RSN: FOCUS: Trump Is Brazenly Interfering With the 2020 Election

23 May 20

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23 May 20

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FOCUS: Trump Is Brazenly Interfering With the 2020 Election

David A. Graham, The Atlantic
Graham writes: "Imagine that the White House chief of staff wrote a secret memo, at the behest of the president of the United States, to the Treasury secretary and the director of the Office of Management and Budget."

EXCERPTS:

The president appears to be gambling that openly tweeting his threats will let him get away with them.

 In the carefully hidden memo, the chief of staff directs the two to secretly and illegally cut off all federal funding to two key swing states, both led by Democratic governors, with the goal of rigging turnout in favor of the president’s party in the 2020 election.

Now imagine that the memo leaked to The Wall Street Journal, which splashed the story across its front page. The other major papers would quickly follow. Cable news would cover it wall to wall. There would be congressional investigations.

Now imagine that instead of conducting all this skulduggery in private, the president just openly tweeted it out. Actually, you don’t have to imagine it. You can just surf over to Donald Trump’s Twitter feed this morning:

Breaking: Michigan sends absentee ballots to 7.7 million people ahead of Primaries and the General Election. This was done illegally and without authorization by a rogue Secretary of State. I will ask to hold up funding to Michigan if they want to go down this Voter Fraud path!..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 20, 2020

Here we have two cases of Trump tweeting threats to states that have sought to expand access to voting by mail as a response to the pandemic sweeping the nation, which has already killed nearly 100,000 Americans (you know, the one Trump has repeatedly declared victory over). And for good measure, he’s tagged Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, OMB Director Russ Vought, and the Treasury Department.

This is one of the many things that makes Trump’s Twitter feed such a bizarre phenomenon. If he did this privately, it would—rightly—be a massive scandal. Yet when he does it as part of a few dozen wildly varied tweets over the course of a morning, it’s written off as just another wacky missive from the wacky president. Becoming numb to Trump’s tweets is easy, as I’ve written of myself, but these show just how dangerous that is.

It’s a crime to try to withhold funds appropriated by Congress in order to interfere with voting. The effort to expand access to mail-in voting is an obviously reasonable response that’s designed to prevent the spread of COVID-19 while also allowing the most people to exercise their right to vote. Ideally, this wouldn’t be a partisan matter. Yet Trump is threatening to withhold federal funds from these states because he contends that sending out absentee-ballot applications will benefit Democrats.

One oddity of this tantrum is that there’s no evidence that voting by mail actually helps Democrats, nor is there evidence that it is a major risk for fraud. What Trump is really thinking is hard to know. He has continued to espouse blatantly false claims about voter fraud in 2016, and he may believe them, or perhaps he has simply calculated that higher turnout in 2020 could doom his reelection chances. Trump has left the burden for most of the pandemic response to the states; only when the fallout threatens him politically does he start to throw his weight around. (As Michigan’s secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, noted in reply, Republican officials in several more decidedly red states have taken similar actions, without being threatened.)

In short, Trump is trying to use the force and funds of the federal government to enhance his reelection chances—and if that sounds familiar, it’s because he was impeached in December for doing much the same. In that case, he tried to strong-arm Ukraine behind closed doors to investigate the Biden family; today, it’s just another tossed-off tweet.

These particular messages are part of a new genre Trump seems to be trying out: the tattletale tweet, in which he tags in some other authority and demands that they take action. He recently tagged Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai in complaints about NBC’s Chuck Todd, seeming to call for the FCC to “fire” Todd, a power it does not have. More successfully, he demanded that Senator Lindsey Graham investigate the so-called Obamagate scandal, and while Graham has demurred (so far) on calling Barack Obama to testify, he quickly hopped to and said he would hold hearings, subpoenaing a raft of other officials.

These messages are a little strange on their face, since Trump could easily call Vought or Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and order him to withhold funds to Michigan or Nevada; he could call Pai or Graham privately too. But they would probably tell him that his requests are illegal, and he’d be deprived of a chance to grandstand. Since everyone knows that the president is more interested in performance than execution, and that he often loses interest before following through on things he talks about—remember when he asserted absolute authority over states just a month ago?—he derives some sort of perverse plausible deniability. But dismissing this as another idle Trump threat or musing lets him off too easy and enables his lawlessness.

