“Ohio Legislature Passes Bill Ensuring Biden’s Spot on the Ballot”

ballot access

NYT:

The Ohio General Assembly has passed a legislative fix that ensures President Biden will be on the state’s ballot in November, averting a crisis that had been brewing for weeks over what is typically a minor procedural issue.

The secretary of state in Ohio, a Republican, had said that he planned to exclude Mr. Biden from the ballot because the president would not be officially nominated by his party until after a state deadline for certifying presidential nominees. That had threatened the possibility that the president would not be on the ballot in all 50 states.

The General Assembly resolved the issue by passing a bill that pushes back the deadline to accommodate the date of the Democratic nominating convention. Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, is expected to sign the bill over the weekend, pending a legal review, according to a spokesman…

But the solution proposed in the Ohio Legislature was entangled in a separate partisan clash over foreign donations. The General Assembly adjourned last week without a fix in place, after the Ohio Senate, which is controlled by Republicans, advanced a bill that would have resolved the issue but included a partisan measure banning foreign money in state ballot initiatives. Democrats opposed that measure, and the speaker of the Ohio House did not take it up before the chamber adjourned.

Mr. DeWine then called a special legislative session to fix the problem, saying that legislators had failed “to take action on this urgent matter.” The General Assembly ultimately adopted two bills, one that fixed the ballot issue and another that banned donations in support of state ballot initiatives from foreign nationals, including immigrants with green cards.

Share this:

“Likely Trump Hush Money Appeal Could Center on New York Election Law Theory”

campaign finance, chicanery

National Law Journal:

Erica Hashimoto, who directs the Georgetown Law Appellate Litigation Program, said Trump’s appellate lawyers could challenge the three “unlawful means” that the jury was told to consider. These three are violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act, which limits corporations’ direct contributions to candidates; the falsification of other business records; and violation of tax laws.

The jury did not have to agree on which of the three Trump employed to convict the former president.

“And so if [Trump’s attorneys] can knock out even one of those [on appeal], then I think the whole thing has to go back for a new trial,” Hashimoto said.She added that the New York Election Law has been “very rarely used” and courts have not had many opportunities to interpret it.

“There’s not a lot of case law out there on this election interference New York state law,” Hashimoto said. “And so I think that there are legal arguments surrounding that.”…

Eric Gibson, principal and chair at Post & Schell, said the prosecution’s theory is strong on that front.

The government would likely argue on appeal that the New York Legislature intended for the law against falsifying business records to be read broadly, allowing FECA violations to be considered “another crime,” he said.

“Why would the legislature limit themselves unnecessarily?” Gibson said.

“Why would it be okay for a defendant to falsify records he’s required to maintain for his New York businesses in New York [in order] to cover up criminal activity if the crime is a federal offense?,” Gibson said. “But if the same defendant does the exact same thing to cover up a New York crime, he’s held accountable? That can’t be what they intended.”

Any appeal would almost certainly not be resolved until after the November presidential election.

Richard Schoenstein, vice chair of Tarter, Krinsky & Drogin’s litigation practice, said the prosecution’s merger of state and federal statutes to turn the misdemeanor into a felony is “the most interesting legal point.” But Schoenstein does not necessarily see success in challenging it on appeal.

“I think the odds are against getting the conviction reversed,” he said. “But there are genuine issues.”

Share this:

Randy Eliason: “I Was Skeptical of the ‘Zombie’ Trump Case. I Stand Corrected.”

Uncategorized

NYT oped:

When it came to the New York prosecution of Donald Trump, I was skeptical.

I was among the commentators who criticized the case. It was old, the so-called zombie case that had been kicking around for years. It appeared to rest on several untested and controversial legal theories. It seemed like a relatively trivial bookkeeping charge, unworthy of a prosecution of a former president.

But I have to hand it to the Manhattan prosecutors. Over the course of this trial, they convinced me — as they clearly and overwhelmingly convinced the jury. There will be an appeal, of course, and Mr. Trump may have some persuasive legal arguments.

But the jury’s quick decision reinforces the district attorney’s view that this was a righteous prosecution and about much more than mere accounting entries…

I think the prosecutors took a tough case and put on a seamless, coherent and persuasive presentation. But I also think that even the prosecutors, if they were being candid, would agree they got an assist.

The defense case, like Churchill’s infamous pudding, had no theme. The defense didn’t have to prove anything, but Mr. Trump’s lawyers failed to suggest any coherent, alternative explanation of events that might have raised a reasonable doubt in the minds of one or more jurors.

