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RawStory

Secret donors paid millions to Clarence Thomas-linked law firm with Supreme Court cases

Alexandria Jacobson, Investigative Reporter

September 21, 2026

Secret donors paid millions to Clarence Thomas-linked law firm with Supreme Court cases

Clarence Thomas attends the swearing-in ceremony of Pam Bondi as attorney general at the White House. Photograph: Kent Nishimura/Reuters

A conservative law firm with deep ties to Justice Clarence Thomas, President Donald Trump and a history of arguing more than a dozen cases on hot-button right-wing causes before the Supreme Court took in more than $33.5 million from nonprofit dark money networks, according to new watchdog research.

Consovoy McCarthy, a boutique conservative law firm started in 2014, brought in more than $29 million since 2015 from nonprofits associated with Leonard Leo, a co-chair of the Federalist Society, a Project 2025 contributor and architect of the conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court, alone, according to tax filings analyzed by True North Research, a progressive investigative research firm.

Leo has a well-documented history of using his networks to funnel money to ultraconservative causes, from working to limit access to abortion medication to supporting anti-trans laws.

ALSO READ: Bombshell memo on horrific race massacre exposes complicit FBI: 'They lied like crazy'

Nonprofits do not need to disclose the identities of their donors, and when such groups support political causes without revealing the sources of their funding, it's considered “dark money.”

Consovoy McCarthy has “become a go-to for these far-right networks, especially networks tied to Leonard Leo ... who's seeking to impose his agenda on all Americans by weaponizing the court system,” said Alyssa Bowen, deputy director at True North Research.

“We've seen Consovoy McCarthy undertake a ton of cases furthering Leo's agenda as they're enriching themselves with Leo cash and cash from other far-right dark money operatives.”

Have a tip? I want to hear it.

I'm an investigative reporter covering politics and government accountability. If you have information the public should know — inside government, a campaign or anywhere power operates with too little scrutiny — I want to hear from you."

I protect sources and can communicate securely and confidentially.

Alexandria Jacobson

Investigative Reporter, Raw Story

alexandria@rawstory.com

Consovoy McCarthy took in money from nonprofits associated with other conservative activists like Edward Blum, who has brought at least eight cases to the Supreme Court, mostly about race-conscious college admissions and voting rights.

“You've got money funneled through a nonprofit organization, you don't really know if there's a wealthy mega donor or special interest helping bankroll the legal arguments that are appearing before a court,” said Michael Beckel, money in politics reform director at Issue One, a bipartisan nonprofit that advocates for reducing the influence of money in politics.

“You don't know if a wealthy donor or special interest is helping underwrite this type of legal advocacy when so much money flows through a nonprofit network.”

Consovoy McCarthy argued high-profile cases before the Supreme Court, including Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which effectively ended affirmative action in 2023 and was spearheaded by Blum.

The biggest nonprofit contribution Consovoy McCarthy took in was more than $1.8 million from Students for Fair Admissions in 2018.

In total, the firm took in nearly $8.8 million from the nonprofit founded by Blum, according to tax filings.

“There's a lot of money behind the legal challenges to a lot of these high-profile cases that we see from voting rights law to affirmative action cases, other race-conscious policies,” Beckel said.

“These are very hot-button issues right now, and where there's heat, there's fire, and when you've got the ability to bring big guns into the courtroom, there's some donors who are more than willing to have their money help pay for that type of legal representation all across the ideological spectrum.”

The firm also represented Trump in his effort to conceal his tax returns.

Six of Consovoy McCarthy’s 11 partners clerked for Thomas. Another clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts.

“When you've got many of your partners previously clerking for a specific Supreme Court justice, that can give you an edge in the courtroom. That can give you an edge in recruiting and landing new clients. It can give you an edge in landing major cases before the Supreme Court,” Beckel said.

“These are individuals who might have a particular insight into how Clarence Thomas approaches the decisions that he makes on the bench. If you've got lawyers with special insights into how a Supreme Court justice thinks, that can be very lucrative.”

Thomas McCarthy, co-founder of Consovoy McCarthy, Blum and Leo could not be immediately reached for comment for this story.

'Sad state of politics'

The 85 Fund, managed by Leo, is formerly known as the Judicial Education Project and is the oldest in his dark money network. It gave Consovoy McCarthy $5.65 million between 2016 and 2023.

America First Legal Foundation, co-founded by Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff and a recipient of funding from the Leo-connected donor-advised fund, DonorsTrust, paid Consovoy McCarthy nearly $235,000 in 2022.

Do No Harm, a medical and policy advocacy nonprofit associated with Blum and funded by Leo's network, paid Consovoy McCarthy more than $1.4 million total in 2022 and 2024. The Southern Poverty Law Center has designated Do No Harm as an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group that promotes conversion therapy.

Consovoy McCarthy was paid more than $544,000 from the Project on Fair Representation, founded by Blum.

“There's a coordinated effort by a few billionaire-backed political operatives that are throwing … their weight behind legal cases that undermine policies that help people and benefit politicians or billionaires,” Bowen said.

Speech First, which says it works to protect free speech rights on college campuses and is associated with the conservative billionaire Koch brothers, paid the firm more than $7.3 million total between 2018 and 2024.

The U.S. Chamber Litigation Center, which works on “defending Trump-era deregulation in court,” paid Consovoy McCarthy nearly $200,000.

Defending Education, formerly Parents Defending Education, which advocates for removing critical race theory and diversity, equity and inclusion from schools, paid Consovoy McCarthy $4 million total since 2021. Blum is a board member.

These nonprofits have been considered dark money networks with lack of transparency about their funders.

“Dark money has an incredible influence in the judicial system, as well as the political arena writ large,” Beckel said....

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EVIL BUT

America First Legal Foundation is a right-of-center nonprofit organization formed by former senior Trump White House advisor Stephen Miller and counselor to the Attorney General Gene Hamilton in February 2021. It aims to use litigation to oppose left-of-center policies enacted by the Biden administration. ^1

The board is made up of former Trump administration officials including White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and former Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker. ^2

Background

The America First Legal Foundation was launched by Stephen Miller, a White House senior advisor to President Donald Trump. Trump endorsed the organization upon its launch in April 2021. ^3

The America First Legal Foundation has the goal of challenging Biden administration policies in court. ^4 The foundation announced plans to work with state attorneys general to litigate cases against the Biden administration’s policies. ^5

Legal Advocacy

The America First Legal Foundation joined the state of Texas in suing the Biden administration over its border enforcement policies and is paying the legal cost for the case. ^6 The lawsuit alleges the Biden administration’s release of unvaccinated illegal immigrants is exposing more Texans to COVID-19. ^7

The group issued a seven-page complaint condemning a proposed rule from the U.S. Department of Education to provide incentives to schools to teach critical race theory, which the foundation called “thoroughly discredited” and “odious.” ^8

Leadership

Stephen Miller, the founder and president of the America First Legal Foundation, was a senior adviser to President Donald Trump and his director of White House speechwriting. ^9 ^10

Gene Hamilton, a board member, was the counselor to the Attorneys General at the Justice Department from 2017 through 2021. He was also formerly a senior counselor to the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. ^11 ^12

Mark Meadows, a board member, was Trump’s White House Chief of Staff. He was previously a congressman from North Carolina. ^13

Matthew Whitaker, a board member, was the Acting U.S. Attorney General under Trump. He previously served as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa. ^14

Russ Vought, a board member, was Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget. ^15

Ed Corrigan is a board member and the CEO and president of the Conservative Partnership Institute. ^16

Wesley Denton is a board member, and the chief operating officer of the Conservative Partnership Institute. ^17

References...

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GOLD TRUMP TWR?

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the America First Legal Center for Legal Equality is an initiative—housed within our 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal foundation—to facilitate legal representation to victims of both private and public sector discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, or political belief. The AFL® Center for Legal Equality is being established in response to the new “equity” crusade that has overtaken Big Business, Big Education, and Big Government.

Our nation’s legal and constitutional order is predicated on the idea that all citizens, regardless of who they are or where their families come from, are entitled to full and equal treatment under the law. This is a bedrock of our entire system of justice. Yet, a pernicious new ideology has taken hold in the elite power centers of our country, which decrees that people must be judged expressly based upon their race, their gender, sexual preference, and their overall worldview – and either be rewarded or punished accordingly. This fundamentally anti-American ideology must be defeated.

It is Time to Stand Up

Often, this ideology of exclusion, segregation, and discrimination advances under the banner of “equity,” “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” or “woke values,” but these gentle-sounding euphemisms are designed to mask a brute force agenda of social engineering, Marxist dehumanization, and overt racism and sexism. The tyranny of “equity” is in purposeful and direct conflict with the harmonious ideal of “equality.” Either America prevails in its defense of equality as the cornerstone of human progress, or we fall back into ancient patterns of division, denigration, and destruction.

The AFL Center for Legal Equality is the leading edge in the legal battle to save and promote equality in American institutions, American government, and American life. If you or someone you know is the victim of woke ideology, equity-based exclusion, abusive DEI policies, or other instances of discrimination in Corporate America, academia, or the application of government policy, please reach out to the AFL Center for Legal Equality TODAY by sharing your story or, as always, contact America First Legal on our contact page.

Visit the Hotline

As part of our new AFL Center for Legal Equality, America First Legal is creating a new digital HOTLINE for citizens to report violations of their rights. If you have been victimized by woke politics in the workplace or at school, if you have been illegally discriminated against in the workplace or in search of a contract or government benefit under the Orwellian guise of “diversity,” “equity,” “inclusion,” please contact us TODAY.

Stay Informed

Get updates about the legal battles we are waging across the country. To Get Critical Updates By Text: Text Join to 50608.

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CCDH-State communications

Agency: State Department Case #: F-2023-13154

FIRST AMENDMENT

America First Legal filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the Department of State, seeking its communications with Imran Ahmed and his group, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH).

VIEW DOCUMENTS

CCDH-DHS communications

Agency: DHS Case #: 2023-HQFO-02156

FIRST AMENDMENT

America First Legal filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the Department of Homeland Security, seeking its communications with Imran Ahmed and his group, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH).

VIEW DOCUMENTS

March 24, 2021 Letter to Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg Re…

Agency: Office of the New York State Attorney General Case #: G000554-081523

FIRST AMENDMENT

America First Legal Launches Nationwide Investigation into State Attorneys General Collusion with Pro-Censorship Foreign Organization the Center for Countering Digital Hate to Censor the American People

VIEW DOCUMENTS

Rules and Procedures Governing Presidential Records

Agency: NARA Case #: NGC23-269

DOJ POLITICIZATIONGENERAL GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT

VIEW DOCUMENTS

Biden White House “Special Access Request” for Trump Ma…

Agency: NARA Case #: NGC23-323

DOJ POLITICIZATIONGENERAL GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT

AFL filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the National Archives and Records Administration’s (NARA) Office of the Inspector General to obtain records related to the Biden White House’s “Special Access Request” for President Trump’s records located at Mar-a-Lago. https://aflegal.org/america-first-legals-investigation-reveals-the-biden-white-house-was-involved-with-the-mar-a-lago-raid-and-that-nara-misled-congress-afl-launches-additional-investigation/

VIEW DOCUMENTS

Clinton Archives' Records on Alejandro Mayorkas

Agency: NARA Case #: 2023-0128-F

GENERAL GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHTIMMIGRATIONPOLITICAL APPOINTEES

AFL filed a FOIA seeking records on Alejandro Mayorkas relating to his nomination for United States Attorney for the Central District of California.

VIEW DOCUMENTS

Communications Relating to Presidential Records Located at …

Agency: NARA Case #: NGC22-727

DOJ POLITICIZATIONGENERAL GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT

AFL filed a FOIA seeking records from the National Archives relating to communications relating to the Presidential Records located at Mar-A-Lago. This request was formerly assigned tracking code: NARA-NGC-2022-001529. https://aflegal.org/afl-initiates-investigations-into-biden-doj-national-archives-and-records-administration-over-politically-motivated-and-weaponized-raid-of-president-trumps-home-2/

VIEW DOCUMENTS

State Department Interagency Censorship

Agency: State Department Case #: F-2023-05374

FIRST AMENDMENT

AFL filed a FOIA with the State Department to obtain records on how the State Department has worked with the rest of the U.S. Government to “combat” so-called “misinformation” and “disinformation” domestically.

VIEW DOCUMENTS

DHS Parole Authority Memo

Agency: DHS Case #: 2023-HQFO-00820

IMMIGRATION

AFL filed a FOIA request with DHS seeking the Parole Authority Memo the Biden Administration is using as justification for the free release of illegal aliens into the United States.

VIEW DOCUMENTS

FDA Meme FOIA

Agency: FDA Case #: 2022-8184

FIRST AMENDMENTGENERAL GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT

AFL sent the Food and Drug Administration a FOIA for all records on the COVID memes it has been posting to Twitter

VIEW DOCUMENTS

ICE Communications with NGOs

Agency: ICE Case #: 2022-ICFO-22582

FOREIGN AFFAIRS & NATIONAL SECURITYIMMIGRATION

AFL filed a FOIA request for ICE’s communications with non-government organizations related to illegal aliens being transported around the country after illegally entering the country through the southwest border.

VIEW DOCUMENTS

IRS-Escobar Communications Regarding AFL

Agency: IRS Case #: 2023-01427

FIRST AMENDMENTGENERAL GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT

Following Representative Escobar’s announcement that she filed a complaint with the IRS against AFL, AFL filed a FOIA for all those communications.

