The Latest News from the Institute for Free Speech April 7, 2023 Click here to subscribe to the Daily Media Update. This is the Daily Media Update published by the Institute for Free Speech. For press inquiries, please contact [email protected]. In the News New York Times: What You Need to Know About the Trump Charges By David French .....Second, the relevant federal election law is unsettled, and Cohen’s guilty plea does not provide prosecutors with a true legal precedent to claim that the matter is decided. In 2018 a former member of the Federal Election Commission, Bradley A. Smith (a Republican), made the compelling argument, in a National Review article titled “Michael Cohen Pled Guilty to Something That Is Not a Crime,” that the Supreme Court would not be sympathetic to the claim that a hush-money payment was a campaign contribution for purposes of federal criminal law. “When faced with the vague, sweepingly broad ‘for the purpose of influencing any election’ language,” Smith argued, “the Supreme Court has consistently restricted its reach to brightly defined rules.” I disagreed with Smith at the time, arguing that the relevant law did encompass Cohen’s crimes, but I freely acknowledge that there is no binding legal precedent that supported either Smith’s or my arguments. Smith could well be right, and I could well be wrong. Our arguments depended more on legal predictions than controlling precedent. Indeed, the uncertain scope of the underlying federal election law claims is one factor that renders Bragg’s theory of the case largely untested. The Courts Reuters: Ex-DOJ lawyer tells jury he met with Chinese to further illegal lobbying campaign By Sarah N. Lynch .....A former U.S. Department of Justice attorney told a jury on Thursday that he simultaneously worked on behalf of hip-hop artist Pras Michel, as part of an illegal foreign influence campaign to persuade the Trump administration to return a dissident to China. George Higginbotham testified that he made money on the side while working at the Justice Department by offering legal advice to Michel, a long-time friend... Higginbotham is the latest witness to testify for the government in the criminal trial against Michel, who is accused of accepting millions of dollars to carry out three different illegal lobbying campaigns on Low's behalf. Other witnesses so far have included actor Leonardo DiCaprio and former Republican National Committee official Elliott Broidy. Washington Post: Protesters fight to sue the government over Lafayette Square attack By Ellie Silverman .....Attorneys representing racial justice protesters who were attacked by military and law enforcement personnel in Lafayette Square during demonstrations over the police killing of George Floyd in 2020 argued in court Tuesday that they should be able to sue federal officials to hold authorities accountable. Congress Wall Street Journal: The TikTok Bill Is a Sneak Attack on Free Speech By Philip Hamburger .....The TikTok bill moving through Congress is a strange double-edged sword—a blunt tool against foreign data collection and a sharp weapon against domestic dissent. Platforms such as TikTok corrupt youth and collect data for the Chinese government. But the bill—styled the Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology Act, or Restrict—would give the U.S. government sweeping power over communications. The bill could and would be used domestically to stifle constitutionally protected speech. Free Expression Wall Street Journal: DEI Meets East Germany: U.S. Universities Urge Students to Report One Another for ‘Bias’ By Iván Marinovic and John Ellis .....Anonymous informers have always been a hallmark of totalitarian regimes. Friends, neighbors and even family members are encouraged to inform on those who speak against the regime. This is effective social control: Nowhere is safe to discuss politics, and everyday life is subdued. To this day, when Cubans want to discuss something sensitive, they go into their bathrooms, let the water flow and whisper. Who would want to live under such conditions? Apparently, America’s colleges and universities do. They have been setting up their own systems of anonymous informers. The States Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): Connecticut S. Ct. Sharply Limits State's "Racial Ridicule" Law By Eugene Volokh .....Connecticut General Statutes § 53-37 provides: "Any person who, by his advertisement, "ridicules or holds up to contempt any person or class of persons, "on account of the creed, religion, color, denomination, nationality or race of such person or class of persons, "shall be fined not more than fifty dollars or imprisoned not more than thirty days or both." Yet despite its text, Connecticut prosecutors haven't been enforcing the law as limited to "advertisement[s]." The two most-publicized recent incidents (see the UConn case and the Fairfield Warde High School case), for instance, involve nothing that could be labeled an advertisement. And in many recent incidents prosecutors and police seemed to be mostly enforcing the statute to prosecute or arrest people for race- or religion-based "fighting words"… I'm glad to say that, in yesterday's Cerame v. Lamont, the Connecticut Supreme Court indeed read the statute narrowly, concluding that "the legislature intended to restrict the meaning of 'advertisement' to commercial speech." 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." The Institute for Free Speech is a nonpartisan, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that promotes and defends the First Amendment rights to freely speak, assemble, publish, and petition the government. Please support the Institute's mission by clicking here. For further information, visit www.ifs.org. Follow the Institute for Free Speech ‌ ‌ ‌ The Institute for Free Speech | 1150 Connecticut Ave., NW, Suite 801, Washington, DC 20036 Unsubscribe [email protected] Update Profile | Constant Contact Data Notice Sent by [email protected]