Congress
Wall Street Journal: Prosecutors Are Asked Why Trump Wasn’t Indicted for Campaign Violations
By Rebecca Ballhaus
The House Oversight Committee chairman asked Manhattan federal prosecutors whether a Justice Department policy barring charges against a sitting president played any role in their decision not to indict President Trump for campaign-finance violations in which he was implicated.
In a letter Friday to Audrey Strauss, the deputy U.S. Attorney in Manhattan, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D., Md.) asked whether prosecutors had identified evidence of criminal conduct by Mr. Trump and whether the Justice Department policy had “played any role in your office’s decision not to indict President Trump for these hush money crimes.” …
Mr. Cummings also requested the evidence Manhattan federal prosecutors gathered during their campaign-finance investigation, as well as information about whether Attorney General William Barr or other Justice Department officials had influenced the U.S. attorney’s office’s decisions during the probe.
The Justice Department rarely provides to Congress information about sources, sensitive investigations and methods…
Mr. Cummings said in his letter Friday that his committee, which was already investigating the hush-money payments Mr. Cohen arranged, had expanded its probe to include examining the Justice Department’s role in the Manhattan investigation and whether any of the agency’s decisions were “influenced by politics, Department policy or Department leadership in any way.”
The Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office hasn’t said whether it ever considered charging Mr. Trump.
Washington Post: Two senators want antifa activists to be labeled ‘domestic terrorists.’ Here’s what that means.
By Marisa Iati
Two Republican senators have introduced a nonbinding resolution that would label antifascists – known as antifa – as “domestic terrorists,” …
Hina Shamsi, director of the national security project at the American Civil Liberties Union, told The Washington Post that she opposes labeling groups as domestic terrorists.
“It is dangerous and overly broad to use labels that are disconnected [from] actual individual conduct,” she said. “And as we’ve seen how ‘terrorism’ has been used already in this country, any such scheme raises significant due process, equal protection and First Amendment constitutional concerns.”
The resolution, which also is sponsored by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), would not change U.S. law…
On Wednesday, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) sent a letter to Attorney General William P. Barr, asking him to designate antifa activists as domestic terrorists…
Although often referenced as a monolith, “antifa” is not one organization, but a loosely linked collection of groups, networks and individual people who support aggressive opposition to activists on the far right. And this is why the senators’ resolution and other efforts to label antifa activists as terrorists raises concerns…
Designating a group as a domestic terrorist organization expands law enforcement’s ability to investigate it. The label also means that police can not only investigate a specific suspect, but also look into groups that person affiliates with, Neal Katyal, a Georgetown University law professor and former national security adviser, told NPR…
The lack of a central governing system for antifa creates the risk of wrongly applying the label to all counterprotesters of white supremacists, according to the Anti-Defamation League, an organization that opposes anti-Semitism. This kind of mislabeling, the ADL said, could cause police to violate the civil rights of peaceful activists.
Politico: Democrats weigh vengeance on Republicans over judges
By Marianne Levine and Burgess Everett
Even as Trump captured the nation’s attention last week with his attacks on four Democratic congresswomen, the Senate quietly confirmed its record-setting 43rd circuit judge. Incredibly, there are now only four Circuit Court vacancies and Republicans are shifting to filling the lower, 111 District Court vacancies.
The aggressive push has left Democrats smarting and powerless until they can grab back power. They concede that there’s not much they can do right now to stop Republicans from putting their stamp on the federal judiciary.
But the party is tossing out ideas both within the Senate and on the 2020 trail for how to reverse Trump’s influence on the courts, ranging from changes to the Supreme Court to pledging to only nominate judges who would uphold the landmark abortion ruling Roe v. Wade to pressing conservative groups like the Judicial Crisis Network to reveal their donors.