VIEW DOCUMENTS

POLITICAL LEADERSHIP - HOMELAND SECURITY

Agency: DHS Case #: 2021-HQFO-01216

POLITICAL APPOINTEES

AFL requested documents regarding political appointees, their qualifications for the positions they hold, their ethics pledges, and any conflict of interest waivers they have received.

VIEW DOCUMENTS

Biden NARA VP Foreign Business Dealings

Agency: NARA Case #: NARA-2022-0121-F

BIDEN FAMILY CORRUPTIONFOREIGN AFFAIRS & NATIONAL SECURITYGENERAL GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT

AFL FOIA to the National Archives for Biden Vice Presidential era documents related to the Biden Family Foreign Business Dealings.

VIEW DOCUMENTS

DOJ Judicial Nominations Process Change

Agency: DOJ Case #: EMRUFOIA072021

GENERAL GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT

AFL requested documents related to change in vetting process for judicial nominees

VIEW DOCUMENTS

AFL Resources

Borrower Defense Toolkit

DOES YOUR SCHOOL HAVE GENERAL RULES OF STUDENT AND FACULTY CONDUCT? DO WOKE, PRO-HAMAS, LEFTIST ADMINISTRATORS, STUDENTS, FACULTY, AND STAFF VIOLATE THESE RULES WITHOUT CONSEQUENCES? THEN YOU MAY BE ENTITLED “BORROWER DEFENSE” AND HAVE YOUR FEDERAL STUDENT LOANS DISCHARGED AT YOUR SCHOOL’S EXPENSE! “Borrower Defense” is the legal process through which a student or […]

AFL Whitepaper: The Presidential Records Act Cannot Supersede a Former President’s Authority Over Presidential Paper

Since the founding of the United States, Presidents leaving office have taken custody of their presidential records. That unbroken tradition reflects a principle deeply rooted in private law and the Constitution: the President’s records are his personal property because they were prepared by him or for him in furtherance of his official duties. The records […]

AFL: Know Your Rights: AFL Federal Employee Guide to the Vaccine Mandate Executive Order

On September 9, 2021, President Biden imposed a vaccine mandate on all federal employees. Executive Order No. 14,043. Under this mandate, employees in the civil service must become “fully vaccinated” against COVID-19. AFL believes this mandate is unlawful and that it will not survive legal challenges currently being litigated. In the meantime, here is some basic […]

AFL: The AFL Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment: A Toolkit for Parents

As the Supreme Court has repeatedly said, parents have the ultimate authority over their children’s education. And yet schools often ignore parents’ rights. School systems, administrators, and teachers often treat parents with contempt and disdain simply for asking what their children are learning and what values schools are promoting. The Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment, 20 U.S.C. […]

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Vice President

Dan Epstein is an Assistant Professor of Law at St. Thomas University in Miami, Florida. Previously, he worked advising startups on regulatory matters at a private equity firm. His federal service includes being a Special Assistant to the President and Senior Associate Counsel to the President, and as a counsel for the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Earlier in his career, Mr. Epstein founded and ran Cause of Action, a public-interest law firm, where he represented clients in government investigations and litigated regulatory, constitutional, political, and public law matters. He holds a Ph.D. from George Washington University in Political Economy, a J.D. from Emory University School of Law, and a B.A. from Kenyon College.

DIRTY TRICKS

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/16/democratic-strategists-launch-war-room-00065498

group of top Democratic strategists are launching a multi-million-dollar hub to counter an expected investigative onslaught by the likely incoming House GOP majority — digging into President Joe Biden, his administration and his son, on top of potential Cabinet impeachments.

The newly relaunchedCongressional Integrity Project initiative, details of which were shared first with POLITICO, will include rapid response teams, investigative researchers, pollsters and eventually a paid media campaign to put congressional Republicans “squarely on the defense,” founder Kyle Herrig said in an interview.

It’s designed to serve as the party’s “leading war room” to push back on House Republican investigations, Herrig said in an interview. He added that the project would “investigate the investigators, expose their political motivations and the monied special interests supporting their work, and hold them accountable for ignoring the urgent priorities of all Americans in order to smear Joe Biden and do the political bidding of Trump and MAGA Republicans." [vid]

a team of researchers has already begun scouring public records, press clippings and other documents in a bid to immediately undercut House GOP leaders, from Minority Leader — now speakership hopeful — Kevin McCarthy to the likely committee chairs expected to manage probes of Biden and his network.

The House GOP views investigations as a key piece of its agenda for the next Congress once it takes the narrow majority that’s now expected, particularly as much of its legislative wish list is on track to stall thanks to the Senate filibuster and Democratic president. McCarthy has privately talked with committee chairs-in-waiting to coordinate plans, making the swift launch of the outside-group pushback plan a potential godsend to Democrats.

Democratic leadership on the Hill has been briefed about the project’s relaunch, according to a person familiar with its plans.

Brad Woodhouse, a longtime Democratic strategist who is part of the project’s new leadership team, called the House GOP’s looming investigations a “vendetta” after two impeachments of and investigations into former President Donald Trump while Democrats controlled Congress, including the bipartisan select committee probing the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

The project “will exploit every tactic available,” Woodhouse said, adding: “It’s not enough to wait and see what they’re going to do and how far they’re going to go.”

Republicans wouldn’t formally take the House until January, but its leaders are already vowing to cut a broad investigative swath. As McCarthy put it during his conference’s recent agenda rollout: “Every committee has responsibilities for oversight.”

“They’ve virtually outlined no substantive agenda for governing,” Herrig said of House Republicans. “This is what they’re going to do ... so you really need a concentrated effort that’s doing this every day.”

In addition to Herrig and Woodhouse, the project’s leadership team will include Leslie Dach, a well-known Democratic communications specialist who has led progressive organizations for decades, served in the Obama administration and advised the Biden administration’s pandemic response.

In a sign of the important role the initiative will play over the next two years — and its proximity to the White House — other senior advisers include Jeff Peck, a former Biden aide during the president’s time in the Senate who served as treasurer and vice chair of the Biden Foundation as well as a senior adviser to the Biden-Harris transition.

The Congressional Integrity Project leadership team will include Leslie Dach, a well-known Democratic communications specialist who has led progressive organizations for decades. | Brian Stukes/Getty Images for Protect Our Care

For the final two years of Biden’s term, Republicans will be aided in their oversight push by a coalition of outside conservative research groups that have already mapped out potential targets and started digging into issues ranging from Hunter Biden’s business dealings to immigration policy.

And GOP lawmakers have left their own investigative breadcrumbs that make it clear where they intend to go. Likely Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) will lead the Hunter Biden investigation, with Republicans already preparing to elevate the probe to Joe Biden although no evidence has publicly emerged that his decisions were affected by his son’s business dealings. Comer recently told POLITICO that he and likely Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) would provide a public update this week.

Jordan, meanwhile, is preparing to use the gavel he’s poised to take for conduct a sweeping investigation into the Justice Department and FBI, two frequent targets of Trump’s ire. That probe is likely to touch on everything from the search at Mar-a-Lago for classified documents to tracking threats against local school officials, which the GOP slams as an effort to target parents despite denials from the bureau. [vid]

other GOP areas of interest include the withdrawal from Afghanistan, Ukraine aid and a coronavirus probe that is likely to sweep up longtime public health adviser Anthony Fauci.

McCarthy and his allies are under pressure from their base and some members of their own conference to pair their investigations with impeachment articles; some in the party are clearly itching for payback after then-President Trump was impeached twice. Though impeaching Biden is likely a heavy lift — and a step that McCarthy isn’t endorsing for now — Republicans see Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas as a more likely target for attempted removal from office.

congressional Democrats and others close to the administration view Republicans’ vows to investigate Mayorkas’ department and the border as the latest sign that they aren’t serious about trying to pass immigration legislation. And they slam Republican investigative plans writ large as thinly veiled attempts to help Trump, pointing to Jordan’s public remarks earlier this year that characterized GOP probes as helping “frame up the 2024 race.”

The Congressional Integrity Project is also aiming to raise funds for a paid media campaign, including dedicated websites, digital ads, mobile billboards, newspaper ads and, occasionally, TV ad buys. Its public opinion research will be shared with like-minded organizations and congressional allies to contrast GOP investigations with issues the American public cares most about, project leaders said.

Their goal is to prevent a repeat of the 2016 presidential campaign when Republicans also controlled the House and created a select committee to investigate the 2012 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans. That GOP select panel ended up zeroing in on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as she prepared to ascend to the Democratic nomination, culminating in an 11-hour grilling of Clinton.

Republicans’ two-year Benghazi investigation spent $7 million in taxpayer money and dogged Clinton on the campaign trail before finally producing an 800-page report that didn’t focus on the former secretary of state.

Then-Majority Leader McCarthy quipped in 2015 to Fox News’ Sean Hannity that the Benghazi committee had successfully driven down Clinton’s poll numbers. “He took a lot of crap for it, but in the end, it was true” that the investigation hurt Clinton politically, recalled Woodhouse.

Rather, Democrats hope the flood of investigations will lead to a repeat of the 1998 midterm elections, held amid the GOP push to impeach then-President Bill Clinton. Voter backlash against that move helped Democrats defy historical trends in House races that favor the party that doesn’t occupy the White House gaining seats.

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gop Republican congressional aides huddled this month with conservative think-tank leaders on Maryland's Eastern Shore to hone tactics and messaging for Biden administration probes, Axios has learned.

Why it matters: If the GOP wins control in the midterms, leaders want to kick off high-profile investigations as soon as the new Congress is seated. Republicans plan to draw on investigative power from allies across Washington.

Details: The retreat was hosted by the Heritage Foundation, theConservative Partnership Instituteand the American Accountability Foundation, a nonprofit run by Trump administration alumni that's dogged Biden nominees with independent investigative work.

In attendance were aides to the top Republicans on the House Transportation and Infrastructure, Ways and Means and Oversight committees, as well as a senior aide to Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), who is considered a leadership contender.
Aides toSenate Banking Committee ranking member Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and Sens. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Mike Braun (R-Ind.) also attended.

The big picture: With unified Democratic control in D.C., Republicans have been limited in their efforts to wield Congress' probative powers around high-profile issues such as a southern border immigration surge, the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and economic shocks that threaten a U.S. recession.

If they win congressional majorities, Republicans plan to use that power in retrospective fashion to dig into Biden administration conduct going back to his inauguration.
That will mean a congressional microscope on Biden administration policies and spending. It will also bring stepped-up GOP scrutiny of private sector actors such as tech companies that Republicans see as politically adversarial.

Behind the scenes: Over two days, congressional aides at the retreat got briefings from prominent conservative activists and organizations on a host of investigative tactics.

Gene Hamilton, a former senior aide in Trump's Justice Department and a board member of the America First Legal Foundation, briefed staffers on how to use legal experts and the federal court system to conduct research and "advance conservative priorities in the courts."
Alexa Walker, the Banks aide and the Republican Study Committee's coalitions director, and Scott Gast, a former senior aide in the Trump White House counsel's office, discussed strategies for coordinating congressional oversight with outside research and investigative groups.
Mike Howell and Roman Jankowski of the Heritage Foundation led a training on the Freedom of Information Act.
AAF chief Tom Jones briefed attendees on tactics for investigating presidential nominees and appointees.
Phil Reboli of CPI trained staffers on effective communications strategies to sell oversight efforts to outside groups and the press.

What they're saying: "We are pleased we brought together senior staff and leading outside researchers to focus on enhancing oversight skills, particularly since we're expecting increased oversight opportunities in the future," Jones said in an emailed statement.

"The American people are deeply frustrated by the failed policies and lack of leadership of the Biden Administration. They expect good government groups like ours and Congressional leaders to work together to hold this administration accountable."

Howell, who leads Heritage's Oversight Project, t0ld Axios the goal of the event was to ensure congressional staff members are equipped to kick-start investigations as soon as the new Congress is gaveled in.

"What's going to happen next Congress is, you've got to do four years of oversight in two years. That's going to be an immense lift, and it means that they cannot wait to get these committees situated," he said in an interview.
"There are thousands of people who served in the Trump administration, myself included, who experienced what was probably the most intense congressional oversight to date," Howell said. They "are now chomping at the bit to deploy these skills that they've learned back at the Biden administration."

Between the lines: The event provides a glimpse of where Republicans see potentially fruitful oversight avenues.

Senate Banking has been at the center of Biden nomination fights, with committee Republicans successfully sinking two high-profile nominees.
The Oversight Committee, whose chief counsel for oversight attended, has a broad mandate. Its ranking Republican, Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), has recently signaled scrutiny of Biden's immigration policies, his son Hunter’s business dealings abroad and tech companies' ostensible political bias.
The Transportation Committee's Republican general counsel wrote in a disclosure filing that the training would help the committee ensure "fiscal stewardship and effective oversight of the recently passed infrastructure bill and other items within T&I's jurisdiction."
The Ways and Means Committee, which sent two Republican aides to the retreat, is a powerful panel with oversight jurisdiction over tax and financial policies at the center of a national furor over inflation.

Republican oversight won't be confined to federal agencies or the White House, Howell said.

