“Trump’s Justice Department shutters specialized FBI team combatting foreign election interference threats”

CNN:

The FBI is preparing to disband a team of specialists charged with combatting foreign threats to US elections, a source familiar tells CNN.

The shuttering of the FBI Foreign Influence Task Force and planned reassigning of team members follows a directive from incoming US Attorney General Pam Bondi dissolving the team.

“To free resources to address more pressing priorities, and end risks of further weaponization and abuses of prosecutorial discretion, the Foreign Influence Task Force shall be disbanded,” Bondi wrote in a memo issued Wednesday.

The special task force was established by former FBI Director Christopher Wray in 2017 following a wave of foreign influence operations targeting the US electoral process, including Russia’s efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election that Trump won….

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New Attorney General Bondi, Who Was Once a Foreign Agent for Qatar, Diminishes DOJ Criminal Oversight of Foreign Agents

Bloomberg Law:

The Justice Department is scaling back enforcement of laws governing foreign lobbying transparency and bribes of foreign officials, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced.

The Criminal Division’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act unit will prioritize investigations related to foreign bribery that facilitates the criminal operations of cartels and transnational criminal organizations, such as cases that involve bribery of foreign officials to “facilitate human smuggling and the trafficking of narcotics and firearms,” Bondi said in a Wednesday memo obtained by Bloomberg Law.

The FCPA prosecutors shall “shift focus away from investigations and cases that do not have such a connection,” she added.

Separately, Foreign Agents Registration Act enforcement “shall be limited to instances of alleged conduct similar to more traditional espionage by foreign government actors.” The Counterintelligence and Export Control Section, which houses the FARA unit, will “focus on civil enforcement, regulatory initiatives, and public guidance,” the memo said.

In tandem, the narrower emphases for FCPA and FARA teams signals a dramatic retreat from two growth areas of white collar enforcement over the past ten to 15 years.

On Bondi’s past representation of Qatar, see here.

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“Johnson County Sheriff’s Office finds no evidence of voter fraud in 2020”

Fox4:

After about 880 hours of investigating and $88,000 spent, the Johnson County, Kansas Sheriff’s Office said it has turned up no evidence of voter fraud in 2020.

The sheriff’s office said in September 2021, three people reported 100 allegations of election fraud to former Johnson County Sheriff Calvin Hayden. Hayden in response launched a formal investigation that spanned three years that he oversaw and directed detectives throughout.

Hayden’s handling of the matter has received substantial backlash and national attention after he provided no legitimate pieces of evidence of any fraud or voter manipulation.

Roberson said the complains ranged from allegations of voting machines switching votes to reports of poll workers allowing individuals to vote twice, among other claims….

Roberson said only one case, an allegation of “obstructing of voting privilege” was submitted to the Johnson County District Attorney’s Office for charging consideration in November 2022. Johnson County DA Steve Howe declined to prosecute.

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Georgia: “Secretary of State asks Attorney General to drop DOJ lawsuit over controversial voting law”

WSB:

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is sending a letter to the newly sworn-in United States Attorney General Pam Bondi asking that she “reconsider and withdraw” the lawsuit the Department of Justice filed in 2021.

“When she sees our case, I believe it’s proper for her to dismiss it,” Raffensperger told Channel 2 investigative reporter Justin Gray.

Bondi was just sworn in Wednesday at the White House on the same day Raffensperger sent his letter.

The DOJ lawsuit filed under the Biden administration alleges that Georgia’s controversial election lawsuit SB 202 violates federal law under the Voting Rights Act…..

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“Justice Dept. Says It Will Not Bring Charges in Investigation of Project Veritas”

NYT:

The Justice Department said on Wednesday that it would not bring charges against anyone affiliated with the group Project Veritas over their role in trying to publish the contents of a diary that had been stolen from Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s daughter in the final weeks of the 2020 election campaign.

The prosecutors, who made their announcement in a one-paragraph letter to a judge overseeing the matter, did not say why they were declining to bring additional charges in the long running investigation. In court filings in related cases, the Justice Department had laid out evidence of the group’s involvement in the effort to acquire and publish the diary, and had fought in court for access to evidence that investigators had obtained from the group’s operatives.

The investigation had raised difficult legal questions about the extent to which the First Amendment protected the publication of stolen materials. But it was unclear whether the decision was part of a larger pattern by the Justice Department since President Trump took office to walk away from cases involving his allies. Project Veritas and its founder, James O’Keefe, have long been favorites of Mr. Trump’s and gained attention by using sting operations and undercover videos to seek to embarrass liberal groups and mainstream news organizations, among others….

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“The Liar’s Dividend: Can Politicians Claim Misinformation to Evade Accountability?”

Kaylyn Schiff, Daniel Schiff, and Natalia Bueno have written this article for APSR. Here is the abstract:

This study addresses the phenomenon of misinformation about misinformation, or politicians “crying wolf” over fake news. Strategic and false claims that stories are fake news or deepfakes may benefit politicians by helping them maintain support after a scandal. We posit that this benefit, known as the “liar’s dividend,” may be achieved through two politician strategies: by invoking informational uncertainty or by encouraging oppositional rallying of core supporters. We administer five survey experiments to over 15,000 American adults detailing hypothetical politician responses to stories describing real politician scandals. We find that claims of misinformation representing both strategies raise politician support across partisan subgroups. These strategies are effective against text-based reports of scandals, but are largely ineffective against video evidence and do not reduce general trust in media. Finally, these false claims produce greater dividends for politicians than alternative responses to scandal, such as remaining silent or apologizing.

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