Fundraising
Axios: Scoop: Trump campaign boosted by unsuspecting state GOPs
By Lachlan Markay
Federal regulators are probing financial reporting discrepancies stemming from an effort to funnel $75 million through state Republican parties to the national GOP effort to reelect Donald Trump, Axios has learned.
In comments to Axios and filings with the Federal Election Commission, some state party officials seemed unaware of their roles…
It’s not clear mechanically how such large transfers could have taken place without explicit buy-in from state parties ostensibly responsible for them…
After locking up the 2016 Republican nomination, Trump set up Trump Victory, a joint fundraising committee designed to raise funds for his campaign, the RNC and 11 state Republican parties.
- Joint fundraising committees like Trump Victory can “stack” contribution limits for each campaign or party organ for which they raise money.
- For example, if a JFC benefits three campaigns, an individual donor can give three times the maximum contribution it could provide to a single candidate. The JFC then distributes the money evenly to its three beneficiaries.
- By the 2020 election, Trump Victory had 48 beneficiaries: the RNC, the Trump campaign and 46 state parties. The annual contribution limit to the group was a whopping $817,800, or the combined total of allowable donations to each of those 48 entities.
- State parties can donate unlimited sums to the national party. By routing all of their Trump Victory receipts back to the RNC, the latter could keep far more of the JFC haul than contribution limits would normally allow.
Critics have used terms like “laundering” to describe the tactic. But the FEC has never agreed to pursue an investigation of the practice, even when Trump Victory itself faced similar questions after the 2016 election.
Politico: Hawley hauls in $3M after attempt to block election results
By Alex Isenstadt
Sen. Josh Hawley raised more than $3 million during the first three months of the year, underscoring how the Missouri Republican converted his high-profile opposition to the certification of the 2020 election into big fundraising support…
Hawley received more than 57,000 donations during the first quarter, according to a person familiar with the totals. He managed to raise nearly $600,000 during the 2 1/2 weeks following the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, despite temporarily halting his fundraising outreach.
It represents a massive increase for Hawley. By comparison, he raised just $43,000 during the first quarter of the last election cycle, immediately after taking office.
The senator is not up for reelection until 2024, and his totals are unusual for a senator who is not in-cycle. Three other prominent GOP senators — Marco Rubio of Florida, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Tim Scott of South Carolina — each raised less than one-tenth of Hawley’s haul in the first three months of 2019, the comparable time period leading up to their 2022 reelections.
Washington Post: More than 100 corporate executives hold call to discuss halting donations and investments to fight controversial voting bills
By Todd C. Frankel
More than 100 chief executives and corporate leaders gathered online Saturday to discuss taking new action to combat the controversial state voting bills being considered across the country, including the one recently signed into law in Georgia.
Executives from major airlines, retailers and manufacturers — plus at least one NFL owner — talked about potential ways to show they opposed the legislation, including by halting donations to politicians who support the bills and even delaying investments in states that pass the restrictive measures, according to four people who were on the call, including one of the organizers, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a Yale management professor…
Mike Ward, cofounder of the Civic Alliance, a nonpartisan group of businesses focused on voter engagement, said he felt there was a broad consensus at the end of the call that company leaders plan to continue working against voting bills they think are restrictive — “to lean into this, not lean away from this.”
The Media
National Review: 60 Minutes Shows Absolutely No Remorse for Its Corrupt DeSantis Smear
By Charles C. W. Cooke
Having lied so brazenly about the nature of Florida’s COVID-vaccine rollout that even the state’s Democrats felt compelled to speak up in outrage, CBS has taken a week to consider its behavior and decided that it did nothing wrong…
Acknowledging the incident at the end of last night’s 60 Minutes, host Sharyn Alfonsi steered clear of such prosaic questions as whether what she had said was true or false, and chose instead to deploy an impressively pusillanimous version of the “we started a conversation” defense. “Some viewers,” Alfonsi explained, “including a retired newsman, applauded the story” she had told. Others, she said, “condemned it.” And then, without further ado, ran the titles…
Despite its implications to the contrary, CBS was not admonished last week because it said something controversial, it was not admonished because it stood up to power, and it was not admonished because it waded into the middle of a thorny partisan debate. It was admonished because it knowingly broadcast the lie that Governor DeSantis had used Publix to help distribute COVID-19 vaccines because of a wheel-greasing campaign donation, and because it had deliberately omitted an interview clip in which DeSantis not only explained why Publix played the role that it did, but made clear that stores other than Publix got the vaccine first.