"Big Tech is in the crosshairs," he said. "They're going to be subject to document requests and subpoenas and depositions."
Howell pointed to the subpoena power wielded heavily by the Jan. 6 select committee, which has sought private phone and bank records, among other documents.
"It's really a whole new frontier that has been opened with a whole bevy of new tactics and techniques, which were once thought out of bounds. They're now going to be a tool in the hands of the other side."

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Hamilton’s relationship with the Heritage Foundation has continued. In March, he participated (https://www.heritage.org/immigration/event/virtual-event-battling-the-biden-border-crisis) in a panel discussion on the “Biden border crisis” hosted by Carafano, alongside Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Rep. ToHamilton’s relationship with the Heritage Foundation has continued. In March, he participated (https://www.heritage.org/immigration/event/virtual-event-battling-the-biden-border-crisis) in a panel discussion on the “Biden border crisis” hosted by Carafano, alongside Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Rep. Tom McClintock of California.m McClintock of California.

resources:

https://www.americanoversight.org/investigation/stephen-millers-influence-on-immigration-policy-and-throughout-the-administration

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Trump adviser Stephen Miller's law firm filed a First Amendment lawsuit in May 2023 against the Observatory, Stamos, DiResta and others; it is still pending. In a joint statement, Stamos and DiResta said that their work involved much more than elections and that they had been unfairly maligned.Jun 14, 2024

Stanford's top disinformation research group collapses under ...

Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com › ... › Tech Policy

The Stanford Internet Observatory's future is uncertain

NPR

https://www.npr.org › 2024/06/14 › a-major-disinform...

Jun 14, 2024 — Stanford University pushed back against the idea that SIO is being ... First Legal, an organization run by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller.

Stanford Internet Observatory wilts under legal pressure

The Register

https://www.theregister.com › 2024/06/14 › stanford_in...

Jun 14, 2024 — Last summer the panel demanded documents from SIO related to its online speech moderation efforts and threatened legal action for non-compliance ...

The Destruction of a Research Group at Stanford Marks ...

NYU

https://bhr.stern.nyu.edu › quick-take › the-destruction-...

Jun 17, 2024 — Two ongoing lawsuits and two congressional inquiries into the Observatory have cost Stanford millions of dollars in legal fees, one [source] ...

G.O.P. Targets Researchers Who Study Disinformation ...

The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com › 2023/06/19 › technology

Jun 19, 2023 — The group behind the class action, America First Legal, named as defendants two researchers at the Stanford Internet Observatory, Alex Stamos ...

Future unclear for Stanford disinformation research group ...

San Francisco Chronicle

https://www.sfchronicle.com › Bay Area

Jun 14, 2024 — Stanford University denies reports that it has shut down a research group that studied internet disinformation and election interference ...

Jim Jordan Celebrates Reported Shuttering of Stanford ' ...

National Review

https://www.nationalreview.com › news › free-speech-...

Jun 14, 2024 — The Stanford Internet Observatory, a group that studies so ... Miller, filed a First Amendment lawsuit against the observatory in May 2023.

America First Legal Files Landmark Federal Class-Action ...

America First Legal

https://aflegal.org › america-first-legal-files-landmark-fe...

May 2, 2023 — This historic lawsuit alleges that these parties conspired with the federal government to conduct a mass surveillance and censorship operation ...

Case 3:23-cv-00571 Document 1 Filed 05/02/23 Page 1 of ...

America First Legal

https://aflegal.org › 2023/05 › Doc-1-Complaint

PDF

May 2, 2023 — Stanford Internet Observatory, and of its director and staff. 15. Defendant Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University is ...

88 pages

The Stanford Internet Observatory is being dismantled

Election Law Blog

https://electionlawblog.org › ...

Jun 14, 2024 — Stanford disputes the characterization, but if this report is true, that's a disturbing and unfortunate loss to the study of online ..

---

https://aflegal.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Doc-1-Complaint.pdf}:

AMERICA FIRST LEGAL

/s/ Gene P. Hamilton

Gene P. Hamilton, GA Bar No. 516201*

:{:{Reed D. Rubinstein, DC Bar No. 400153 cause of action koch whore}:

Nicholas R. Barry, TN Bar No. 031963* nicholas-barry-65991229

Michael Ding, DC Bar No. 1027252*

Juli Z. Haller, DC Bar No. 466921* DISBAR dc?

James K. Rogers, AZ Bar No. 027287*

Andrew J. Block, VA Bar No. 91537*

611 Pennsylvania Ave SE #231

Washington, DC 20003

(202) 964-3721

gene.hamilton@aflegal.org

reed.rubinstein@aflegal.org

nicholas.bary@aflegal.org

michael.ding@aflegal.org

juli.haller@aflegal.org

james.rogers@aflegal.org

andrew.block@aflegal.org

JAMES OTIS LAW GROUP, LLC

/s/ D. John Sauer

D. John Sauer, Mo. Bar No. 58721*

Justin D. Smith, Mo. Bar No. 63253*

13321 North Outer Forty Road, Suite 300

St. Louis, Missouri 63017

(314) 562-0031

John.Sauer@james-otis.com

pro hac vice forthcoming

GGL 6 24

[### D. John Sauer

The Federalist Society

https://fedsoc.org › contributors › d-john-sauer](https://fedsoc.org/contributors/d-john-sauer)

[

John Sauer has served as the Solicitor General of Missouri since 2017. Before that, he served as a federal prosecutor for five years and spent time in civil ...

Missing: Bar ‎58721

[### D. John Sauer

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › D._John_Sauer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._John_Sauer)

Dean John Sauer (born November 13, 1974) is an American lawyer who previously served as Solicitor General of Missouri and Deputy Attorney General for ...

dean John Sauer (born November 13, 1974) is an American lawyer who previously served as Solicitor General of Missouri and Deputy Attorney General for Special Litigation in the U.S. state of Missouri.

Education[

Sauer was born on November 13, 1974. He attended Saint Louis Priory School, a Catholic secondary day school for boys in Creve Coeur, Missouri, run by the Benedictine monks of Saint Louis Abbey. He then attended Duke University, graduating in 1997 with a double Bachelor of Arts in philosophy and Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering. He was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to attend the University of Oxford, where he received a Bachelor of Arts in theology from Oriel College,^[1] and he then earned a Master of Arts in philosophy from the University of Notre Dame.^[2]

Sauer then attended Harvard Law School, where he was an articles editor of the Harvard Law Review. He graduated in 2004 with a Juris Doctor, magna cum laude.^[3]

Legal career[

After law school, Sauer was a law clerk to Judge J. Michael Luttig of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit from 2004 to 2005 and to Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court of the United States from 2005 to 2006.

Sauer worked as a litigation associate at Cooper & Kirk and then became an Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri. He later reentered private practice.^[4]

In 2015, Sauer defended a priest accused of sexually abusing children. Sauer helped the priest sue his accusers, including the alleged victim's mother.^[5] Father Xiu Hui “Joseph” Jiang had been accused of two separate instances of sexual abuse, but prosecutors eventually dropped all charges in both cases. Sauer prevailed in the civil lawsuits related to the accusations.^[6]

In January 2017, then-Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley appointed Sauer Solicitor General of Missouri.^[7]

On December 10, 2020, as Solicitor General Counsel of Record, Sauer signed the "Motion of States of Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, And Utah To Intervene And Proposed Bill of Complaint In Intervention" in an attempt to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election.^[8] The motion sought to intervene and join the Texas Bill of Complaint (filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton), to prevent the selection of presidential electors based upon the November election results in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Michigan.^[9]

In January 2023, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey appointed Sauer Deputy Attorney General for Special Litigation.^[10][11] Sauer resigned from his post less than a month later, on January 27, 2023.^[12]

In July 2023. Sauer testified before a U.S. House Subcommittee as the Louisiana Department of Justice Special Assistant Attorney General. ^[13]

Representing Donald Trump

On January 9, 2024, he represented former President Donald Trump in oral arguments before a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit regarding the issue of presidential immunity in the criminal case of United States of America v. Donald J. Trump.^[14]

At the hearing, in response to a hypothetical question posed by Judge Florence Y. Pan about whether a U.S. President could order SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political rival and be immune from prosecution,^[15] Sauer argued that the impeachment clause in Article II, Section 4, of the Constitution^[16] implies that the Senate must first impeach and convict before a president can be criminally prosecuted, and that acquittal bars prosecution.^[17] Sauer stated that this type of prosecution of a former president "would authorize, for example, the indictment of President Biden in the Western District of Texas after he leaves office for mismanaging the border allegedly". ^[18]

---

[### 18AC-CC00143

Missouri Press Association

https://mopress.com › uploads › 2021/03 › Requ...](https://mopress.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Request-for-Restraining-Order-Against-Missouri-AG.pdf)

PDF

/s/ D. John Sauer. D. John Sauer, Mo. Bar No. 58721. Michael Martinich-Sauter, Mo. Bar No. 66065. Missouri Attorney General's Office. Supreme Court Building.

Education and early career

Hamilton was raised in Arizona.^[2] He received a Bachelor's degree from the University of Georgia, and a J.D. from the Washington and Lee School of Law in 2010.^[10] While attending law school, Hamilton interned at the Krome Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in Miami, Florida;^[2][11] upon graduation he accepted a role as an Honors Attorney at the Department of Homeland Security,^[12] eventually returning to ICE in its Office of Chief Counsel in Georgia.

In 2015, Hamilton left the Department to become General Counsel to then-Senator Jeff Sessions, under whom he would later work at the Department of Justice when Sessions became the United States Attorney General.^[2] In 2016, Hamilton joined the Trump transition team, ultimately leading its immigration policy efforts.

fedsoc bs

Gene Hamilton serves as Executive Director, Executive Vice President, and General Counsel of America First Legal Foundation. Prior to AFL, Gene served as Counselor to the Attorney General at the United States Department of Justice from 2017-2021—providing legal advice, counsel, and strategic guidance to the Attorney General and other officials throughout the Department of Justice. While serving as Counselor to the Attorney General, Gene advised on and participated in litigation, regulatory actions, and policymaking on high-priority issues for the Trump Administration. Before his service at the Department of Justice, Gene served as Senior Counselor to the Secretary of Homeland Security; as General Counsel to Senator Jeff Sessions on the Senate Committee on the Judiciary; as Assistant Chief Counsel for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; and as an Attorney-Advisor in the Secretary’s Honors Program for Attorneys at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which included work in the Office of General Counsel’s Operations and Enforcement Law Division, the Intelligence Law Division, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and the Transportation Security Administration.

Gene graduated from the Washington and Lee School of Law magna cum laude and Order of the Coif and has a Bachelor of Arts in International Affairs from the University of Georgia.

---

2024-05-13-Gene-Hamilton-Congressional-Hearing-Doc

ACCOUNTABLE us 13 PP

---

disquaL TITLE 42 SUIT PAXTON

Brief in Opposition to Defendants’ Motion to Disqualify

KEN PAXTON AARON F. REITZ Attorney General of Texas Lead Counsel Deputy Attorney General for Legal Strategy BRENT WEBSTER Texas Bar No. 24105704 First Assistant Attorney General aaron.reitz@oag.texas.gov

LEIF A. OLSON OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL Special Counsel P.O. Box 12548 Texas Bar No. 24032801 Austin, Texas 78711-2548 leif.olson@oag.texas.gov (512) 936-1700

MATTHEW G. WHITAKER Counsel for the State of Texas Admitted pro hac vice America First Legal Foundation 300 Independence Avenue SE Washington, D.C. 20003 (202) 964-3721 info@aflegal.org

...and two of its lawyers, Gene Hamilton and Matt Whitaker, from that representation. There is no factual or legal foundation for doing so, which would substantially prejudice Texas.

More, the Defendants’ logic would also disqualify nearly all attorneys from working on subjects in which they used their expertise while in government service, including challenges to unlawful acts by their former government employers. That would be an absurd result, and the Court should deny the Motion.

Background

This case primarily involves a group of enactments collectively referred to as Title 42: a nearly century-old statutory authority, 42 U.S.C. § 265; a regulation promulgated to implement that authority, 42 C.F.R. § 71.40; and multiple orders issued by the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under that authority, the latest in August 2021. 85 Fed. Reg. 65,806–12 (Oct. 13, 2020); 86 Fed. Reg. 42,828 (Aug. 5, 2021) (“replacing and superseding” the October 2020 order).

Among Texas’s counsel in this case are Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Whitaker, both of whom served at the U.S. Department of Justice. Mr. Hamilton served as Counselor to the Attorney General and provided legal advice and counsel for general policymaking matters related to Title 42 during that time. Some of that work related to other particular cases involving the Title 42 regime. Mr. Whitaker served as Chief of Staff and Senior Counselor to the Attorney General and, later, as Acting Attorney

---

AFL-Amicus-Brief-stamped

ga fani?

BRIEF OF AMERICA FIRST LEGAL FOUNDATION AS AMICUS CURIAE IN SUPPORT OF APPELLEES __ CHRISTOPHER E. MILLS GENE P. HAMILTON Spero Law LLC Ga. Bar No. 516201 557 East Bay Street

#22251 America First Legal Foundation Charleston, SC 29413 611 Pennsylvania Ave. SE (843) 606-0640 #231 cmills@spero.law (pro hac vice pending) Washington, DC 20003 (202) 964-3721 gene.hamilton@aflegal.org Counsel for Amicus Curiae

INTRODUCTION In accepting this appeal, the Court posed the question: “Does the Open Records Act apply to district attorneys’ offices?”

