November 17, 2025

Trump Administration

New York Times: Trump Pulls Nominee for Top I.R.S. Lawyer

By Andrew Duehren

.....President Trump withdrew his nomination of Donald L. Korb, a veteran tax attorney, to serve as the top lawyer at the Internal Revenue Service after Mr. Korb came under fire from the far-right activist Laura Loomer, deepening a leadership crisis at the tax agency…

Mr. Trump, in his social media post announcing the decision, did not provide a reason for withdrawing Mr. Korb’s nomination. In recent days, Ms. Loomer criticized Mr. Korb, arguing that he was too friendly to Democrats and would not use the power of the I.R.S. to aggressively pursue left-wing groups. After Mr. Trump pulled the nomination, Ms. Loomer, who has helped orchestrate the ouster of other Trump-appointed officials, took credit, writing “#LOOMERED” in response to a photo of the announcement on social media.

The Hill: Trump issues new pardons for Jan. 6 rioters

By Max Rego

.....President Trump over the weekend pardoned two individuals charged in connection with the investigation into the 2021 riots at the U.S. Capitol. 

The president issued pardons for Suzanne Ellen Kaye, who served an 18-month sentence for threatening to shoot FBI agents amid an investigation into her involvement in the riots, and Daniel Edwin Wilson, who remained imprisoned, despite Trump’s sweeping pardons of Jan. 6 rioters, due to an unlawful firearms possession conviction. 

Pardon Attorney Ed Martin posted photos of the pardons to the social platform X on Saturday. Martin said that he specifically advocated for Wilson to receive clemency, and that the Justice Department under former President Biden “targeted” Kaye. 

Congress

The Federalist: Grassley: DOJ Partisans Killed Probe Into Clinton, DNC Steele Dossier Cash

By M.D. Kittle

.....The same Department of Justice partisans who played key roles in the launch and cover of the FBI’s politically driven Arctic Frost investigation killed a criminal probe into the driver of the Russia collusion hoax, according to new emails released Thursday by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley.

The emails, dating back to 2019 at the height of the hoax, expose DOJ players freezing investigative efforts to look into campaign finance violations committed by Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee. As became clear over time (no thanks to the accomplice media), the failed 2016 Democrat presidential candidate’s campaign and the DNC pushed opposition research to fuel a deep state soft coup aimed at toppling President Donald Trump’s first term in office. 

Wall Street Journal (gift link): An Online Loophole That Promotes Violence

By John Curtis

.....Legislation I am introducing with Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly will bring our legal code into the 21st century. The idea behind the Algorithm Accountability Act is simple: If companies use algorithms to influence the reach of content, they should bear responsibility when those algorithms negligently cause harm. We hold automakers accountable when a design flaw causes an accident. We hold pharmaceutical companies accountable when their products cause injury. There is no reason Big Tech should be treated differently.

Some will raise the alarm that this threatens the First Amendment. It doesn’t. Free speech means you can say what you want in the digital town square. Social-media companies host that town square, but algorithms rearrange it. These algorithms decide who stands next to you, who shouts the loudest, and how often you hear the same angry echo until it drowns out everything else.

Cato: Re: The Implications of Artificial Intelligence for Democratic Governance and How to Preserve Meaningful Elections

By David Inserra

.....Chairman Kolodin, Co-Chairman Gillette, and distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the urgent need to protect our first amendment rights from erosion and the steps we can take to improve AI literacy. My name is David Inserra, and I am a Fellow for Free Expression and Technology at the Cato Institute. My research focuses on the intersection of a culture of free speech and policies that encourage the development of technology and online platforms. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to this committee and share my research and views on this important topic of AI and elections. I’m here in my capacity as a Cato scholar, and my views are my own. My testimony will discuss three key points: what AI is, how to think about the concerns about AI deepfakes, and next steps for policymakers regarding the concerns about AI and election integrity.

IRS

Washington Free Beacon: Left-Wing Dark Money Behemoth Faces IRS Complaint for Funding Democrats' Lawsuits Against Oil Companies

By Thomas Catenacci

.....A watchdog group is asking the IRS to investigate the left-wing dark money behemoth New Venture Fund (NVF) over its financial support for Sher Edling, a law firm leading several high-stakes climate change lawsuits against oil companies on behalf of dozens of Democratic states and cities nationwide. According to tax filings, in three years, the NVF has provided more than $8.4 million in grants to Sher Edling and has raised an additional $10 million that could be disbursed to the for-profit firm in the future.

In a complaint obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, the right-leaning American Accountability Foundation argued that the NVF's support for Sher Edling violates federal law since it is not an activity that furthers its tax-exempt purpose and is instead "meant to financially benefit Sher Edling and its attorneys."

The States

Washington Legal Foundation: WLF Asks Massachusetts High Court Not to Declare Publishing a Public Nuisance

.....Washington Legal Foundation (WLF) today asked the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to shut down the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’s effort to deem Instagram, one of the most popular social media platforms in the world, a “public nuisance” under that state’s laws.

The case arises from a suit by the Massachusetts attorney general against Meta and Instagram LLC seeking to deem their wildly successful product a “public nuisance” because of its high rates of use among young people. Public nuisances are usually things like polluting factories, not publishing others’ videos and stories. But the lower state court has allowed Massachusetts’s case to go forward—despite that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act provides expansive immunity from suit for social media platforms and that the First Amendment protects speech, publishing, and association.

