The Latest News from the Institute for Free Speech December 20, 2022 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]. Ed. note: The Daily Media Update will return Monday, Jan. 2. Happy holidays! Congress New York Times: Release of Trump Tax Returns Could Herald New Era for Taxpayer Privacy By Alan Rappeport .....The formal release of Mr. Trump’s tax records would represent both a significant act of transparency and what some fear is the end of an era of taxpayer privacy. It would also raise questions about whether, in this case, Democrats on the House committee created a pretext for using their power as a political weapon against an opponent… “Ways and Means Democrats are unleashing a dangerous new political weapon that reaches far beyond President Trump and jeopardizes the privacy of every American,” Representative Kevin Brady of Texas, the top Republican on the Ways and Means Committee, said in a statement. “Going forward, partisans in Congress have nearly unlimited power to target political enemies by obtaining and making public their private tax returns to embarrass and destroy them.” He added: “This is not limited to public officials, but can target private citizens, business and labor leaders and Supreme Court justices.” Wall Street Journal: The Jan. 6 Inquiry’s Not-So-Grand Finale By The Editorial Board .....Also, what about the First Amendment? The 2020 election wasn’t stolen, but Mr. Trump has a right to argue it was, even if he knows he’s misleading his followers. Politicians dissemble all the time. The Justice Department’s job isn’t to police partisan deceit as criminal conspiracy. Jonathan Turley: Censor or Else: Democratic Members Warn Facebook Not to “Backslide” on Censorship .....In a chilling letter from Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), André Carson (D-Ind.), Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Facebook was given a not-so-subtle threat that reducing its infamous censorship system will invite congressional action. The letter to Meta’s president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, is written on congressional stationery “as part of our ongoing oversight efforts.” FEC Fox News: Twitter Files: RNC demands FEC reopen investigation into censorship of Hunter Biden stories By Brooke Singman .....The Republican National Committee is demanding the Federal Election Commission reopen an investigation into Twitter’s censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story after the release of internal records by the social media giant known as the "Twitter Files." … "These revelations, commonly referred to as the ‘Twitter Files,’ expose how previous senior management took active measures to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop scandal and other information harmful to the Democratic Party and its candidate," RNC chief counsel Matthew Raymer wrote in a letter to the FEC, obtained exclusively by Fox News Digital. Politico (Influence): What’s on the FEC’s holiday wish list By Caitlin Oprysko .....Federal campaign finance watchdogs are already looking ahead to next year, and on Friday the FEC sent its legislative recommendations up to the Hill after approving them unanimously a day earlier. Among the commission’s highest priorities for next year are making permanent its ability to assess administrative fines for reporting violations and unlinking key FEC positions from federal pay scales in order to increase their salaries. But the commission is also pressing Congress for a legislative fix to a glaring federal campaign finance loophole uncovered last year that allows foreign nationals to fund state and local ballot initiatives and recall elections even as foreigners are barred from giving money in connection with elections at the state, local and federal levels. The FEC asked lawmakers to amend federal campaign finance law to clarify that such contributions are illegal in addition to banning individuals from “knowingly helping or assisting” a foreign national to violate the prohibition. In the next-highest tier of priorities, the FEC once again implored Congress to do something about the proliferation of so-called scam PACs... The commissioners listed more than a half-dozen other legislative priorities for the coming Congress including clamping down on PACs’ use of pre-checked boxes to dupe sometimes unwitting donors into signing up for recurring contributions and then making it difficult to cancel those charges. Online Speech Platforms The Free Press: The Twitter Files and the Future of the Democratic Party With Silicon Valley's Congressman By Bari Weiss .....Maybe most unusual of all, Khanna’s policies on Big Tech are not exactly the ones you’d imagine coming from the congressman whose neighbors are the creators of the next Googles and Facebooks. Not only does he think Big Tech needs to be broken up, he was also one of the only Democrats to diverge from his party’s censorious impulses when he reached out directly to Twitter in October 2020 to criticize its decision to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story in the runup to the election, as we reported in the Twitter Files story. In an era where the Democratic Party and Big Tech often seem to march in lockstep, Khanna says: Maybe we should be skeptical of this kind of corporate power. And, by the way, isn’t that the core of what the Democratic Party is supposed to be about? And if not, when did that change and why? We talk about all of that and more in today’s episode of Honestly. I highly recommend listening to the entire conversation, but below, edited for length and clarity, are some of the key points. The States Casper Star-Tribune: Lawmakers will again look at election reform, regulation this year By Maya Shimizu Harris .....In September, Campbell County Clerk Susan Saunders filed a complaint against Coal Country Conservatives Political Action Committee over concerns that the PAC was not being transparent about how it was spending its money. She asked the secretary of state and the Federal Election Commission to investigate the matter. The Secretary of State’s office ended up dismissing Saunders’ complaint. But the alarm bell she raised revealed a pretty big loophole in Wyoming statute. That loophole allows federal PACs like Coal Country Conservatives to skirt around state reporting requirements, since they are required to comply with federal reporting requirements instead. But this particular PAC was not just involved in Wyoming’s U.S. House race; it also supported candidates in numerous other races from the statewide to the precinct level. (Many of the candidates that the PAC supported ended up winning their elections.) By the time this came to the corporation committee’s attention, it was too late for the committee itself to sponsor a bill to close that reporting requirement loophole. Chairman of the Senate corporations committee Cale Case, R-Lander, is carrying Senate File 40 instead, along with co-sponsors Sen. Tara Nethercott, R-Cheyenne, Sen. Brian Boner, R-Douglas and Rep. Dan Zwonitzer, R-Cheyenne. The bill would specify that federal PACs are only exempt from the state’s election reporting requirements if they are exclusively making contributions or expenditures for federal candidates or federal issues. Read an article you think we would be interested in? Send it to Tiffany Donnelly at [email protected]. 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