Dec. 27, 2023 Order. The only plausible reading of the statute is that it does. By its terms after its amendments in 2012, it applies to all state “offices.” Notwithstanding Appellant’s long digression about the judicial branch, the statute’s terms do not distinguish between offices that exercise executive and judicial functions. And the statute expressly exempts certain records maintained by prosecutors’ offices—underscoring that its default rule encompasses those offices. Thus, which branch of government district attorneys’ offices reside in—or what types of power they exercise—is irrelevant to this question of statutory interpretation. The only plausible reading of the text is that it applies to those offices. Because the text is clear and Appellant raises no constitutional challenge to the statute, that clear reading disposes of the Court’s statutory question. This reading also promotes the rule of law. To amicus’s knowledge, no similar...

---

COMPLAINT TO ENFORCE COMPLIANCE WITH THE GEORGIA OPEN RECORDS ACT Plaintiff Bentley Media Group files this Complaint to ensure that the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office provides public access to documents in accordance with the Georgia Open Records Act, O.C.G.A. §§ 50-18-70 et seq. PARTIES 1. The Plaintiff, Bentley Media Group, operates “Just The News” (“JTN”), a web-based news organization with adjacent television and podcast operations. John Solomon is JTN’s Chief Executive Officer and Editor in Chief. He is an award-winning investigative journalist, author, and digital media entrepreneur who has reported for The Associated Press, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, Newsweek, The Daily Beast, and The Hill. JTN’s website may be found at https://justthenews.com. JTN has consistently reported on criminal investigations and trials of national significance.

===

fedsoc bs

koch legal shop cause of action

Reed D. Rubinstein is Senior Counselor and Director of Oversight and Investigations for the America First Legal Foundation. He has extensive constitutional, administrative, and complex commercial trial and appellate experience, including Executive Branch and Congressional oversight, investigations, and enforcement.

Reed joined the Trump Campaign legal team in February 2016, supported Treasury, DHS, and DOD operations during the Presidential Transition, and entered Federal service in January 2017. As Deputy Associate Attorney General, U.S. Department of Education General Counsel (acting and delegated), and Senior Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury, Reed fought to protect free speech, religious liberty, and civil rights; combat anti-Semitism; expose Obama/Biden support for the Iranian regime; and defend the Trump Administration against Congressional overreach and leftist lawfare.

He played a material role in many Trump Administration actions and Executive Orders and between June 2019 and January 2021, initiated and led twenty-seven civil investigations of U.S. universities for colluding with the Chinese Communist Party, violating foreign money disclosure laws, misrepresenting free speech policies, failing to provide balance in Middle Eastern studies, making false non-discrimination assurances (the Princeton investigation), and consumer fraud.

Reed is a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School and has practiced law since 1985. A former AmLaw 10 shareholder, he spent thirty years in the private practice of law representing manufacturing and retail corporations, financial institutions, trade associations, and individuals in a wide range of matters. Notably, he represented the victims of the Fort Hood terrorist attack, overcoming the Obama Administration, the Pentagon, and House Speaker John Boehner to win them Purple Hearts and medical benefits.

2015 ~ dept of labor koch whore

/s/ Reed D. Rubinstein Reed D. Rubinstein D.C. Bar No. 400153 Cause of Action, Inc. 1919 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Suite 650 Washington, D.C. 20006 Telephone: (202) 499-4232 reed.rubinstein@causeofaction.org Attorney for Plaintiffs

===
nicholas-barry-65991229

I am currently an Attorney working at America First Legal litigating cases across the country. Previously I was an attorney at Leader Law litigating cases throughout the State of Tennessee. Before that I was an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Tennessee in the Healthcare division; I worked as an associate at Stites & Harbison in Nashville; and I was a Judicial Law Clerk in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky for the Honorable William O. Bertelsman.

Experience

AttorneyAttorney

America First Legal · Full-timeAmerica First Legal · Full-timeFeb 2022 - Present · 2 yrs 5 mosFeb 2022 to Present · 2 yrs 5 mosNashville, TNNashville, TN

AttorneyAttorney

Leader Law, PLLC · Full-timeLeader Law, PLLC · Full-timeDec 2019 - Jan 2022 · 2 yrs 2 mosDec 2019 to Jan 2022 · 2 yrs 2 mosNashville, Tennessee, United StatesNashville, Tennessee, United States

- Litigated complex medical malpractice cases throughout Tennessee. I sat second chair on two two-week jury trials in complex medical malpractice cases. I litigated a variety of cases on behalf of plaintiffs who suffered catastrophic injuries, including medical negligence, product liability, premises liability, and similar claims.Litigated complex medical malpractice cases throughout Tennessee. I sat second chair on two two-week jury trials in complex medical malpractice cases. I litigated a variety of cases on behalf of plaintiffs who suffered catastrophic injuries, including medical negligence, product liability, premises liability, and similar claims.…see more

Assistant Attorney GeneralAssistant Attorney General

Tennessee Attorney General's Office · Full-timeTennessee Attorney General's Office · Full-timeDec 2017 - Dec 2019 · 2 yrs 1 moDec 2017 to Dec 2019 · 2 yrs 1 moNashville, TNNashville, TN

- I worked in the Health Care Division for the Office. I primarily represented the Division of TennCare (Tennessee’s Medicaid program) in litigation. For example, in claims involving alleged violations of the ADA integration mandate, 504 Rehabilitation Act, as well as claims that various State Plan Amendments and State Rules are invalid. I also represented the Department of Health in litigation, to include the various Boards of Health. I also managed discovery and subpoena document production.I worked in the Health Care Division for the Office. I primarily represented the Division of TennCare (Tennessee’s Medicaid program) in litigation. For example, in claims involving alleged violations of the ADA integration mandate, 504 Rehabilitation Act, as well as claims that various State Plan Amendments and State Rules are invalid. I also represented the Department of Health in litigation, to include the various Boards of Health. I also managed discovery and subpoena document production.…see more

AttorneyAttorney

Stites & HarbisonStites & HarbisonSep 2014 - May 2017 · 2 yrs 9 mosSep 2014 to May 2017 · 2 yrs 9 mosNashville, TennesseeNashville, Tennessee

- Drafted, edited, and argued all types of litigation motions, to include, discovery motions, dispositive motions, pre-trial motions, and post-trial motions. Defended and took depositions. Litigated a variety of business litigation cases, to include: RESPA, TILA, FDCPA, and TCPA claims; UCC issues from the sale of goods to secured transactions; business torts; check kiting; warranty issues; bad-faith claims; and claims to enforce arbitration clauses. Drafted, edited, and argued creditor-oriented bankruptcy motions, to include, requests for relief from stay, objections to bankruptcy plans, and defense of creditors’ claims. Managed chapter 13 contested matters and adversary proceedings. Negotiated and drafted settlement agreements, forbearance agreements, reaffirmations, guaranties, and other workout documents. Drafted, edited, and argued all types of litigation motions, to include, discovery motions, dispositive motions, pre-trial motions, and post-trial motions. Defended and took depositions. Litigated a variety of business litigation cases, to include: RESPA, TILA, FDCPA, and TCPA claims; UCC issues from the sale of goods to secured transactions; business torts; check kiting; warranty issues; bad-faith claims; and claims to enforce arbitration clauses. Drafted, edited, and argued creditor-oriented bankruptcy motions, to include, requests for relief from stay, objections to bankruptcy plans, and defense of creditors’ claims. Managed chapter 13 contested matters and adversary proceedings. Negotiated and drafted settlement agreements, forbearance agreements, reaffirmations, guaranties, and other workout documents. …see more
Judicial Law ClerkJudicial Law Clerk

United States District Court for the Eastern District of KentuckyUnited States District Court for the Eastern District of KentuckyAug 2013 - Aug 2014 · 1 yr 1 moAug 2013 to Aug 2014 · 1 yr 1 moCovington, KYCovington, KY

- Judge Bertelsman is a Senior District Court Judge and his docket consists of all civil litigation. He also sits by designation on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Responsibilities included: drafting and editing mem...

scrape

Matthew WhitakerMatthew Whitaker

· 3rdThird degree ion

Former Acting Attorney General of the United StatesFormer Acting Attorney General of the United States

Juli Haller profile picture

Juli HallerJuli Haller

· 3rdThird degree ion

Litigator. It was an honor to serve in the Trump Administration, which I left in late 2020.Litigator. It was an honor to serve in the Trump Administration, which I left in late 2020.

Ian PriorIan Prior

· 3rdThird degree ion

Senior Advisor for America First LegalSenior Advisor for America First Legal

Experience

Senior AdvisorSenior Advisor

America First Legal · Full-timeAmerica First Legal · Full-timeFeb 2022 - Present · 2 yrs 5 mosFeb 2022 to Present · 2 yrs 5 mos

Executive DirectorExecutive Director

Fight for Schools · Self-employedFight for Schools · Self-employedApr 2021 - Present · 3 yrs 3 mosApr 2021 to Present · 3 yrs 3 mos

Chief Executive OfficerChief Executive Officer

Headwaters MediaHeadwaters MediaSep 2019 - Present · 4 yrs 10 mosSep 2019 to Present · 4 yrs 10 mos

Vice PresidentVice President

Mercury · Full-timeMercury · Full-timeJul 2018 - Sep 2019 · 1 yr 3 mosJul 2018 to Sep 2019 · 1 yr 3 mosWashington, District of Columbia, United StatesWashington, District of Columbia, United States

Principal Deputy Director of Public AffairsPrincipal Deputy Director of Public Affairs

U.S. Department of JusticeU.S. Department of JusticeMar 2017 - Jul 2018 · 1 yr 5 mosMar 2017 to Jul 2018 · 1 yr 5 mosWashington D.C. Metro Area

===

Brandy Patrick profile picture

Brandy PatrickBrandy Patrick

· 3rdThird degree ion

Records Division President at LexitasRecords Division President at Lexitas

View profile

Andrew Block profile picture

Andrew BlockAndrew Block

· 3rdThird degree ion

AttorneyAttorney

View profile

John Z. profile picture

John Z.John Z.

· 3rdThird degree ion

Director, Center for Homeland Security and Immigration, America First Policy InstituteDirector, Center for Homeland Security and Immigration, America First Policy Institute

View profile

Ken Flood profile picture

Ken FloodKen Flood

· 3rdThird degree ion

Experienced Corporate AttorneyExperienced Corporate Attorney

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Reed D. Rubinstein profile picture

Reed D. RubinsteinReed D. Rubinstein

· 3rdThird degree ion

Senior Vice President, America First Legal FoundationSenior Vice President, America First Legal Foundation

View profile

Charles J. U.Charles J. U.

· 3rd+Out of network ion

Public School Teacher Turned LawyerPublic School Teacher Turned Lawyer

Message

Daniel Epstein, J.D., Ph.D. profile picture

Daniel Epstein, J.D., Ph.D.Daniel Epstein, J.D., Ph.D.

· 3rdThird degree ion

Regulatory Law and Policy Regulatory Law and Policy

Jacob M. profile picture

Jacob M.Jacob M.

· 3rdThird degree ion

Attorney at America First LegalAttorney at America First Legal

View profile

James R. profile picture

James R.James R.

· 3rdThird degree ion

Senior Counsel, America First LegalSenior Counsel, America First Legal

View profile

Michael D. profile picture

Michael D.Michael D.

· 3rdThird degree ion

View profile

Jase Panebianco profile picture

Jase PanebiancoJase Panebianco

· 3rdThird degree ion

Associate Attorney at AFPIAssociate Attorney at AFPI

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Madison Brown profile picture

Madison BrownMadison Brown

· 3rdThird degree ion

J.D. Candidate at the American Washington College of Law | Federalist Society PresidentJ.D. Candidate at the American Washington College of Law | Federalist Society President

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Tyler Fry profile picture

Tyler FryTyler Fry

· 3rd+Out of network ion

Attorney | U.S. Army VeteranAttorney | U.S. Army Veteran

Jake BachandJake Bachand

· 3rdThird degree ion

Staffer at U.S. House of RepresentativesStaffer at U.S. House of Representatives

View profile

Venetia R. profile picture

Venetia R.Venetia R.--

Kaitlan GossageKaitlan Gossage

· 3rdThird degree ion

Associate Director of OperationsAssociate Director of Operations

View profile

Will Scolinos profile picture

Will ScolinosWill Scolinos

· 3rdThird degree ion

Counsel - House of RepresentativesCounsel - House of Representatives

View profile

===

NO LAST NAME?

# James R.

3rd degree connection3rd

Senior Counsel, America First Legal

America First Legal

Harvard Law School

Phoenix, Arizona, United States Contact info

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ExperienceExperience

Senior CounselSenior Counsel

America First Legal · Full-timeAmerica First Legal · Full-timeMar 2023 - Present · 1 yr 4 mosMar 2023 to Present · 1 yr 4 mos

Assistant Solicitor GeneralAssistant Solicitor General

Utah Attorney General's Office · Full-timeUtah Attorney General's Office · Full-timeJan 2023 - Feb 2023 · 2 mosJan 2023 to Feb 2023 · 2 mosRemoteRemote

- Drafted criminal appeals briefs and comment letters to federal government.Drafted criminal appeals briefs and comment letters to federal government.