FEC
Center for Responsive Politics: Republican FEC commissioners let Clinton campaign off the hook for super PAC coordination
By Karl Evers-Hillstrom
Just one month before the 2016 presidential election, Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint with the FEC alleging that the Clinton campaign illegally coordinated with Correct the Record, a hybrid PAC run by Media Matters for America founder David Brock.
The group, which Brock himself described in a podcast as a “surrogate arm of the Clinton campaign,” spent millions to “correct” criticism of Clinton on social media and in the news media. The group worked closely with the Clinton campaign on opposition research, fundraising, polling, canvassing, press outreach and messaging…
Campaign Legal Center argued that Correct the Record’s numerous coordinated efforts to help the Clinton campaign were valuable enough to constitute illegal in-kind contributions from an outside group. Correct the Record argued it could legally coordinate with the Clinton campaign as it posted its communications online – attempting to use an FEC exception that allows for individuals and blogs to post political content on the Internet.
FEC attorneys sided with Campaign Legal Center. Noting that the super PAC didn’t limit its efforts to posting content online, they recommended the commission hold both the Clinton campaign and Correct the Record in violation of campaign finance law over unreported, excessive in-kind contributions.
While the two Democratic-aligned commissioners voted to affirm the recommendation, Republican commissioners Caroline Hunter and Matthew Peterson voted against it, effectively blocking the FEC from taking enforcement action, according to filings released on the agency’s website late last week.
Online Speech Platforms
Reason: Dennis Prager, Who Boasts 1 Billion Video Views a Year, Decries YouTube ‘Censorship’
By Billy Binion
Dennis Prager, the right-leaning radio host and pundit who runs the widely successful nonprofit PragerU, testified Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution. His subject was Google’s alleged censorship of conservatives…
YouTube-Google’s video-sharing subsidiary-houses PragerU free of charge. The nonprofit has more than 2.2 million subscribers there, and its YouTube videos receive over a billion views a year, according to Prager, who concurrently says the tech giant is censoring him.
To back that up, he cites YouTube’s decision to restrict approximately 20 percent of his online 5-minute video shorts on the grounds that they contain mature content-thus hiding those videos from the approximately 1.5 percent of users who elect for restricted control.
Google records show that the Huffington Post, Vox, Buzzfeed, NowThis, and The Daily Show all have much larger swaths of content restricted under YouTube’s policy. Seventy-one percent of videos from The Young Turks-a leftist channel-are blocked, dwarfing PragerU’s share: [Twitter thread by Robert Winterton of NetChoice] …
[Francesca Tripodi, a sociologist at James Madison University,] adeptly unmasked the root of the problem among right-leaning lawmakers. “Privately-held corporations, like Facebook, Google, and Twitter, are not the new public square. They are sophisticated advertising firms designed to profit from the data we provide to them,” she testified.
“Simply put, if content is readily available, it is not being suppressed,” Tripodi continued. “What conservatives who are arguing censorship are frustrated with is not the constitutional right to free speech, but is actually a grievance against a free market economy.”
DOJ
Just Security: After Publishing Strong Evidence of Trump’s Campaign Finance Crimes, DOJ Closes Case Without Explanation
By Paul Seamus Ryan
As we long suspected, Trump was in regular communication with Cohen while Cohen was arranging an illegal “hush payment” to Stormy Daniels in October 2016-strong evidence that Trump committed campaign finance crimes on his way to winning the White House.
And we now know that Hope Hicks, then serving as press secretary for the 2016 Trump campaign, was likewise in regular contact with Cohen at the time of the Daniels “hush payment,” which implicates her in campaign finance crimes…
My involvement in this case goes back to early 2018, when I filed complaints on behalf of nonpartisan watchdog Common Cause with the DOJ and the Federal Election Commission (FEC) alleging that Trump, the Trump Campaign, Cohen and American Media Inc. (AMI) had violated federal campaign finance laws via “hush payments” to Daniels and Karen McDougal in the run-up to the 2016 presidential general election. Specifically, we alleged that Trump, Cohen and other Trump campaign officials broke federal law by orchestrating these payments for the purpose of influencing the 2016 election, failing to comply with federal campaign contribution limits and disclosure requirements…
Every American should have an opportunity to scrutinize the complete body of evidence of Trump’s campaign finance crimes, not just these search warrant applications. Anything less would amount to a DOJ cover-up. If the DOJ won’t willingly disclose evidence gathered in the now-closed investigation, Congress should compel it by subpoena. And, in the event Trump is no longer president in 2021, the five-year statute of limitations on his 2016 crimes leaves a bit of time for renewed investigation and possible criminal prosecution.
