April 23, 2024

In the News

Politico: Prosecutors say Trump’s hush money was ‘election interference.’ Will jurors — and voters — believe it?

By Josh Gerstein

.....Former Federal Election Commissioner Bradley Smith said he sees numerous similarities between the prosecution against Trump and that against Edwards. “There are a lot of parallels,” said Smith, now a law professor at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio.

One key ambiguity in both cases is how the law treats payments of a personal nature that are likely to benefit a campaign. The FEC generally bars the use of campaign funds for such expenses and said they are not required to be reported on campaign finance reports. However, federal prosecutors have argued that they must be reported and that the FEC’s views on the issue aren’t legally relevant in a criminal case. Bragg’s team is expected to endorse that stance.

“There are a lot of things subjectively that a candidate might want to do that don’t count as a campaign expenditure,” said Smith, who is a Republican.

“You can’t go out and buy a new wardrobe. You can’t go have plastic surgery or teeth whitening or anything like that” and charge it to your campaign, he said. “If a candidate decides to pay a lawyer to spend some money to seal his divorce records, because he doesn’t want them being exposed when he’s running, that’s a personal expense.”

Supreme Court

FIRE: Journalist jailed for asking police a question seeks Supreme Court review

.....A journalist was thrown in a Texas jail for doing her job. Years later and still seeking justice, she is taking her case to the Supreme Court with the help of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.

Reuters: US Supreme Court rejects free speech case over attorney bias rule

By David Thomas

.....The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal from a Pennsylvania lawyer who challenged an anti-harassment and anti-discrimination professional rule for lawyers in the state.

Zachary Greenberg, an attorney with the non-profit Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, sought to revive his lawsuit opposing the rule, which prohibited lawyers from knowingly engaging "in conduct constituting harassment or discrimination" based on race, sex, religion and other grounds.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in August said Greenberg lacked standing to sue because he had not shown that the rule threatened his constitutional free speech rights.

The state bar rule covered "only knowing or intentional harassment or discrimination against a person" and did not apply to Greenberg, the 3rd Circuit held.

Greenberg said he risked violating the rule because of presentations he gives about offensive and derogatory language. But the 3rd Circuit panel said the rule "does not arguably prohibit anything Greenberg plans to do."

The Courts

New York Times: I Thought the Bragg Case Against Trump Was a Legal Embarrassment. Now I Think It’s a Historic Mistake.

By Jed Handelsman Shugerman

.....First, I could find no previous case of any state prosecutor relying on the Federal Election Campaign Act either as a direct crime or a predicate crime. Whether state prosecutors have avoided doing so as a matter of law, norms or lack of expertise, this novel attempt is a sign of overreach.

FEC

Campaign Legal Center: Campaign Legal Center Files FEC Complaints Alleging Scam PACs Defrauded Thousands of Donors

.....Today, Campaign Legal Center (CLC) filed two complaints with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), alleging that “Patriots for American Leadership” and “Campaign for a Conservative Majority” fraudulently misrepresented that they were raising money for or on behalf of former President Trump’s reelection campaign. By using Trump’s voice on their fundraising robocalls and falsely claiming to support Trump’s reelection efforts, these “scam PACs” defrauded thousands of donors — many of whom were small donors giving less than $200. In reality, little to none of the money these PACs raised was used to engage in electoral advocacy — i.e., expenditures in support of, or contributions to, federal candidates or committees.

Free Expression

Washington Post: PEN America cancels awards ceremony after controversy over Gaza

By Sophia Nguyen

.....After weeks of controversy over its response to the war in Gaza, the free speech nonprofit PEN America has decided to cancel its annual literary awards ceremony, which had been set to take place next week in New York. Nearly half the nominees had withdrawn from consideration, with some accusing the organization of not more firmly denouncing Israel’s actions.

“We refuse to gild the reputation of an organization that runs interference for an administration aiding and abetting genocide with our tax dollars,” a group of the nominees wrote Wednesday in a letter addressed to PEN America’s executive board and trustees. “And we refuse to take part in anything that will serve to overshadow PEN’s complicity in normalizing genocide.”