Senior Litigation Counsel, Solicitor General's OfficeSenior Litigation Counsel, Solicitor General's Office

Arizona Attorney General's Office · Full-timeArizona Attorney General's Office · Full-timeJul 2021 - Dec 2022 · 1 yr 6 mosJul 2021 to Dec 2022 · 1 yr 6 mos

- Spearhead major national litigation against federal government, including challenges to: cancellation of Title 42 order; regulations weakening asylum process; en masse parole and non-detention of illegal aliens; and federal COVID-19 vaccine mandates (first State lawsuit to do so). Represent State of Arizona at oral arguments and status conferences. Research and draft Attorney General Opinions. Conduct high-quality research, complex analysis, and concise writing on tight deadlines.
- Spearhead major national litigation against federal government, including challenges to: cancellation of Title 42 order; regulations weakening asylum process; en masse parole and non-detention of illegal aliens; and federal COVID-19 vaccine mandates (first State lawsuit to do so). Represent State of Arizona at oral arguments and status conferences. Research and draft Attorney General Opinions. Conduct high-quality research, complex analysis, and concise writing on tight deadlines.…see more
  - - **Legal Research, Civil Litigation and +7 skills**

U.S. Department of StateU.S. Department of State Full-time · 6 yrs 5 mosFull-time · 6 yrs 5 mosOn-siteOn-site

Foreign Service Officer, Advisory Opinions & Litigation Team, Office of the Assistant Legal AdviserForeign Service Officer, Advisory Opinions & Litigation Team, Office of the Assistant Legal Adviser Jul 2019 - Jul 2021 · 2 yrs 1 moJul 2019 to Jul 2021 · 2 yrs 1 moWashington D.C. Metro AreaWashington D.C. Metro Area

- Legal research and writing on all aspects of Immigration and Nationality Act and related Presidential Proclamations, including on major suits against Department; draft binding legal advisory opinions for overseas posts; research and evaluate applicability of state and international criminal statutes to alien visa eligibility. Liaise with DOJ attorneys representing Department of State in federal court, including assistance in researching and drafting legal briefs.Legal research and writing on all aspects of Immigration and Nationality Act and related Presidential Proclamations, including on major suits against Department; draft binding legal advisory opinions for overseas posts; research and evaluate applicability of state and international criminal statutes to alien visa eligibility. Liaise with DOJ attorneys representing Department of State in federal court, including assistance in researching and drafting legal briefs.…see more
  - - - **Legal Research, Federal Court Litigation and +5 skills**
- Foreign Service Officer, Consular OfficerForeign Service Officer, Consular Officer Jul 2017 - Jul 2019 · 2 yrs 1 moJul 2017 to Jul 2019 · 2 yrs 1 moPorto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, BrazilPorto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

- Conduct nearly 25,000 visa interviews; Fraud Prevention Manager and American Citizen Services Deputy Chief, managing 3 local staff. Conduct public diplomacy presentations in Brazilian Portuguese to large audiences of Brazilians,

High-level oral and written fluency in Brazilian Portuguese (State Department-tested 4+/4).Conduct nearly 25,000 visa interviews; Fraud Prevention Manager and American Citizen Services Deputy Chief, managing 3 local staff. Conduct public diplomacy presentations in Brazilian Portuguese to large audiences of Brazilians, High-level oral and written fluency in Brazilian Portuguese (State Department-tested 4+/4).…see more

- - - - **Investigation, Public Diplomacy and +6 skills**
- Foreign Service Officer, Political OfficerForeign Service Officer, Political Officer Jul 2015 - Jul 2017 · 2 yrs 1 moJul 2015 to Jul 2017 · 2 yrs 1 moWindhoek, Khomas, NamibiaWindhoek, Khomas, Namibia

- Cultivate local contacts to gather information and promote U.S. interests. Draft concise reporting cables to inform policymakers. Draft and update Namibia section of Department of State's Human Rights Report. Liaise with

===

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LANGLEY & PARKS, LLC

By: /s/ Julianna P. Parks

Julianna P. Parks, Bar Roll No. 30658

4444 Viking Drive, Suite100

Bossier City, Louisiana 71111

(318) 383-6422 Telephone

(318) 383-6405 Telefax

jparks@langleyparks.com

...for the rights of Plaintiffs and Class members. Defendants’ conduct was malicious, oppressive, and done in reckless disregard of Plaintiffs’ and Class members’ rights.

CLAIMS FOR RELIEF COUNT ONE – Civil Rights Conspiracy Under 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3) Against All Defendants 388. 1 OF 4?

The foregoing Paragraphs are incorporated by reference as if set forth fully herein. 389. Section 1985(3) of Title 42, United States Code, provides: If two or more persons in any State or Territory conspire … for the purpose of depriving, either directly or indirectly, any person or class of persons of the equal protection of the laws, or of equal privileges and immunities under the laws; or for the purpose of preventing or hindering the constituted authorities of any State or Territory from giving or securing to all persons within such State or Territory the equal protection of the laws … in any case of conspiracy set forth in this section, if one or more persons engaged therein do, or cause to be done, any act in furtherance of the object of such conspiracy, whereby another is injured in his person or property, or deprived of having and exercising any right or privilege of a citizen of the United States, the party so injured or deprived may have an action for the recovery of damages occasioned by such injury or deprivation, against any one or more of the conspirators.

...

P 87 RELIEF

...

Speech on social media on the basis of viewpoint and discriminatory animus.

Defendants’ conduct is the cause-in-fact, legal cause, but-for cause, and proximate

cause of Plaintiffs’ and Class members’ loss of the rights and freedoms and other injuries and

damages alleged herein.

As a result of Defendants’ conduct, Plaintiffs and Class members have suffered and

continue to suffer injuries and losses including loss of fundamental rights and freedoms, economic

injuries, loss of economic opportunities, and non-economic injuries, among others.

Defendants intentionally harmed and continue to harm Plaintiffs and Class

members without just cause and acted with a deliberate, egregious, and flagrant disregard for the

rights of Plaintiffs and Class members. Defendants’ conduct is malicious, oppressive, and done in

reckless disregard of Plaintiffs’ and Class members’ clearly established rights.

PRAYER FOR RELIEF

WHEREFORE, Plaintiffs, on their own behalf and on behalf of those similarly situated,

respectfully pray that this Court grant them the following relief:

A. Certify the case for class-wide adjudication under Rules 23(a), 23(b)(2), and

23(b)(3) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure;

B. Declare, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 2201, 2202, that Defendants’ conduct violates

the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States, 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3), 42 U.S.C. § 1983,

common-law doctrines of tortious interference and breach of duty, and other applicable laws;

C. Preliminarily and permanently enjoin Defendants, their officers, officials, agents,

servants, employees, attorneys, and all persons acting in concert or participation with them, from

continuing to engage in the ongoing unlawful conduct alleged in this Complaint;

D. Preliminarily and permanently enjoin Defendants, their officers, officials, agents,

servants, employees, attorneys, and all persons acting in concert or participation with them, from

taking any steps to procure the censorship of any speech or content on social media by Plaintiffs,

Class members, or any speaker they listen to or follow on social media;

E. Award Plaintiffs and Class members nominal damages for each and every speaker,

item, act of social-media content, post, tweet, engagement, comment, liking, reposting, and/or any

other act of expression on online or social media that was or would have been made or viewed by

any Plaintiff and/or Class member but was or is suppressed or censored in any way in violation of

Plaintiffs’ and Class members’ rights as a result of Defendants’ unlawful conduct;

F. Award compensatory damages appropriate to compensate Plaintiffs’ and Class

members’ monetary losses incurred as a result of Defendants’ unlawful conduct;

G. Award compensatory damages appropriate to compensate Plaintiffs’ and Class

members’ non-economic injuries sustained as a result of Defendants’ unlawful conduct;

H. Award punitive damages appropriate to punish and deter similar unlawful conduct

by Defendants and others that are commensurate to the egregious, intentional, widespread, and

systematic civil-rights violations and tortious conduct perpetrated by Defendants;

I. Award Plaintiffs and Class members reasonable attorneys’ fees, costs, and expenses

under 42 U.S.C. § 1988 and other applicable fee-shifting provisions; and

J. Grant such other and further relief as the Court deems just and proper.

===

mma 5 24

May 22, 2024, edition of Newsmax's *Eric Bolling: The Balance

ERIC BOLLING: I have to bring some of these things up. You're so right about all these things. License to kill - now, mind you, Mar-a-Lago is a secure location. It has U.S. Secret Service all over the place all the time. Those documents weren't gonna get stolen or mutilated during a raid.

License to shoot and kill — there were innocent people standing around Mar-a-Lago. People staying there, friends, guests. What happens if Donald Trump is there and sees someone — an FBI agent roughing up Barron Trump or Melania Trump in their — in her closet, which we know they went through, and decides to push back? Is there gonna be a gunfight at Mar-a-Lago because the FBI and the Secret Service are going to get into it? I'd also like to point out that picture we showed a couple of times with the classified documents that FBI gave us was fake, staged. Those aren't the documents they found. The documents they found that were classified, didn't have those markings on it.

That is a picture the FBI put together to make it look worse than it was. I can't even begin to tell you how angry I am at what's going on because they can do — Stephen, the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was put in place for this and they're showing us that they are a tyrannical government that we need to be armed to protect ourselves from. Am I wrong?

Media Matters' Matt Gertz previously discussed the MAGA claims regarding FBI guidelines on use of force at Mar-a-Lago:

Over a handful of hours on Tuesday, the right’s conspiracy theory ecosystem concocted a sinister plot by President Joe Biden to assassinate his predecessor out of the banal fact that FBI agents received standard instructions on the use of force before conducting a court-ordered search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in 2022.

Hundreds of pages of filings were unsealed on Tuesday in Trump’s classified documents case, revealing that the former president — who is charged with 40 federal criminal counts related to his alleged willful retention of documents after leaving the White House — had multiple documents marked “classified” in his bedroom that were discovered months after the 2022 search.

Credible outlets reviewed the documents and produced a wave of news stories detailing what a judge described as “strong evidence” of Trump’s allegedly criminal acts. Meanwhile, Trump’s MAGA media supporters ginned up a counternarrative based on a credulous reading of a deceptive argument from Trump’s lawyers that was included in the unsealed documents.

A Fox News reporter has since noted that the same “standard” use of force policy was in place when FBI agents visited the home of President Joe Biden.

Regarding Bolling's claim that the photo at Mar-a-Lago was staged, The New York Times reported in 2022:

On Wednesday, Mr. Trump took to his social media site to say that “the F.B.I., during the raid of Mar-a-Lago, threw documents haphazardly all over the floor (perhaps pretending that it was me that did it!), and then started taking pictures of them for the public to see.”

But the genesis of the photograph appears to be in keeping with standard protocols for how federal agents handle evidence they come across in a search.

The folders were arrayed by agents at Mar-a-Lago after being removed from what the filing indicated was Mr. Trump’s office — they were not discovered scattered on the floor, according to two federal law enforcement officials.

The Justice Department would not comment on the specifics of the photograph. But it is standard practice for the F.B.I. to take evidentiary pictures of materials recovered in a search to ensure that items are properly cataloged and accounted for.

AGREES W ALL BS

stepHen miller lawless regime that’s in power

host go after joe sixpACK...

===

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BRADLEY DAF Dark money

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an 4 24

as Donald Trump begins his first criminal trial this week, while facing three other indictments and 88 felony counts, several far-right groups are working tirelessly to ensure MAGA lives on no matter what comes of the ex-president's legal troubles, according to a Tuesday, April 16 report published by The Guardian.

Two of the MAGA hopeful's allies — America First Legal Foundation founder Stephen Miller, and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk — were the beneficiaries of "six- and seven-figure checks" from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation and the Bradley Impact Fund's in 2022, as well as "other Trump-friendly bastions such as the Heritage Foundation and Michael Flynn’s America’s Future," the news outlet reports

"The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation and Bradley Impact Fund have emerged as major forces in Maga circles," Michael Beckel, of the bipartisan political reform organization Issue One told the news outlet.

READ MORE:[Journalist exposes how 'mastermind' Trump adviser Stephen Miller was 'radicalized'

Furthermore, The Guardian reports the nonprofit pair "poured about $165m into dozens of groups including quite a few Trump-allied thinktanks, legal outfits and other advocacy outfits."

Beckel noted, however, "Donor-advised funds like the Bradley Impact Fund allow mega-donors to support organizations while keeping their names out of the spotlight."

The Issue One research director emphasized The Bradley Impact Fund, offers "wealthy mega-donors additional anonymity and help keep donors’ names out of the limelight, even as these individuals contribute large sums to influence elections and policy debates."

Referring to the Bradley Foundation, Lisa Graves, the executive director of the progressive watchdog group True North, said: “It has nearly $1bn in assets. Its board includes the multimillionaire Art Pope, whose personal ambition is to change the political landscape of North Carolina and more to suit his regressive agenda. Mitchell has been playing a significant role in efforts to make it harder for Americans to vote, and harder for Americans to have fair representation through fair maps.”

READ MORE:[Trump ally’s stunning request: 'If this election doesn’t go our way the next day we fight'

She emphasized, "These are substantial investments that are furthering extremists at the forefront of Trump’s agenda."

*The Guardian's full report is available here

guk

Two powerful conservative non-profits have donated millions of dollars to a number of pro-Trump groups led by the key far-right allies Stephen Miller, Charlie Kirk and others that have promoted election denialism, extremist anti-immigrant policies and legal challenges to bolster the Maga movement.

