This is the Daily Media Update published by the Institute for Free Speech. For press inquiries, please contact [email protected].
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In the News
By The Editorial Board
.....Here’s the big question that Mr. Bragg still hasn’t adequately answered: Where is the second crime? Recall that falsifying business records is a misdemeanor in New York. It’s a felony only if the books were cooked with “an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.” When Mr. Trump worked out this reimbursement arrangement with Mr. Cohen, what other crime was he allegedly trying to cover up?
The leading theory going into Tuesday was that Mr. Bragg would claim a violation of campaign-finance laws, and he does...
Brad Smith, a former member of the Federal Election Commission, has argued the money to Ms. Daniels didn’t constitute a campaign expenditure. “People pay hush money even if they’re not running for office. They buy clothes, get haircuts, settle lawsuits, make charitable contributions,” Mr. Smith wrote on Twitter. Political candidates also buy clothes, maybe more expensive ones than they otherwise would, but that doesn’t make it a campaign expense.
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.....Former FEC chairman Bradley Smith shares why Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg indicted former President Donald Trump when the FEC and the DOJ declined.
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.....In this episode, host Vivek Ramaswamy and guest Brad Smith, a former Federal Election Commission chairman and law professor, discuss the controversial prosecution of Donald Trump by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, diving into the legal complexities surrounding the case. They explore the payment made to Stormy Daniels during Trump's campaign and whether it constituted an unlawful campaign contribution. They also discuss the potential consequences of the indictment and the implications of campaign finance laws. Throughout the conversation, they raise concerns about the rule of law, the dangers of politicized prosecutions, and the future of political discourse.
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The Media
By Ryan King
.....Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton decried "unregulated media" in the United States on Monday and appeared to blame it for her election loss in 2016.
Clinton further warned that the prevalence of greed and lies promulgated by media and Big Tech companies undermines its democracy during a wide-ranging conversation with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) at an event hosted by Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs.
"When you have a media company that is like Facebook and like other platforms who do not care what lies they traffic in as long as they get ad money, you have consequences," Clinton said before giving some advice to other countries. "Don't go where we went, which was to largely unregulated media with no fairness doctrine, no accountability for lies — unless, of course, these lawsuits against Fox are successful." ...
Pelosi suggested that the remedy is to show the "public what is at stake" and root our "dark money" from politics. Clinton concurred and emphasized that voters must be resolute and not disillusioned. The two struck a somewhat optimistic tone that the U.S. will recover.
Clinton also elaborated on her prior warning that artificial intelligence poses a threat to democracy and pointed to a deepfake video of Pelosi in which she appeared impaired or inebriated.
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Nonprofits
By Brian Slodysko
.....Newly available tax documents show that his giving through the Berger Action Fund, which describes itself as advocating for “solutions to some of our world’s biggest problems,” swelled in 2021 to $72 million, cementing [Swiss billionaire Hansjörg] Wyss’ status as a Democratic-aligned megadonor.
Representatives for Wyss insist they comply with laws governing the giving of foreign nationals and have put in place strict policies limiting the use of donations to “issue advocacy” — not partisan electoral activities. But the fact that the money cannot be publicly traced highlights the difficulty of putting such assertions to the test...
After criticizing Republicans for using dark money, Democratic-aligned groups spent more of it in 2020.
“The whole system is currently structured on this premise that we can take these nonprofit group at their word. The reality is there is really no effective oversight to make sure money from a foreign national doesn’t wind up in electoral politics,” said Saurav Ghosh, a director of the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington-based nonpartisan watchdog group.
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Free Expression
By Ken White
.....Since absolutely nothing is happening this week, I’ve decided to write about a rather meta-topic: dumb defamation threat letters.
When we discuss threats to free speech we tend to focus on big, splashy things: laws aimed directly at weakening First Amendment protections, law enforcement policies that treat protected speech as criminal, performative censorial lawsuits, and even broad social movements that (depending on who is complaining) represent either a substantial threat to free speech or an exercise thereof.
But in my experience, there is a vast amount of “practical censorship” operating below public notice. By “practical censorship” I mean censorship that happens not by state action or court procedure, or through public pressure, but by non-public threats to invoke our thoroughly broken civil justice system through a defamation claim.
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Online Speech Platforms
By Kalyeena Makortoff
.....Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, Meta, is reportedly considering a company-wide ban on political advertising in Europe amid fears it could struggle to abide by new EU campaigning laws.
Policymakers in Brussels are proposing rules that would force online tech groups including Facebook and Google to divulge information about political adverts, including how much they cost, who paid for the content and how many people have viewed them.
Those proposals have caused concern among Meta executives, who are worried about how wide the definition of political ads might be and how hard it may be to comply with the rules, according to the Financial Times.
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The States
By Luke Wachob
.....On March 29, West Virginia completed a review of its laws when Governor Jim Justice signed S.B. 508 and S.B. 516 into law. Not to be outdone, two companion bills were introduced in the House as well, H.B. 3062 and H.B. 3063. The two Senate bills – dealing with the state’s grassroots lobbying and campaign finance laws, respectively – bring the state into compliance with AFPF and improve safeguards for donor privacy through simple clarifications and updates to existing statutes. As a result, the Mountain State is now one of the friendliest in the nation towards citizens’ right to privately support nonprofits...
States across the nation should join West Virginia in reviewing their campaign finance and grassroots lobbying statutes to ensure they are compliant with the First Amendment and the Supreme Court’s AFPF ruling.
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By Paul J. Gessing
.....In a small, but significant victory for free speech during the recent legislative session, S.B. 42, a measure that would have made New Mexico’s already hostile privacy laws for nonprofit causes even worse, was miraculously killed on the House floor. The bill had already been adopted by the Senate, so this was truly a last-ditch effort.
Current laws relating to forcing nonprofits to disclose their donors are already being challenged by the Rio Grande Foundation in court. That original law (adopted in 2019) dramatically expanded New Mexico’s campaign finance laws to cover nonprofit groups that merely mention lawmakers in their communications near an election. As a result, many organizations that have long had a voice in state policy debates would have been forced to publicly expose their supporters’ names and home addresses to the harsh light of public scrutiny.
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By Trey Radel
.....Furious Florida Republican lawmakers are on the offense against the mainstream media and are seeking to pass a bill that will make it easier for individuals to sue for defamation.
Unfortunately, right-leaning media — including conservative talk shows hosts and a growing number of media outlets based here in Florida, like Newsmax — may bear the brunt of the new law.
The bill, known as HB 991, claims to be aimed at holding leftist media outlets accountable for their lies about Republican politicians.
But the law doesn’t carve out conservatives and Republicans from being the targets of lawsuits, nor should it.
As a former Republican member of Congress, who has had more than my fair share of false stories printed about me, I empathize with the frustration of many conservatives.
However, legislation motivated by anger is rarely a good idea.
The legislation may be well intended, but it isn’t well thought out.
Not only does it pose a threat to free speech in general, it’s also conservative media and talk show hosts who will be the main targets.
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Read an article you think we would be interested in? Send it to Tiffany Donnelly at [email protected]. For email filters, the subject of this email will always begin with "Institute for Free Speech Media Update."
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