Candidates and Campaigns

Washington Examiner: How Tammy Baldwin profits from the DC lobbyist ‘revolving door’ she often slams

By Gabe Kaminsky

.....To Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), who is running for reelection in the swing state of Wisconsin in 2024, the “revolving door” between government and K Street is “spinning out of control as billionaires and special interests rig the system.”

Baldwin, the Badger State’s junior senator since 2013, says the constant flow of taxpayer-backed staffers to private industry, and vice-versa, poses conflicts of interest and results in working families getting left behind. The revolving door, she previously argued in an op-ed with Hillary Clinton in HuffPost, prompts the public to “start worrying that the foxes are guarding the hen house.”

But the Wisconsin Democrat’s criticism of the revolving door could place her in a tough spot this election cycle. Baldwin has accepted thousands of dollars in campaign donations from lobbyists at influential firms who earned their stripes as aides in her Capitol Hill office over the last two decades, according to a Washington Examiner review of Federal Election Commission filings.

Online Speech Platforms

Washington Post: Google fires more workers after CEO says workplace isn’t for politics

By Gerrit De Vynck and Caroline O'Donovan

.....Google fired about 20 more workers it said participated in protests denouncing the company’s cloud computing deal with the Israeli government, bringing the total number of workers fired in the past week over the issue to more than 50, according to the activist group representing the workers.

A spokesperson for Google confirmed it had fired more workers after continuing its investigation into the April 16 protests, which included sit-ins at Google’s offices in New York City and Sunnyvale, Calif.

The firings come several days after chief executive Sundar Pichai told employees in a companywide memo that they should not use the company as a “personal platform” or “fight over disruptive issues or debate politics.”

Fox News: Facebook has ‘interfered’ with US elections 39 times since 2008: study

By Brian Flood

.....Facebook has "interfered" with elections in the United States at least 39 times since 2008, according to a study by the Media Research Center.

Last month, MRC Free Speech America researchers found that Google "interfered" with elections in the United States 41 times over the last 16 years. 

The States

Providence Journal: RI lawmakers move to ban political 'deepfakes' ahead of elections. What that means.

By Katherine Gregg

.....With the advent of artificial intelligence (AI), that question – is it real or is it fake – has leapt from the advertising sphere to the campaign sphere with a potential so frightening to some Rhode Island legislators that they have introduced a bill to ban what they call "deceptive and fraudulent synthetic media" in the 90-day run-up to any election.

Modeled after a state of Washington version, their bill is up for a committee vote on Tuesday on its way to a full House debate.

The legislation [H7487] defines "synthetic media” as "an image, an audio recording, or a video recording of an individual’s appearance, speech, or conduct that has been intentionally manipulated ... [with] digital technology to create a realistic but false image, audio, or video" that is false.

The legislation would not only ban "deepfakes," it would give a candidate who felt wronged the right to seek an injunction and damages in court. The exception to the ban: if the spot contains a clearly written or spoken disclosure that the image "has been manipulated or generated by artificial intelligence."

Washington Post: California wants Big Tech to pay for news. Google is fighting back.

By Gerrit De Vynck and Laura Wagner

.....California politicians are advancing a bill that would force Google and Meta — which owns Facebook and Instagram — to pay news publishers each time they display pieces of their articles or show links to them in search results or on social media. The companies are lobbying furiously to block it, saying the law would enact a “link tax” and upend the free flow of information online.

Now, Google is taking its resistance a step further, by completely blocking news links for California-based news organizations from showing up in search results for some Californians. Google won’t say how many people it is blocking news for, but called the move a “short-term test” in a blog post announcing it earlier this month.

Politicians and news publishers have shot back. “This is a dangerous threat by Google” that is “clearly an abuse of power and demonstrates extraordinary hubris,” said Mike McGuire, a Democratic state senator in California who is sponsoring the bill.