Based in Wisconsin, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation and the Bradley Impact Fund in 2022 separately doled out six- and seven-figure checks to groups such as Miller’s America First Legal and Kirk’s Turning Point USA, and other Trump-friendly bastions such as the Heritage Foundation and Michael Flynn’s America’s Future.

Watchdog groups that track money in politics say the Bradley Foundation and the closely tied Bradley Impact Fund have become increasingly influential in funding the Maga ecosystem in recent years as Trump is all but certain to be the Republican 2024 presidential nominee.

“The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation and Bradley Impact Fund have emerged as major forces in Maga circles,” said Michael Beckel, the research director for Issue One, a bipartisan political reform group.

The biggest checks in 2022 were written to Trump-allied groups by the dark-money Bradley Impact Fund: America First Legal received about $27.1m, Turning Point USA roped in close to $8m, and the Conservative Partnership Institute pulled in $712,310. America’s Future also received $500,000.

Meanwhile, the Bradley Foundation ponied up $425,000 to the Heritage Foundation, which has worked with many other pro-Trump groups to assemble a 1,000-page plan for a new Trump presidency with an authoritarian agenda to expand executive-branch powers and curb key agencies such as the US justice department.

The Bradley Foundation in 2022 also doled out $750,000 to the pro-Maga FreedomWorks Foundation and $2.9m to the Bradley Impact Fund.

While the larger and older Bradley Foundation launched in 1942 and has almost $1bn in assets, the newer and smaller Bradley Impact Fund has grown fast and handed out especially large sums to far-right groups close to Trump.

The Impact Fund, which was started in 2012 and shares at least two board members with the foundation, has witnessed explosive growth in recent years, with revenues from undisclosed donors hitting $108m in 2022 versus just $7m in 2017, according to tax records.

By contrast, the Bradley Foundation doled out $56.6m in 2022.

The Bradley foundation’s board includes the well-known rightwinger Art Pope, a North Carolina multimillionaire who used to chair its board and is also a director of the Bradley Impact Fund. Pope has deep ties to other conservative bastions such as the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity, where he has been a board member too.

The board of the Bradley Foundation also boasts the rightwing lawyer and Trump ally Cleta Mitchell, a senior legal fellow at the Conservative Partnership Institute.

Mitchell founded CPI’s self-styled “election integrity network” in 2021 after participating with Trump on his 2 January call to the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, who Trump beseeched to “find” 11,780 votes to help overturn Joe Biden’s win in the state.

Mitchell has been a driving force in mobilizing other Trump-allied election denialist groups to expand poll-watching and other measures to guard against potential voting fraud, while she has continued to promote bogus claims of election fraud in 2020.

Serendipitously, the rightwing Public Interest Legal Foundation that Mitchell chairs received $750,000 from the two Bradley non-profits combined, according to the liberal-leaning Center for Media and Democracy, which tracks money in politics.

Although not as well-known as the sprawling network of conservative groups funded by the oil and gas billionaire Charles Koch, experts say the two Bradley non-profits have become instrumental in funding major political players on the right.

“Through their extensive grant-making, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation and Bradley Impact Fund are shaping politics and policymaking in ways that will be felt for years to come,” said Beckel.

Other experts who follow influential donors on the right, including the two Bradley non-profits, agree that their hefty donations are supporting major players and groups backing Trump.

“These are substantial investments that are furthering extremists at the forefront of Trump’s agenda,” said Lisa Graves, the executive director of the progressive watchdog group True North.

Speaking about the older Bradley Foundation, Graves said: “It has nearly $1bn in assets. Its board includes the multimillionaire Art Pope, whose personal ambition is to change the political landscape of North Carolina and more to suit his regressive agenda.”

She added: “Mitchell has been playing a significant role in efforts to make it harder for Americans to vote, and harder for Americans to have fair representation through fair maps.”

The Bradley Foundation board boasts other big-name conservative lawyers too, including Paul Clement, a former US solicitor general who has done substantial legal work for pro-gun interests, and Eugene Scalia, a secretary of labor during the Trump administration and the son of the late supreme court justice Antonin Scalia.

In total, the two Bradley non-profits in 2022 poured about $165m into dozens of groups including quite a few Trump-allied thinktanks, legal outfits and other advocacy outfits.

Other rightwing recipients who received checks from both Bradley non-profits include the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, which pulled in a total of $1.1m, and the National Center for Public Policy Research, which received just over $1m.

Similarly, the two Bradley non-profits gave a total of $700,000 to Flynn’s America’s Future, almost $530,000 to the Heritage Foundation, and $510,050 to the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.

In the case of Flynn’s America’s Future, the Bradley non-profits were crucial to sustaining its operations in 2022, according to tax records. America’s Future only raised about $1.1m in 2022.

Flynn, who briefly served as Trump’s national security adviser and who Trump pardoned in late 2020 after he was convicted of lying to the FBI about contacts he had with the Russian ambassador in 2016, was a key pusher of false claims the 2020 election was rigged. He is now urging a “guard the vote” drive against potential fraud, a ploy Trump has touted too.

The rapid growth of the Bradley Impact Fund, which bills itself as a “donor-advised fund” and keeps donor names secret, underscores how many big conservative check-writers want to hide their identities, say experts.

“Donor-advised funds like the Bradley Impact Fund allow mega-donors to support organizations while keeping their names out of the spotlight,” said Beckel.

The Bradley Impact Fund, he said, gives “wealthy mega-donors additional anonymity and help keep donors’ names out of the limelight, even as these individuals contribute large sums to influence elections and policy debates”.

More broadly, Graves said: “Though the two Bradley non-profits are not as well known as Koch’s non-profit empire or Leonard Leo’s money operation to capture key levers of power, they have become increasingly important to the growth of the Maga ecosystem.”

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3 24 AN

Three attorneys who participated in former President Donald Trump's plot to overturn the results of the 2020 election are now facing disciplinary charges by the Washington, DC bar that could result in them permanently losing their ability to practice law in the nation's capital.

According to a Friday report in Politico, lawyers Judi Haller, Brandon Johnson and Lawrence Joseph are all now accused of making statements to the court that they knew to be false in filing election challenges on Trump's behalf, and could ultimately be disbarred over their actions. Haller and Johnson worked alongside fellow Trump lawyer Sidney Powell (one of the former president's co-defendants in the Fulton County RICO trial who has since pleaded guilty) on her post-election lawsuits in swing states that then-candidate Joe Biden narrowly won in 2020.

Meanwhile, Lawrence Joseph is being investigated for a suit he helped Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) file against then-Vice President Mike Pence for pressuring him to declare Trump the winner of the 2020 election while presiding over the US Senate's certification of Electoral College votes. That suit was ultimately thrown out by an appeals court panel after being denied by a federal district judge.

Politico additionally reported that following her work with Sidney Powell, Judi Haller went on to defend several participants in the January 6 insurrection, including Kelly Meggs — a member of the far-right Oath Keepers militia in Florida who was eventually sentenced to 12 years in prison for seditious conspiracy. Haller now works at America First Legal, which is led by former Trump adviser (and outed white nationalist) Stephen Miller.

Haller, Johnson and Joseph are merely the latest Trump-affiliated attorneys at risk of losing their law licenses. Former Trump attorney John Eastman – who authored the infamous "Eastman Memo" that laid out the strategy for Pence to hand the election to Trump — just completed a lengthy disciplinary hearing in California, where a final decision is expected by late February.

Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani had his law license stripped as a result of his efforts to subvert the election. And former assistant attorney general Jeffrey Clark is in the midst of his own disbarment proceedings, where Trump has threatened to invoke executive privilege and trigger what could be months of litigation. Both Giuliani and Clark are also defending themselves against felony charges in Fulton County.

A DC bar committee will conduct an initial hearing into the charges against Haller, Johnson and Joseph, and could recommend a range of penalties, including suspension and disbarment.

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anti-commie teachers new? trans? no xian?

rww 2 24

Former Trump aide Stephen Miller told the MAGA activists gathered near Washington, D.C. last week for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference that conservatives must be willing to use power more aggressively against their opponents. He railed against district attorneys and other officials for not arresting teachers who violate new state laws that restrict teaching on race, gender, and sexuality.

Miller, an architect of the Trump administration’s anti-immigration policies, has been promising MAGA activists that if Trump returns to the White House, he “will unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most spectacular migration crackdown.” Miller’s America First Legal group is part of the far-right Project 2025, which has prepared a battle plan for the movement to “take the reins of government” in a new Trump administration. The Heritage Foundation, ringleader of the Project 2025 scheme, was at CPAC recruiting foot soldiers willing to carry out the plan.

In a recent article for Political Research Associates’ “The Public Eye” magazine, I noted that Project 2025 reflected a “movement-level, ideological shift away from a libertarian mistrust of government power and toward an authoritarian view of government power being used ruthlessly—whether as a righteous force wielded to advance a ‘biblical worldview’ or turned against an ‘administrative state’ supposedly captured by a radical Marxist left.”

Miller provided ample confirmation about the MAGA movement’s intentions, down to his dismissal of libertarianism as “a terrible ideology” that might be fine for academic debates but not in the real world, where he said public officials have a responsibility to “defeat evil.”

Excerpts from Miller’s appearance on a Friday, Feb. 23 CPAC panel:

Call it a mental illness, call it a spiritual failing, call it a moral deficiency, call it weakness, softness, or just being pathetic. There is something really broken in the conservative brain. They’re afraid not only of conflict, we know that. But there’s an even deeper fear, a deeper fear than all that, which is having power, and using power. Conservatives are addicted to the language of libertarianism, which is fine–you know, it’s a terrible ideology, but in an academic setting, okay, have these debates. …

You elect a state supreme court justice, you elect an Attorney General, and so on and so forth, to have an office with specific powers, duties, and responsibilities, with the expectation that they will use that authority to defeat evil, to protect the good, and to accomplish positive change in society. And you have to use that power fearlessly. …

A number of states, for example, have passed laws, saying that you can’t have this in the curriculum, or you can’t have that in the curriculum, and you can’t teach DEI and so on and so forth. Without exception, I can promise you, all the commies in the classroom changed the name of their lecture, changed one word, changed one little paragraph in the syllabus and did the exact same damn thing every single day because they’re communists and that’s what they do. Were they sued? No! Were they arrested if they broke a law and it’s applicable? No! Did any D.A. anywhere, if you’re talking about trans issues, think of arresting somebody for abusing children with trans ideology? No, we write blog posts about it. That’s what we do. So until we get serious, all the way down to the local DA, all the way up to the state A/G. and every office in between, including judges, electing people who have power and will use that power and measure their success by change in the real world, then we aren’t going to be able to beat the left.

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'Mass deport illegals': Stephen Miller says he knows why Johnson opposes bipartisan bills - Alternet.org

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really racist ads 2022 midterms

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mma 2 24

MIKE DAVIS (PANELIST): We have to be smart how we fight back against the left. And right now, there is a bill working its way through the Florida legislature. It's well-intentioned. It allows — it makes it easier to sue media companies for defamation. Right? But the problem is — it sounds great. I'm all about suing CNN and the Washington Post and all the other media outlets that attack us on a daily basis. The problem is the left has more trial lawyers. They have more money. They're better at lawfare than we are right now, and they're gonna use this law in Florida to go after conservative media, Christian broadcasters, independent Hispanic media outlets who aren't leftist. That's the problem. And I want to get — let's start with Stephen Miller on this because you've been pretty vocal on this. What's your response to this Florida bill? How can we be smarter about how we fight back?

...

STEPHEN MILLER (PANELIST): We all want to go after the big corporate media, but you have to write laws to actually go after the enemy. Big broad neutral laws will be used to crush us. It will be used to obliterate us. Look at what New York did when they went after Donald Trump. They changed the law, which is unconstitutional by the way, to go after one man. To go after one man. If you just have a law change in Florida that says it's way easier to punish people for defamation, end of law, what the hell do you think is gonna happen? Every left-wing trial lawyer in the country is going to move to Florida and sue the hell out of every conservative influencer, podcaster, and everybody else. Write the laws so it protects your friends and harms the bad guys, otherwise, you're handing them a sword to run right through you.

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At CPAC, Stephen Miller describes his plan to round up migrants into camps and deport them | Media Matters for America

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PFAW 2 24 YMAIL

Welcome to our weekly “Trumptastrophe” email series that serves to remind us all of the destructive policies, decisions, and actions we encountered during the Trump presidency and the threats that he and others in the MAGA movement still pose – and to keep those moments clear in our memory as we fight to defeat Republican extremists during the upcoming elections.

This week’s Trumptastrophe brings into focus how Trump and his MAGA Republican enablers sow doubt about our elections – especially for those that they lose – and how it undermines our election integrity while fueling right-wing outrage that can sometimes lead to violence:

On February 9, 2017, President Trump told a group of senators that he would have won New Hampshire in the 2016 presidential election if it weren’t for “thousands” of people he claimed were bused in from Massachusetts to vote illegally in the state. Trump offered no evidence to back up his claim.

A few days later, Trump adviser Stephen Miller was asked about the bogus claim by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on “This Week.” Pressed repeatedly by Stephanopoulos on the lack of evidence for Trump’s claim, Miller doubled down, saying it’s “widely known by anyone who’s worked in New Hampshire politics,” and declaring, “It’s very real; it’s very serious.” Miller went on to claim that there are “massive numbers of noncitizens in this country who are registered to vote.”

