric surrounding the plans, however, describes the program as a solution to former President Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss that has been confirmed in Wisconsin by judges, recounts, studies and audits.
“The Democrat tricks from 2020 won’t work this time. In 2024 we’re going to beat the Democrats at their own game and the RNC legal team will be working tirelessly to ensure that elections officials follow the rules in administering elections. We will aggressively take them to court if they don’t follow rules or try to change them at the last minute,” Charlie Spies, RNC chief counsel, said in a statement….
In a recent training session conducted by state GOP officials, the party’s election integrity director Mike Hoffman said a focus would be placed on Democratic population centers like Eau Claire, Madison and Milwaukee, and recounted telling one clerk the party would be “keeping a close eye on you,” according to the New York Times.
A spokesman for the Republican Party of Wisconsin did not answer questions about whether the party’s monitoring efforts would extend to non-Democratic-leaning areas.
Clerks in Madison and Dane County, where Trump sought to throw out tens of thousands of ballots in 2020, said they have not been contacted about the party’s effort to monitor election processes.
Claire Woodall, executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission, said she hosted Hoffman and GOP attorneys for a 90-minute tour of the city’s absentee ballot tabulation center, known as Central Count, on the night before the April presidential primary election….
“We are always happy to answer questions about process, procedure, and ensure open lines of communication between our office and both major political parties,” Woodall said. “As you know, we strictly follow state statute and there were no sudden changes or deviations from the rules in 2020. We were taken to court in 2020 multiple times, including by President Trump, and have always prevailed. I am confident our administration will continue to withstand scrutiny.