The defense might have had a shot with a targeted argument, admitting to an indiscretion with Ms. Daniels and the hush-money payment but insisting that the state had failed to prove that Mr. Trump knew his company’s internal bookkeeping documents were false or that he caused them to be made with intent to cover up another crime….

In presiding over the case, Justice Juan Merchan largely accepted the prosecution’s legal theories. Within that legal framework, the prosecutors did a great job presenting their case, just as the judge did in handling the trial. But I think some of those legal theories are potentially vulnerable.

There are questions about the proper meaning of intent to defraud under New York law, and whether that standard could be met by these internal documents. There’s a potential issue with using a federal campaign finance law as the basis for turning a state misdemeanor into a felony. This case raised these and other novel questions, and the defense will now have a chance to argue those questions before a higher court….

Share this:

“Michigan testimony points to ongoing state, federal probes into false electors”

election subversion risk

Detroit News:

 Testimony in a Michigan court Friday revealed that both state and federal investigators continue to probe certificates that falsely claimed Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election, five months ahead of the next presidential election.

On the fourth day of preliminary examinations for six Republicans whose names appeared on the false certificate in Michigan, Capt. Darren Green of the Michigan State Police, said he had been interviewed Thursday by someone from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and two U.S. prosecutors from Washington, D.C.

Green was at the Michigan Capitol when a group of false electors attempted to enter the building on Dec. 14, 2020, to present their document to the Michigan Senate. Green said the interview Thursday focused on the electors.

Just before Green’s remarks, Howard Shock, an agent of Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office, testified that he had outstanding subpoenas or search warrants for information as part of an ongoing state investigation into the false electors certificate.

“It’s still an open investigation,” Shock testified.

For the second time in two months, Shock said Trump, the former president and presumptive GOP nominee this year, was considered an unindicted co-conspirator, but as of now, there wasn’t enough evidence to recommend charges against him.

“He’s part of the investigation, but he hasn’t been charged with a crime yet,” Shock said of Trump.

Share this:

“Trump supporters try to doxx jurors and post violent threats after his conviction”

chicanery

Ryan Reilly for NBC News:

The 34 felony guilty verdicts returned Thursday against former President Donald Trump spurred a wave of violent rhetoric aimed at the prosecutors who secured his conviction, the judge who oversaw the case and the ordinary jurors who unanimously agreed there was no reasonable doubt that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee falsified business records related to hush money payments to a porn star to benefit his 2016 campaign.

Advance Democracy, a non-profit that conducts public interest research, said there has been a high volume of social media posts containing violent rhetoric targeting New York Judge Juan Merchan and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, including a post with Bragg’s purported home address. The group also found posts of the purported addresses of jurors on a fringe internet message board known for pro-Trump content and harassing and violent posts, although it is unclear if any actual jurors had been correctly identified.

The posts, which have been reviewed by NBC News, appear on many of the same websites used by Trump supporters to organize for violence ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. These forums were hotbeds of threats inspired by Trump’s lies about the 2020 election, which he lost, and that the voting system was “rigged” against him. They now feature new threats echoing Trump’s rhetoric and false claims about the hush money trial, including that the judicial system is now “rigged” against him.

“Dox the Jurors. Dox them now,” one user wrote after Trump’s conviction on a website formerly known as “The Donald,” which was popular among participants in the Capitol attack. (That post appears to have been quickly removed by moderators.)

“We need to identify each juror. Then make them miserable. Maybe even suicidal,” wrote another user on the same forum. “1,000,000 men (armed) need to go to washington and hang everyone. That’s the only solution,” wrote another user. “This s— is out of control.”

“I hope every juror is doxxed and they pay for what they have done,” another user wrote on Trump’s Truth Social platform Thursday. “May God strike them dead. We will on November 5th and they will pay!”

“War,” read a Telegram post from one chapter of the Proud Boys, the far-right group whose former chair and three other members were convicted of seditious conspiracy because of their actions at the Capitol on Jan. 6, just a few months after Trump infamously told the group to “stand back and stand by“ during a 2020 debate….

Share this:

Publisher of “2000 Mules” Film Depicting Bogus Claims of Voter Fraud by Dinesh D’Souza and True the Vote Apologizes to Voter Falsely Accused of Fraud, Won’t Distribute Film Any Longer

fraudulent fraud squad
When will people learn not to trust the fraudulent fraud squad? Via Tom Dreisbach: The publisher of @DineshDSouza's election conspiracy theory film and book "2,000 Mules" has issued an apology to a Georgia voter accused in the film of… Continue reading