Miller’s amplifying of Trump’s false claims led Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire to respond on social media, “As everybody knows, Stephen Miller has no evidence of voter fraud in NH. This has been debunked.” She noted that Trump had not called for a recount in the state.

This wasn’t the first time since his inauguration that Trump made false claims about the election in which he lost the popular vote by about 2.9 million votes while winning an Electoral College majority. A few weeks earlier, he told congressional leaders that he only lost the popular vote because 3 million to 5 million immigrants had voted illegally, a claim the Associated Press noted at the time had previously been debunked....

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White House official sarcastically mocks Trump ally Stephen Miller as a puppy eater - Alternet.org

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trump-advisor-stephen-miller-and-foxs-jesse-watters-fantasize-about-mass-deportations

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Fox News guest Stephen Miller: "What we are witnessing is the engineered political transformation of the country" | Media Matters for America

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'Denying career advancement to white straight men': Stephen Miller’s law group targets Macy’s - Alternet.org

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ymail 11 23

stephen Miller, the notorious advisor to former president Donald Trump, suggested on X yesterday that a "conservative state Attorney[] General" should pursue civil and criminal charges against Media Matters. Miller claims that Media Matters committed "fraud" by reporting that X was displaying ads from major brands next to white nationalist and neo-Nazi posts. X has accused Media Matters of "completely misrepresent[ing] the real user experience on X." But, according to X's own statement, all Media Matters did was create an account, follow some users, and observe what ads were displayed.

Musk, a self-described "free speech absolutist," responded favorably to Miller's proposal to subject journalists to criminal prosecution, declaring it "interesting." But the idea that Media Matters' conduct is legally actionable is absurd, especially since X has already admitted that ads were displayed next to the posts identified by Media Matters.

Nevertheless, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey (R) took Miller up on his suggestion. "My team is looking into this matter," Bailey posted in response to Musk.

Bailey expanded on his investigation of Media Matters' reporting in an interview on Newsmax, a far-right cable channel:

The Missouri Attorney General's Office is tasked in statute with protecting Missouri consumers. That means consumers that participate on social media platforms as well. And so if we have an instance where there was a deceptive or fraudulent business practice where Media Matters was using some sort of coercive or fraudulent algorithms or advertising, that's going to be problematic on the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act.

It does not appear that Bailey gave this "investigation" much thought. Media Matters’ conduct did not involve "fraudulent algorithms" or "advertising." And the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act only applies to "the sale or advertisement of any merchandise in trade or commerce." Media Matters was not selling anything.

But Bailey's announcement should not come as a surprise. Bailey has never been elected by the people of Missouri. He was appointed to his position in January by Missouri Governor Mike Parson (R). Since then, Bailey has brazenly exceeded the legal authority of his office to grab headlines. Bailey is running for a full term in 2024 and is seeking to make sure he is not outflanked from the right in the Republican primary.

Bailey circumvents legislature, announces "emergency" rule on trans medical care

In March 2023, Bailey announced that he was unilaterally implementing emergency regulations that would impose severe restrictions on transgender hormone therapy for children and adults. What authority did Bailey cite to justify circumventing the legislature? The Missouri Merchandising Practices Act. Bailey's actions were condemned by Democrats and Republicans.

Bailey proposed requiring 15 hourly therapy sessions over 18 months before any person could receive hormone therapy. Doctors would also need to certify that "for at least the 3 most recent consecutive years, the patient has exhibited a medically documented, long-lasting, persistent and intense pattern of gender dysphoria" and "any existing mental health comorbidities of the patient have been treated and resolved." Further, doctors would need to have in place a system to monitor "all patients beginning the first day of intervention and continuing for a period of not fewer than 15 years."

Bailey claimed he had the authority to issue these rules — the first in the country limiting hormone therapy for adults — because "gender transition interventions are experimental and have significant side effects." But hormone therapy and other gender-affirming treatments are not experimental. They have existed for decades and are supported as medically necessary by the American Medical Association, the American College of Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychiatric Association.

Prominent Missouri Republicans harshly criticized Bailey's efforts. Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft (R) blasted Bailey for exceeding his authority. "If you're an adult, you have the capacity to make your own decisions," Ashcroft said. "I don't believe it's the role of [the] government to forbid it."

Trans advocates sued to block Bailey's rule, and it was temporarily blocked by a state judge. In May, the Missouri legislature then passed a bill banning gender-affirming care for minors. Shortly thereafter, facing increasing criticism from all sides, Bailey withdrew the rule.

Bailey claimed protecting reproductive rights in Missouri would cost taxpayers $50 billion

Reproductive rights supporters are seeking to put the Missouri Right to Reproductive Freedom Amendment on the state ballot in 2024. (Missouri banned most abortions after the Supreme Court overturned Roe). The amendment would enshrine "the right to make and carry out decisions about all matters relating to reproductive health care," including abortion, in the Missouri Constitution. Reasonable restrictions on abortions after "fetal viability" would be permitted.

Bailey's role in this matter is very limited. Before the organizers can collect signatures, Bailey must certify that "the proposed ballot language isn't more than 50 words, and that it includes the auditor's cost estimate." Missouri State Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick (R), an abortion opponent, estimated that the amendment would cost the state about $51,000 annually.

"Even though I would prefer to be able to say these initiative petitions will cost the state billions of dollars, I have a responsibility to the people of Missouri to not allow my personal beliefs to prevent the Auditor’s office from providing a fair cost estimate based on facts," Fitzpatrick said.

Bailey, however, refused to certify the amendment because he claimed the real cost was not $51,000, but over $50 billion. According to Bailey, if the state protected abortion rights, it would lose $12.5 billion in Medicaid funding. (This is not true.) Bailey also claimed that the amendment would "cost the state billions more in lost revenue because future taxpayers wouldn't be born." A state judge rejected both of those arguments.

Undeterred, Bailey then claimed the cost of another proposed constitutional amendment protecting reproductive rights was $21 million. Bailey said that, as an opponent of abortion rights, he could not in good conscience defend the amendment as Missouri's Attorney General. Therefore, he would have to hire outside counsel to do his job. Those lawyers, Bailey claimed, would cost $21 million annually. That figure was included in the descriptions of the amendment for voters drafted by Secretary of State Ashcroft.

Bailey's unprecedented effort to overturn a manslaughter conviction

Earlier this summer, Bailey asked a judge to throw out the conviction of a white police officer who killed a 26-year-old Black man outside his home in 2019. The former detective, Eric DeValkenaere, was found guilty of “second-degree manslaughter and armed criminal action” in the death of Cameron Lamb. DeValkenaere claimed that he fired his gun after Lamb pointed a gun at his partner, Troy Schwalm. But a judge rejected this defense, arguing that the officers “had no probable cause to believe [Lamb] had committed a crime, had no warrant for Lamb’s arrest and had no search warrant or consent to be on the property,” the AP reported. Prosecutors also claimed that the officers planted a gun on Lamb after the shooting.

Bailey, however, insists the conviction was based on insufficient evidence. “DeValkenaere’s use of force was reasonable in light of Mr. Lamb’s use of deadly force against Schwalm, and the court erred as a matter of fact and law in determining that Schwalm and DeValkenaere were the initial aggressors,” Bailey’s office argued.

But experts say that Bailey’s move is unusual. As the Kansas City Star wrote, the state’s Attorney General office “has historically fought to defend convictions.” Jean Peters Baker, the prosecutor whose office secured the conviction, called the reversal “unprecedented” and “disappointing.”

“I’ve been doing this work for 40 years. And I can just say, I’ve not been involved — in the scores and scores and scores of murder cases I’ve tried — where the attorney general came in and filed a brief seeking to reverse a conviction I obtained,” Tim Dollar, a private attorney who assisted with the prosecution, said.

In October, a three-judge panel rejected Bailey's position and "ruled unanimously that there had been enough evidence" for a conviction. DeValkenaere began serving his six-year sentence that month after spending two years free on bond while his appeal was pending.

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an 11 23

Staffers who worked for former President Donald Trump are reportedly now assembling a database of MAGA loyalists in preparation for an unprecedented purge of federal workers, should Trump win a second term in 2024.

According to a new Axios report, former Trump advisors Stephen Miller and Johnny McEntee are working alongside the Heritage Foundation — one of Washington, DC's most established conservative think tanks — to build "a pre-vetted, pro-Trump army" of approximately 54,000 people to quickly staff the federal government in key domestic policy roles. Axios cofounders Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen wrote that "social media histories are already being plumbed" to screen potential candidates.

"We're told immense, intense attention will be given to the social-media histories of anyone being considered for top jobs," VandeHei and Allen wrote. "Those queasy about testing the limits of Trump's power will get flagged and rejected."

VandeHei and Allen added that the undertaking involves "hundreds of people... spending tens of millions of dollars" in order to "rip off the restraints imposed on the previous 46 presidents."

The effort to pre-screen potential federal workers under a second Trump term is a key part of Project 2025, which Heritage has spearheaded in coordination with dozens of other conservative organizations. Under Project 2025, executive power under a Republican administration would be drastically expanded, and the typically apolitical federal civil service — what Trump calls "the deep state" — would be packed full of far-right apparatchiks with the goal of governing to achieve conservative political goals. Heritage President Kevin Roberts told Axios that Project 2025 is "orders of magnitude" bigger than any other transition plan assembled by a party out of power.

Earlier this year the New York Times reportedthat one of the first priorities of Project 2025 would be to re-enact Trump's "Schedule F" executive order, which was issued just two weeks before the 2020 election and that President Biden rescinded just days after his inauguration. While presidents are usually able to appoint roughly 4,000 people to various administrative roles throughout the federal government, Schedule F would have bulldozed various legal protections for federal workers that would allow a president to replace approximately 50,000 additional staff across all federal agencies. The Times noted that Project 2025's goal of screening potential new staffers has been assisted with AI provided by tech giant Oracle.

Trump has indicated that if elected to a second term, he would carry out various acts of vengeance, including weaponizing the Department of Justice against his political opponents. The Times reported over the weekend that Trump would also greatly expand immigration crackdowns, enabling the Department of Homeland Security to carry out large-scale raids, detain immigrants at industrial-size camps and deport millions of immigrants every year.

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Advancing American Freedom (AAF) today announced it filed an amicus brief before the United States Supreme Court in Loper Bright Enterprises et al v Gina Raimondo. In the brief, joined by Pelican Institute for Public Policy and America First Legal Foundation. amici argue that the case ofLoper v. Raimondo presents the opportunity for Chevron v NRDC to be overturned, which has long permitted the confusion of powers of the several branches of the Federal government.

“The Chevron Doctrine has too long been the cause of overreaching Federal regulations that have created financial hardships for Americans of all walks of life, and the case before us today will decide if a Federal agency can place bureaucrats on fishing boats and make the owners pay for it,” said J. Marc Wheat, General Counsel for Advancing American Freedom. “The courts have an opportunity to right this wrong and overrule this burdensome doctrine.”

The amicus brief asks the court to consider that Congressional silence is not tantamount to delegating its legislative powers, silence of the Legislative branch is not to be taken as ambiguous, but the Chevron doctrine has read this silence as permission for a fill-in-the-blank overreach of its limited powers.

The amici goes further, emphasizing that Congress alone has power of the purse and the Chevron doctrine, by allowing mischievous agencies to seek funds outside of the appropriations process, has exceeded its delegated powers, and the judicial powers of Article III must now be used to reign in the roving powers of unelected agencies taking powers the Constitution grants to Congress alone.

To view the amicus brief, click here.

Sarah Harbison (LSBA # 31948) James Baehr (LSBA #35431) Pelican Institutefor Public Policy 400 Poydras St. Suite 900 New Orleans, LA 70130 (504) 952-8016 sarah@pelicaninstitute.org Gene P. Hamilton Virginia Bar No. 80434 America First Legal Foundation 300 Independence Ave S.E. Washington, DC 20003 (202) 964-3721 gene.hamilton@aflegal.org December 15, 2022

MOTION OF ADVANCING AMERICAN FREEDOM FOR LEAVE TO FILE AMICI CURIAE BRIEF IN SUPPORT OF PETITIONERS

Pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 37.2(b), Advancing American Freedom respectfully moves for leave to file an amicus curiae brief in support of petitioners. The brief follows immediately after this motion. Petitioners have granted consent and have filed a blanket consent to the filing of amicus briefs. Respondent has declined to file a blanket consent to the filing of amicus briefs and has failed to respond to an email sent on December 13, 2022 seeking consent. Because respondent has failed to file a blanket consent nor responded to an email seeking consent, Advancing American Freedom presents this motion for leave of the Court to file the appended brief amicus curiae.

