“Judge: Voter Fraud Panel Emails About Potential Members Can Be Withheld, For Now”

TPM:

A federal judge is letting the Trump administration continue to withhold certain emails related to the Trump voter fraud commission while the government appeals her order that the emails be produced for a Democrat who was on the commission.


The emails have to do with discussions the commission’s vice chair Kris Kobach had with fellow members Hans von Spakovsky and J. Christian Adams about other potential candidates for the now-disbanded panel.
A previously released email revealed that von Spakovsky and Adams had reached out to allies of then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions in February 2017, as the commission was being assembled, to complain about the plan to put Democrats and “mainstream Republicans” on the panel. The email was quickly passed along to Sessions.


According to the opinion issued Friday by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, an author of one of the emails being withheld shared “concerns about pending appointments.” She revealed that the individuals on the email chain were discussing a “batch of Democratic candidates” for the commission, from which only Alan King, a probate judge in Alabama, was appointed.

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