First, even if Trump doesn’t follow through on his threats against Michigan and Nevada, he could deter other states from following their lead. Any governor or secretary of state who wants to ensure that voters can get ballots in November will have to weigh whether taking action might imperil federal funding to their state. Sure, any embargo would probably be illegal, but states would have to go to court and might see an interruption of funds at a time when they can least afford it. Even if they don’t, do these officials want to risk the ire of the president and his loyal hordes? Michigan has already canceled a legislative session over violent threats by protesters encouraged by Trump.

Second, even if Trump writes off his threats as bluster—he often claims that his gaffes were really “sarcasm” or jokes, most recently and implausibly when he suggested using disinfectants or UV light inside the body to kill the coronavirus—legions of executive-branch employees are ready to interpret his whims and try to act on them. Like an earlier ill-tempered, ginger-haired nepotistic ruler, Trump need only ask offhand for appointees to rid him of a turbulent state.

As my colleague Jeffrey Goldberg has noted, Trump runs the executive branch with a Mafia mentality, and is careful to never be too explicit, even when his intentions are clear. Consider again the impeachment. Ambassador Gordon Sondland clearly understood Trump to demand that Ukraine announce an investigation into the Bidens as part of a quid pro quo, but Trump countered that he never told Sondland it was a “quid pro quo.” Trump’s treatment of officials in the aftermath of his impeachment also demonstrated to appointees that those who follow the law but buck Trump’s whims are vulnerable to public attack and ouster, while those who break the law but indulge the president will be rewarded and protected.

This morning’s tweets are, it is true, just more wild rambling from the president. That doesn’t mean they can’t also be a grave threat to the integrity of the 2020 election.

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Tribe argues land case in U.S. District Court

Tribe argues land case in U.S. District Court

By Jessica Hill

Posted May20, 2020

A U.S. District judge said Wednesday he could rule in a week to 10 days on the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe’s latest attempt to salvage a $1 billion casino deal with the city of Taunton.

Judge Paul Friedman heard the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe v. Zinke case via teleconference, in which the plaintiff and defendant gave arguments centering on whether the tribe’s land should be removed from trust status, based on whether the tribe was under federal jurisdiction prior to the establishment of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934.

The tribe, the Department of the Interior and the Littlefields, along with other Taunton neighbors, have been the key players in this yearslong battle over whether the government had the authority to take the land into trust in the first place.

The plaintiff argued that Interior Secretary David Bernhardt’s order in March to remove the tribe’s land from trust was arbitrary and capricious because he had rejected evidence that other tribes have used to obtain trust land in the past. The defense said the Interior Department’s 2018 decision was thoroughly evaluated and consistent with prior decisions.

The tribe had plans to build a $1 billion casino in Taunton that would bring economic aid to the tribe and the city of Taunton through an intergovernmental agreement. Neighbors of the proposed casino were opposed, however, and filed a lawsuit, arguing that the Interior Department had no authority to take the tribe’s land into trust.

In 2015, the Interior Department took 321 acres in Mashpee and Taunton into trust for the tribe, but under a new administration reversed itself in 2018. The tribe had appealed a district court judge’s ruling in favor of the reversal and lost, and in a separate action it challenged the Interior Department’s reversal.

In late March, the Interior Department informed the tribe it would remove its land from trust status. The tribe asked for the federal court to issue an emergency order that would postpone Bernhardt’s decision. The tribe and the Department of the Interior agreed to a 45-day pause period.

Wednesday’s hearing could determine the future of the tribe’s lands as well as its financial future. Depending on what the judge decides, the Interior Department might have to take a second look at the tribe’s qualification for land-in-trust status. A ruling in favor of the defendant might mean the tribe would lose some of its land or the tax relief that comes with it.

The plaintiff argued that several pieces of evidence show the tribe was clearly under federal authority before 1934, while the defense argued that those pieces of evidence are not explicit or show only state jurisdiction.

The tribe’s lawyer, Tami Lyn Azorsky of Dentons LLP, offered examples such as old census reports to show the tribe was under federal jurisdiction. One element of her argument concerned a federal school in Pennsylvania attended by children of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe.