Fundraising
Politico: Dem front-runners cash in on slippery definition of lobbying
By Theodoric Meyer
The slippery definition of lobbying means that barring lobbyists from contributing isn’t an especially effective way for campaigns to keep K Street at bay.
“It’s arbitrary at best,” said Lee Drutman, a senior fellow at the think tank New America who studies lobbying.
Paul Miller, president of the National Institute for Lobbying and Ethics, a trade group for lobbyists, called such restrictions a “gimmick” and warned they might lead fewer people to register as lobbyists.
“It’s hypocrisy all across the board,” Miller said…
Most candidates have also agreed not to take checks from executives in the fossil-fuel industry. When Bernie Sanders pledged on Wednesday to refuse contributions from pharmaceutical and health insurance executives and lobbyists, Warren’s campaign quickly said it would abide by the restriction as well…
Contributions from lobbyists, corporate PACs and executives in the pharmaceutical, health insurance and fossil-fuel industries make up a small fraction of the money most Democratic presidential campaigns raise, making it easier for candidates to disavow them.
But banning lobbyist contributions doesn’t prevent others who work to influence policy from writing campaign checks…
Not every candidate has sworn off lobbyists’ cash.
Sanders won’t take money from “corporate lobbyists” but hasn’t disavowed all lobbyist contributions, according to a campaign spokeswoman. And many lower-polling candidates, such as John Hickenlooper, Tim Ryan and Jay Inslee, accept lobbyists’ money.
Center for Responsive Politics: Trump allies and ‘the Squad’ have something in common: Small donor support
By Karl Evers-Hillstrom
When it comes to campaign fundraising, big names draw small donors.
Of the 10 House members receiving the highest percentage of campaign funds from donors giving less than $200, seven of them are Republicans who often come to the defense of President Donald Trump. Two are members of “the Squad,” the foursome of freshmen Democratic women who Trump recently tweeted should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”
Trump brings in tens of millions from small donors every quarter from his massive list of online supporters, often labeling Democrats as socialists in his Facebook ads and email-based fundraising appeals. Small donors are crucial toward building a sustainable campaign that won’t run dry when big-dollar donors and PACs find themselves blocked by contribution limits.
Trump’s top allies in Congress are following suit by building their own small donor armies, leveraging their connection with the president and numerous television appearances while repeating some of the same talking points repeatedly aired by Trump and Republican party committees.
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), who emerged as one of Trump’s top allies in Congress in 2017 as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has cemented himself as a top-tier fundraiser by bringing in more than $1 million from small donors – 56 percent of his total haul – from April through June…
The only Democrat to hit the $1 million small donor mark, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has also used her national profile to become a top tier fundraiser. She raised a stunning 83 percent of her $1.2 million haul from small donors over the latest three-month period.
Ocasio-Cortez benefits from a massive online following – and the freshman congresswoman plays to her strengths when raising money. She spent nearly $380,000 on Facebook ads over the last 90 days, a number that looks more like that of a presidential contender than a member of Congress with no leadership positions.
New York Post: De Blasio used state account he controls as campaign slush fund
By Nolan Hicks
Strapped for cash, Mayor Bill de Blasio turned to a state political account he controls to buy plane tickets, pay rent and purchase digital advertisements for his nascent presidential campaign – potentially violating campaign finance regulations, campaign finance experts told The Post.