Independent Groups
Politico: Weekly Score: Where the battle for the House stands
By Ally Mutnick and Zach Montellaro
A second group has also waded into the [April 24 special runoff in LA-02]: A super PAC called American Jobs and Growth PAC, which has reported spending against [state Sen. Karen Carter Peterson, a Democrat, who is running against state Sen. Troy Carter, also a Democrat.] The group reported receiving $50,000 from a nonprofit called “American Advancement” in its pre-runoff FEC report. (The filing deadline is today.) Curiously, this group has largely supported Republicans in the past, spending to boost Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and now-Rep. Stephanie Bice (R-Okla.), and attacking Reps. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) and Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) in 2020.
Online Speech Platforms
Common Sense with Bari Weiss: What Should Be Done to Curb Big Tech?
By Bari Weiss
One part of me says: Government should stay the hell away from private companies. Another part of me, maybe the more passionate part, argues back: Yeah, but Google seems much more like a public road than a private club.
The case for the former — government, stay out — has been made powerfully by former Michigan congressman Justin Amash and the libertarians of Reason Magazine. Their argument is the classic one: the solution for bad speech is more speech, not censorship or regulation…
But others, most notably NYU law professor Richard Epstein, have made a strong case for the latter. Epstein has argued that these internet behemoths need to be understood as public utilities or common carriers. Just as a railroad can’t refuse to transport a person because they believe the Earth is flat, or a phone company can’t drop a call if the person is talking about Pizzagate, neither should online monopolies have the power to do so.
It’s a provocative and compelling argument that turns, of course, on whether these companies are, in fact, monopolistic. Those making it would point to some basic numbers. Among them: When Google’s Search engine accounts for 90% of market share can anyone convincingly argue that DuckDuckGo is a real competitor? If Amazon, which has an 80% market share in digital books, blocks the sale of your ebook, do you really have a plausible alternative method of distribution?
The Epstein argument seems to have gotten a powerful boost earlier this week from Justice Clarence Thomas.
The Guardian: Revealed: the Facebook loophole that lets world leaders deceive and harass their citizens
By Julia Carrie Wong
Facebook has repeatedly allowed world leaders and politicians to use its platform to deceive the public or harass opponents despite being alerted to evidence of the wrongdoing.
The Guardian has seen extensive internal documentation showing how Facebook handled more than 30 cases across 25 countries of politically manipulative behavior that was proactively detected by company staff.
The investigation shows how Facebook has allowed major abuses of its platform in poor, small and non-western countries in order to prioritize addressing abuses that attract media attention or affect the US and other wealthy countries. The company acted quickly to address political manipulation affecting countries such as the US, Taiwan, South Korea and Poland, while moving slowly or not at all on cases in Afghanistan, Iraq, Mongolia, Mexico, and much of Latin America.
By Connor Perrett
Scott Jensen, a Republican running for governor of Minnesota, was banned by TikTok for spreading COVID-19 misinformation against its guidelines, the company said…
Jensen, who served one-term as state senator, said in the video he’d been using TikTok for less than a month and had gained 286,000 followers. His videos had been liked 1.2 million times and they were getting around 100,00 views every day, he said.
A TikTok spokesperson confirmed to Axios that Jensen had been removed for violating guidelines related to spreading misinformation about COVID-19. The company spokesperson did not say which videos violated the policy, according to the report.
The States
Arkansas Times: Bill to combat social media ‘cancel culture’ fails in committee
By Lindsey Millar
A bill that would empower the Arkansas attorney general’s office to intervene on behalf of Arkansas residents when social media companies block or ban them failed in House committee this morning. House Bill 1647, titled “To promote Arkansas voices; and to combat cancel culture and protect freedom of speech,” was ruled passed after a voice vote by Chair Rep. Mark Lowery (R-Maumelle), but on a roll call, it only managed 10 votes, one shy of passage.
The bill would have allowed the attorney general’s office to intervene on behalf of residents if a social media company blocked or banned a user for something not prohibited under the company’s terms of services, if the company was selectively applying its terms or if the company took action that was “dubious” or “pretextual.”