From 1879 to 1918, the United States Carlisle Indian Industrial School operated a boarding school that hosted Native American children from around the country, with the goal of assimilating Native Americans into mainstream American culture.

Azorsky said the school took responsibility for every asset of the children’s lives, including medical decisions, without parents’ consent. Because the school was run by the federal government, and members of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe attended, this demonstrates the exercise of federal authority, Azorsky argued.

The defendant argued that this evidence was not affirmative of federal jurisdiction. It showed, at most, that the tribe was “under Congress’s linear authority” and was not sufficient, said Sara Costello, federal attorney for the defense.

Azorsky also brought up reports in which the federal government considered taking an action regarding the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and then ultimately decided against it. Because no action was taken, the Interior Department dismissed those reports as evidence.

Azorsky emphasized that action does not determine jurisdiction. She said acknowledgment of responsibility is the standard.

“Isn’t a decision not to do something just as much an action as a decision to do something?” Judge Friedman asked the defense.

“The decision to do nothing does not show that the tribe is under federal jurisdiction,” Costello said.

The plaintiff argued the Bernhardt’s order to remove the tribe’s land from trust was arbitrary and capricious because he had rejected evidence that other tribes have used to obtain trust land in the past. The defense said the Interior Department’s 2018 decision was thoroughly evaluated and consistent with prior decisions.

“The Interior Department thoroughly discussed each piece of evidence and thoroughly explained why it chose to do what it did,” Costello said. “The Interior applied the correct standard for determining the federal jurisdiction, set forth in the M-Opinion.”

The “M-Opinion” is a legal opinion the Department of the Interior had been using to determine whether a tribe was under federal jurisdiction at the time of the Indian Reorganization Act. In March, Deputy Solicitor for Indian Affairs Daniel H. Jorjani withdrew the opinion, concluding in a March 5 document that the interpretation of the first definition of “Indian” is not consistent with the “ordinary meaning, statutory context, legislative history, or contemporary administrative understanding” of the phrase ’recognized Indian tribe now under federal jurisdiction.”

Jorjani had issued another memorandum that provided a four-step procedure for determining tribal eligibility that would be “more consistent with how Congress and the Department would have understood them” in 1934.

Judge Friedman criticized that change, calling the March 5 document a “joke” and “incomprehensible.”

If the current matter is remanded, Costello said, the tribe’s case will be a pending application, and so the new guidance would apply, Costello said.

“Basically you’re saying, ‘Heads I win, tails you lose,’” Friedman said. “If I remanded to Interior, you want to apply a new guidance to them which makes it harder for them to succeed.”

The new guidelines would not make it harder for the tribe to succeed in keeping its land in trust, Costello argued.

Costello emphasized that if the tribe’s land is taken out of trust, it will still have access to different funding because of its status as a federally recognized tribe. It is still entitled to COVID-19 aid under the CARES Act, as well as other funds regarding social services and transportation.

“That’s not dependent on having land under trust,” Costello said.

If Friedman he were to rule in favor of the Department of the Interior, and the tribe’s land were taken out of trust, the land would return to the previous deed holder, Azorsky said.

The Taunton land would be lost because of the mortgages, she said, and because the tribe has an intergovernmental agreement with the city of Taunton, the city also would be hurt.

“Interior is the federal trustee for the tribe, and Interior has an obligation to protect the tribe,” Azorsky said. “It doesn’t make sense that there is a rush to take this land out of trust. There still has to be an orderly process, and the tribe’s federal trustee rushing to judgment to disestablish this reservation when no procedure has been figured out yet, it doesn’t make sense.”

While the teleconference dropped for listeners near the end of the plaintiff’s rebuttal, the public was able to listen in for most of the hearing.

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Hunt: Trump not an asset for state’s GOP

NO ONE WANTS TO STAY AT HOME AND HOME SCHOOL THEIR KIDS OR FIGURE OUT HOW THEY'RE GOING TO FEED THEIR FAMILIES AND PAY THEIR RENT. 

BUT NO ONE WANTS TO RISK SPREADING A VIRUS FOR THE SAKE OF DAFFY DON'S RE-ELECTION. 