WLF’s brief argues that both section 230 and the First Amendment point in the same direction—the attorney general’s case must be dropped. As the brief says, “What is the Instagram scroll, the push notifications, the Meta-curated feed that each Instagram user encounters when opening the app, if not the seriatim distribution of many works—a video, a post, a comment, a message—to a subscribing public? There’s an English word for that—publishing.” And publishing is what section 230 and the First Amendment both shield from causes of action like the Commonwealth’s.

Click here to read WLF’s brief.

New York Times: Texas A&M Tightens Rules on Talking About Race and Gender in Classes

By Alan Blinder

.....Texas A&M University System regents voted Thursday to limit how instructors may discuss matters like gender identity and race ideology in classrooms, tightening the rules in a conservative state where debates over academic freedom have flared for months.

Forbes: The Serious Flaw In Nevada's Anti-SLAPP Law And Its Easy Workaround

By Jay Adkisson

.....There is at least one unique feature to Nevada's Anti-SLAPP statute, which is that the court may award up to $10,000 in damages to a SLAPP victim, in addition to attorney's fees and costs. This provides a powerful deterrent to those who would bring SLAPP lawsuits.

Yet, there is a fatal flaw in Nevada's Anti-SLAPP statute that seeks to undermine the effectiveness of the statute. The flaw is that a SLAPP plaintiff can avoid the consequences of Nevada's statute by simply dismissing its complaint after the victim files his Anti-SLAPP special motion to dismiss.

By way of contrast, UPEPA § 4(a)(1) provides that upon the filing of a special motion, "all other proceedings between the moving party and responding party, including discovery and a pending hearing or motion, are stayed". This stay would operate to prevent the SLAPP plaintiff from dismissing her complaint. By contrast, Nevada law stays only discovery and thus allows a SLAPP plaintiff to dismiss her complaint after the Anti-SLAPP motion has been filed.

Truthout: Montana Has an Ambitious Plan to End Dark Money in Elections

By Sonali Kolhatkar

.....The idea is the brainchild of Tom Moore, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. Moore, who laid out his reasoning in a white paper on September 15, 2025, is arguing that states have the legal authority to define corporate charters and therefore can redefine them at any time. When I interviewed Moore for my weekly radio show, he explained: “The states’ authority is absolute in terms of how they define their corporations and which powers they decide to give their corporations.” This is considered “basic foundational corporation law,” and all states have essentially given corporations the same, extremely broad charters.

Until 2023, Moore worked as chief of staff for Commissioner Ellen Weintraub at the Federal Election Commission (FEC). During that time, he met and collaborated with Montana Commissioner of Political Practices Jeff Mangan. Moore remained friends with Mangan even after he left the FEC. “I sent [Mangan] a draft of the [white] paper,” said Moore, “and he called back that night and said, ‘We are doing this in Montana.’”

Center Square (Georgia): Committee considers way to close loopholes in election probes

By Kim Jarrett

.....The Georgia Ethics Commission levied a record-breaking on the New Georgia Project in January, but was unable to prove any individuals coordinated to skirt campaign laws, the executive director of the commission told a Senate committee on Thursday...

Committee chairman Bill Cowsert, R-Athens, said it's a loophole he wants to close.

"Whoever set this scheme up and put it in operation and pulled it off is still out there and I don't see why any of these committees out there that are registered with you or not registered are deterred from doing it," Cowsert said. "I don't want the next General Assembly to be sitting here in 2031 talking about the 2026 election that somebody stole by illegal contributions or nonreported contributions."

Emadi said the commission does not have a great mechanism to question people.

"Let's take this case," Emadi said. "If I had had the ability to question a number of people, the new Georgia project in 2019, 2020, maybe we could prove coordination. But without that you're never going to prove coordination unless you have a whistleblower or someone who has made a statement in writing that can prove it." …

The ethics commission has a list of who donated the $4.2 million to the New Georgia Project, Emadi said. The Center Square filed an open records request with the commission for a copy of the donations.

Senate Minority Leader Harold Jones II, D–Augusta, called Thursday's meeting a "state-funded witch hunt."

Detroit Free Press: Critics say proposed MDOT rules attack First Amendment rights, homeless individuals

By Darcie Moran

.....Mary Johns doesn’t want to go to jail. On the other hand, at 71, she notes, “Who cares if I have a misdemeanor?”

Johns, a grandmother and retiree from Troy, is eyeing what her future as a protester will look like — and the possible risks involved — amid new proposed rules from the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) regarding demonstrations on land it controls.

Johns has protested nearly every week for months on a pedestrian bridge over Interstate 75 in Hazel Park in the name of democracy and against the Trump administration. And she’s among numerous Michiganders raising the alarm on proposed MDOT rules they say violate First Amendment rights and target people experiencing homelessness.

But those aren’t the goal, and MDOT “is not in the business of infringing on people’s freedom of speech,” said Greg Losch, MDOT University Region engineer who also took part in developing the rules.

“We were not anticipating that interpretation being such a large concern when we started this process … and we are reviewing the language as we move forward,” he said.

Some of the rules address topics of public complaint over the years and aim to give the department options to seek enforcement when needed, said Losch.

With the public commenting period on the rule still open until Nov. 20, both the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan and a University of Michigan law professor raised concerns about the language used.

“It’s blatantly unconstitutional, and it’s not for the reason some people think it is,” said Don Herzog, who teaches law and political theory at the University of Michigan.