De Blasio’s presidential campaign disclosed it owes his NY Fairness PAC $52,852 – a tally that includes purchases made after Hizzoner officially announced his run, his staff confirmed.
The only problem: Federal law bars state groups – like de Blasio’s – from contributing more than $2,800 in cash, loans or purchases to a federal campaign during the primary election…
However, the campaign booked the PAC’s spending as a debt, not as a contribution – a legal maneuver that stunned lawyers, campaign finance experts and political consultants.
“It appears de Blasio’s state PAC spending is in excess of federal limits,” said Tyler Cole, a top lawyer at Issue One, a Washington, DC, watchdog group that focuses on campaign finance reform. “Federal candidates must run their campaigns out of federally regulated committees – the law is only meaningful if they abide by the federal limits.”
He added: “You can’t allow candidates to use state committees to do an end-run around the law.”
The maneuver of listing state PAC expenditures as a campaign debt for a federal campaign instead of a donation stunned one Democratic strategist.
The donation limit end-run was “among the most creative ways to circumvent election laws that I’ve ever seen,” the source said.
“If it’s not a violation of the letter of the law, it’s certainly a violation of the spirit of the law,” the person added.
The States
Reason: New Chick-fil-A Law Reveals Texas Politicians’ Hypocrisy on Corporate Speech
By Zuri Davis
The San Antonio city council voted in March to block the addition of a Chick-fil-A at the San Antonio International Airport…
The state recently responded with a “Save Chick-fil-A” bill, or Senate Bill 1978, which prevents the government from taking “adverse actions” against a company or individual for exercising religious freedom. After signing the bill, Abbott tweeted: “No business should be discriminated against simply because its owners donate to a church, the Salvation Army, or other religious organization. Texas protects religious liberty.”
Abbott felt rather differently about Texas’ 2017 law aimed at the Boycott, Divestments, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. That bill barred state agencies from contracting with companies that boycott Israel. At the time, Abbott said, “Anti-Israel policies are anti-Texas policies, and we will not tolerate such actions against an important ally.”
There is, to be clear, an important distinction between the two laws. Texas would not be constitutionally allowed to refuse to contract with a business that simply donated to BDS groups or was led by an owner who criticized Israel. But Texas’ anti-BDS law targets actions directly carried out by the company itself, not donations or private speech…
While the state of Texas is right to recognize speech and donations as forms of free expression, direct actions can be expressive too. And I wonder how many people’s positions on these laws would change if the underlying political causes were different…
This is the sort of thing that happens when governments wander into these waters. It’s not long before taxpayers find their dollars are supporting a cause with which they fundamentally disagree.
Oregonian: Oregon’s corporate-dominated campaign finance system gets Congress’ attention
By Rob Davis
Congress is talking about the influence of campaign money on environmental policy in Oregon, based on The Oregonian/OregonLive’s reporting.
U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., asked Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler about it Wednesday during a hearing of the Senate Democrats’ Special Committee on the Climate Crisis…
Whitehouse asked Wheeler, who was testifying with other mayors: “How active do you think the fossil fuel industry still is in trying to interfere with climate progress politically?”
“They will act in their self-interest because it’s what they do,” Wheeler responded. And then the mayor pivoted back to Oregon’s unusual campaign finance system.
“Unfortunately,” Wheeler said, Oregon has long been lacking in campaign contribution limits, leaving the state the “Wild, Wild West” for campaign money.
The Oregonian/OregonLive’s series Polluted by Money, published in February and March, explored the connections between Oregon’s outsize campaign donations and the state’s failure to enact a wide array of environmental protections…
Wheeler praised the Legislature for approving Senate Joint Resolution 18, which asks voters to change the state constitution and explicitly allow campaign finance limits. A vote will come in November 2020.
Wheeler said the campaign finance measure “will address some of the most egregious aspects of the lack of campaign finance legislation in our state.”