A MINORITY OF PEOPLE, JUST A HANDFUL, WITHOUT MASKS, WITHOUT PRACTICING SOCIAL DISTANCING HAVE STOOD AT THE ROTARY OR PROTESTED IN FRONT OF THE STATE HOUSE OR THE GOVERNOR'S HOUSE.

DAFFY DON TOLD YOU THIS VIRUS WAS A HOAX AS THE DEATH TOLL MOUNTED. 
ITALY HAD HEARSES LINED UP TO COLLECT DEAD BODIES. 



Hunt: Trump not an asset for state’s GOP  

Rep. Randy Hunt, R-Sandwich, wasn’t surprised that his party on Tuesday lost a state Senate seat in Plymouth and Barnstable counties that had been in Republican control since 2015. In fact, he predicted it.

But Hunt, who is retiring after this term, said he still believes his House seat on the Upper Cape can be won by a Republican if the party nominates the right type of candidate.

Conservative Republican lawyer Jay McMahon, who closely aligned himself with the politics of President Donald Trump, lost a special election to Susan Moran, a member of the Falmouth Board of Selectmen, one of two Democratic pickups in the Senate on Tuesday. The victory, along with another win in Western Massachusetts, increased the Democratic majority to 90% of the 40-member Senate.

Hunt said that McMahon, who won his hometown of Bourne by less than 100 votes, was part of a group of pro-Trump, gun rights activists who organized frequent gatherings at the Bourne Rotary demanding that Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, who enjoys a high level of popularity, reopen the economy immediately.

Hunt said he believes that hurt rather than helped McMahon, despite the visibility it gave the candidate.

“I think people are a little more circumspect about that,” Hunt said about reopening the economy during the pandemic. “And I think it does project a bit of a problem for that type of thinking in the November elections as well. I don’t know how you could not think that the mood this year in Massachusetts will be turning away from Trump supporters.”

By Beacon Hill’s standards, Hunt is considered a conservative in the House. But he sees a difference between his political views and those of candidates like McMahon.

“I am not a Trump-loving, Make America Great Again hat wearing guy. I have a license to carry and I like to hunt and shoot trap and have conservative ideas. But I’m not extreme and people know that,” he said.

“I do believe there will be negative down ballot effects for conservative Republicans in the fall,” Hunt said.

The Republican Party, however, doesn’t seem like it’s ready to turn away from Trump, despite his unpopularity in Massachusetts. In fact, the party’s first major event since Tuesday’s election was a fundraiser Thursday night with Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law and an adviser to his reelection campaign.

The virtual event, which also featured Corey Lewandowski, was organized with the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee and other state parties in New England.

“We want to thank our two state Senate candidates, Jay McMahon and John Cain, for stepping up to take on the radical Democrats,” MassGOP Chairman Jim Lyons said on Tuesday night, after the races were called. “We lost both races. We are disappointed. The radical Democrats are committed to fundamentally change our country. We are committed to Keep America Great.”

Rather than align itself with its well-liked governor, the MassGOP seems to be moving away from him. Lyons recently wrote an op-ed in the Boston Herald critical of the governor’s cautious approach to allowing businesses to reopen, and Baker did nothing to support McMahon’s candidacy, though he did record a robocall for Cain in his unsuccessful Senate run against state Rep. John Velis.

Hunt, however, doesn’t think all is lost. If the fall election features a rematch between Moran and McMahon as it might, Hunt predicts the Republicans will lose again. But he thinks the GOP can hold on to his House seat, which he has held since winning his first race in 2010.

Hunt is backing Steven Xiarhos, retired Yarmouth deputy police chief, in a Republican primary against former Sandwich Selectman Tom Keyes. The winner will likely face Democrat Jim Dever, a lawyer who has been a member of the Sandwich School Committee for the past six years and used to worked for U.S. Sen. Edward Markey.

Hunt said Xiarhos has built a solid reputation on the Cape through his work in the police department, and his charitable organization raising money for military families in the name of his son Nicholas, who was killed while on active duty in Afghanistan in 2009.

Hunt said Xiarhos has two framed photos in his living room of him in the Oval Office — one with Trump and one with President Barack Obama. Both visits were related to his work with law enforcement and his charity.

“That’s the kind of Republican I think would do well in this race,” Hunt said.