Advancing American Freedomis a nonprofit organization that promotes and defends policies that elevate traditional American values, including the uniquely American idea that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. American freedom has created the greatest and most prosperous country in the history of the world, and if future generations are going to enjoy those blessings, we must secure individual rights in our own time. The Pelican Institute is a nonpartisan research and educational organization—a think tank—and the leading voice for free markets in Louisiana. The Institute’s mission is to conduct research and analysis that advances sound policies based on free enterprise, individual liberty, and constitutionally limited government. ThePelican Institute routinely

challenges administrative overreach when it interferes with Louisianians’ right to earn a living. Notably, the Pelican Institute represented Louisiana business owner Brandon Trosclair in his challenge to the OSHA vaccine-or-test mandate. BST Holdings, L.L.C., et al. v. Occupational Safety & Health Administration, et al., 17 4th 604 (5th Cir. 2021).America First Legal Foundation (AFL) MILLER MOFO is a public interest law firm providing citizens with representation in cases of broad public importance to vindicate Americans’ constitutional and common law rights, protect their civil liberties, and advance the rule of law. AFL employs former high-ranking Department of Justice and Executive Branch lawyers who are intimately familiar with the government's use and abuse of the Chevron doctrine to unhinge the separation of powers. Thus, AFL has a strong interest in the question presented. This case is important to amici because it presents to this Court the opportunity to overrule Chevron v. NRDC, 467 U.S. 837 (1984), which for too long has permitted the confusion of powers of the several branches of the Federal government. The genius of the Constitution is its structure, dividing power against itself into three coequal branches and thereby protecting the liberties of its citizens fromLeviathan. The proposed amicus brief seeks to bring before the Court arguments informed by amicus’s experience in studying and briefing the issues presented. Movant believes that this brief will assist the Court in its consideration of the petition. The significant issues concerning the structural constitutional provisions

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no lnx $

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/17/us/politics/trump-plans-2025.html

Donald J. Trump intends to bring independent regulatory agencies under direct presidential control.

Trump and Allies Forge Plans to Increase Presidential Power in 2025

The former president and his backers aim to strengthen the power of the White House and limit the independence of federal agencies.

Jonathan Swan Charlie Savage Maggie Haberman

By Jonathan Swan, Charlie Savage and Maggie Haberman

Published July 17, 2023

Updated July 18, 2023

Donald J. Trump and his allies are planning a sweeping expansion of presidential power over the machinery of government if voters return him to the White House in 2025, reshaping the structure of the executive branch to concentrate far greater authority directly in his hands.

Their plans to centralize more power in the Oval Office stretch far beyond the former president’s recent remarks that he would order a criminal investigation into his political rival, President Biden, signaling his intent to end the post-Watergate norm of Justice Department independence from White House political control.

Mr. Trump and his associates have a broader goal: to alter the balance of power by increasing the president’s authority over every part of the federal government that now operates, by either law or tradition, with any measure of independence from political interference by the White House, according to a review of his campaign policy proposals and interviews with people close to him.

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Mr. Trump intends to bring independent agencies — like the Federal Communications Commission, which makes and enforces rules for television and internet companies, and the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces various antitrust and other consumer protection rules against businesses — under direct presidential control.

He wants to revive the practice of “impounding” funds, refusing to spend money Congress has appropriated for programs a president doesn’t like — a tactic that lawmakers banned under President Richard Nixon.

He intends to strip employment protections from tens of thousands of career civil servants, making it easier to replace them if they are deemed obstacles to his agenda. And he plans to scour the intelligence agencies, the State Department and the defense bureaucracies to remove officials he has vilified as “the sick political class that hates our country.”

“The president’s plan should be to fundamentally reorient the federal government in a way that hasn’t been done since F.D.R.’s New Deal,” said John McEntee, a former White House personnel chief who began Mr. Trump’s systematic attempt to sweep out officials deemed to be disloyal in 2020 and who is now involved in mapping out the new approach.

“Our current executive branch,” Mr. McEntee added, “was conceived of by liberals for the purpose of promulgating liberal policies. There is no way to make the existing structure function in a conservative manner. It’s not enough to get the personnel right. What’s necessary is a complete system overhaul.”

Mr. Trump and his advisers are making no secret of their intentions — proclaiming them in rallies and on his campaign website, describing them in white papers and openly discussing them.

“What we’re trying to do is identify the pockets of independence and seize them,” said Russell T. Vought, who ran the Office of Management and Budget in the Trump White House and now runs a policy organization, the Center for Renewing America.

The strategy in talking openly about such “paradigm-shifting ideas” before the election, Mr. Vought said, is to “plant a flag” — both to shift the debate and to later be able to claim a mandate. He said he was delighted to see few of Mr. Trump’s Republican primary rivals defend the norm of Justice Department independence after the former president openly attacked it.

A Divided Congress

[Under Scrutiny: A licensing agreement between Ford Motor and a major Chinese battery maker is facing questions by Republican lawmakers, who say the deal could make Ford reliant on a company with links to forced labor.

Air Travel: The House overwhelmingly passed bipartisan legislation to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration for the next half-decade, moving at a time of growing dysfunction and disruption in the system to make a number of changes that affect passengers.

Supreme Court Ethics Bill: The Senate Judiciary Committee approved legislation that would impose strict new ethics rules on the Supreme Court, moving over Republican objections to address revelations about justices receiving financial benefits from wealthy benefactors.

U.C. Berkeley: A House select committee is requesting more information about a partnership between the university and several Chinese entities that it said could help China gain access to cutting-edge research.]

Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump’s campaign, said in a statement that the former president has “laid out a bold and transparent agenda for his second term, something no other candidate has done.” He added, “Voters will know exactly how President Trump will supercharge the economy, bring down inflation, secure the border, protect communities and eradicate the deep state that works against Americans once and for all.”

The two driving forces of this effort to reshape the executive branch are Mr. Trump’s own campaign policy shop and a well-funded network of conservative groups, many of which are populated by former senior Trump administration officials who would most likely play key roles in any second term.

Mr. Vought and Mr. McEntee are involved in Project 2025, a $22 million presidential transition operation that is preparing policies, personnel lists and transition plans to recommend to any Republican who may win the 2024 election. The transition project, the scale of which is unprecedented in conservative politics, is led by the Heritage Foundation, a think tank that has shaped the personnel and policies of Republican administrations since the Reagan presidency.

That work at Heritage dovetails with plans on the Trump campaign website to expand presidential power that were drafted primarily by two of Mr. Trump’s advisers, Vincent Haley and Ross Worthington, with input from other advisers, including Stephen Miller, the architect of the former president’s hard-line immigration agenda.

Some elements of the plans had been floated when Mr. Trump was in office but were impeded by internal concerns that they would be unworkable and could lead to setbacks. And for some veterans of Mr. Trump’s turbulent White House who came to question his fitness for leadership, the prospect of removing guardrails and centralizing even greater power over government directly in his hands sounded like a recipe for mayhem.

“It would be chaotic,” said John F. Kelly, Mr. Trump’s second White House chief of staff. “It just simply would be chaotic, because he’d continually be trying to exceed his authority but the sycophants would go along with it. It would be a nonstop gunfight with the Congress and the courts.”

The agenda being pursued has deep roots in the decades-long effort by conservative legal thinkers to undercut what has become known as the administrative state — agencies that enact regulations aimed at keeping the air and water clean and food, drugs and consumer products safe, but that cut into business profits.

Its legal underpinning is a maximalist version of the so-called unitary executive theory.

The legal theory rejects the idea that the government is composed of three separate branches with overlapping powers to check and balance each other. Instead, the theory’s adherents argue that Article 2 of the Constitution gives the president complete control of the executive branch, so Congress cannot empower agency heads to make decisions or restrict the president’s ability to fire them. Reagan administration lawyers developed the theory as they sought to advance a deregulatory agenda.

“The notion of independent federal agencies or federal employees who don’t answer to the president violates the very foundation of our democratic republic,” said Kevin D. Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, adding that the contributors to Project 2025 are committed to “dismantling this rogue administrative state.”

Personal power has always been a driving force for Mr. Trump. He often gestures toward it in a more simplistic manner, such as in 2019, when he declared to a cheering crowd, “I have an Article 2, where I have the right todo whatever I wantas president.”

Mr. Trump made the remark in reference to his claimed ability to directly fire Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel in the Russia inquiry, which primed his hostility toward law enforcement and intelligence agencies. He also tried to get a subordinate to have Mr. Mueller ousted, but was defied.

Early in Mr. Trump’s presidency, his chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, promised a “deconstruction of the administrative state.”But Mr. Trump installed people in other key roles who ended up telling him that more radical ideas were unworkable or illegal. In the final year of his presidency, he told aides he was fed up with being constrained by subordinates.

Now, Mr. Trump is laying out a far more expansive vision of power in any second term. And, in contrast with his disorganized transition after his surprise 2016 victory, he now benefits from a well-funded policymaking infrastructure, led by former officials who did not break with him after his attempts to overturn the 2020 election and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

One idea the people around Mr. Trump have developed centers on bringing independent agencies under his thumb.

Congress created these specialized technocratic agencies inside the executive branch and delegated to them some of its power to make rules for society. But it did so on the condition that it was not simply handing off that power to presidents to wield like kings — putting commissioners atop them whom presidents appoint but generally cannot fire before their terms end, while using its control of their budgets to keep them partly accountable to lawmakers as well. (Agency actions are also subject to court review.)

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Presidents of both parties have chafed at the agencies’ independence. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose New Deal created many of them, endorsed a proposal in 1937 to fold them all into cabinet departments under his control, but Congress did not enact it.

Later presidents sought to impose greater control over nonindependent agencies Congress created, like the Environmental Protection Agency, which is run by an administrator whom a president can remove at will. For example, President Ronald Reagan issued executive orders requiring nonindependent agencies to submit proposed regulations to the White House for review. But overall, presidents have largely left the independent agencies alone.

Mr. Trump’s allies are preparing to change that, drafting an executive order requiring independent agencies to submit actions to the White House for review.Mr. Trump endorsed the idea on his campaign website, vowing to bring them “under presidential authority.”

Such an order was drafted in Mr. Trump’s first term — and blessed by the Justice Department — but never issued amid internal concerns. Some of the concerns were over how to carry out reviews for agencies that are headed by multiple commissioners and subject to administrative procedures and open-meetings laws, as well as over how the market would react if the order chipped away at the Federal Reserve’s independence, people familiar with the matter said.

The former president views the civil service as a den of “deep staters” who were trying to thwart him at every turn in the White House.Credit...John Tully for The New York Times

The Federal Reserve was ultimately exempted in the draft executive order, but Mr. Trump did not sign it before his presidency ended. If Mr. Trump and his allies get another shot at power, the independence of the Federal Reserve — an institution Mr. Trump publicly railed at as president — could be up for debate. Notably, the Trump campaign website’s discussion of bringing independent agencies under presidential control is silent on whether that includes the Fed.

Asked whether presidents should be able to order interest rates lowered before elections, even if experts think that would hurt the long-term health of the economy, Mr. Vought said that would have to be worked out with Congress. But “at the bare minimum,” he said, the Federal Reserve’s regulatory functions should be subject to White House review.

“It’s very hard to square the Fed’s independence with the Constitution,” Mr. Vought said.

Other former Trump administration officials involved in the planning said there would also probably be a legal challenge to the limits on a president’s power to fire heads of independent agencies. Mr. Trump could remove an agency head, teeing up the question for the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court in 1935 and 1988 upheld the power of Congress to shield some executive branch officials from being fired without cause. But after justices appointed by Republicans since Reagan took control, it has started to erode those precedents.

Peter L. Strauss, professor emeritus of law at Columbia University and a critic of the strong version of the unitary executive theory, argued that it is constitutional and desirable for Congress, in creating and empowering an agency to perform some task, to also include some checks on the president’s control over officials “because we don’t want autocracy” and to prevent abuses.

“The regrettable fact is that the judiciary at the moment seems inclined to recognize that the president does have this kind of authority,” he said. “They are clawing away agency independence in ways that I find quite unfortunate and disrespectful of congressional choice.”

Mr. Trump has also vowed to impound funds, or refuse to spend money appropriated by Congress. After Nixon used the practice to aggressively block agency spending he was opposed to, on water pollution control, housing construction and other issues, Congress banned the tactic.

On his campaign website, Mr. Trump declared that presidents have a constitutional right to impound funds and said he would restore the practice — though he acknowledged it could result in a legal battle.

Mr. Trump and his allies also want to transform the civil service — government employees who are supposed to be nonpartisan professionals and experts with protections against being fired for political reasons.

The former president views the civil service as a den of “deep staters” who were trying to thwart him at every turn, including by raising legal or pragmatic objections to his immigration policies, among many other examples. Toward the end of his term, his aides drafted an executive order, “CreatingSchedule F in the Excepted Service,” that removed employment protections from career officials whose jobs were deemed linked to policymaking.

Mr. Trump signed the order, which became known as Schedule F, near the end of his presidency, but President Biden rescinded it. Mr. Trump has vowed to immediately reinstitute it in a second term.

Critics say he could use it for a partisan purge. But James Sherk, a former Trump administration official who came up with the idea and now works at the America First Policy Institute — a think tank stocked heavily with former Trump officials — argued it would only be used against poor performers and people who actively impeded the elected president’s agenda.

“Schedule F expressly forbids hiring or firing based on political loyalty,” Mr. Sherk said. “Schedule F employees would keep their jobs if they served effectively and impartially.”

Mr. Trump himself has characterized his intentions rather differently — promising on his campaign website to “find and remove the radicals who have infiltrated the federal Department of Education” and listing a litany of targets at a rally last month.

“We will demolish the deep state,” Mr. Trump said at the rally in Michigan. “We will expel the warmongers from our government. We will drive outthe globalists. We will cast out the communists, Marxists and fascists. And we will throw off thesick political class that hates our country.”

[Jonathan Swan is a political reporter who focuses on campaigns and Congress. As a reporter for Axios, he won an Emmy Award for his 2020 interview of then-President Donald J. Trump, and the White House Correspondents’ Association’s Aldo Beckman Award for “overall excellence in White House coverage” in 2022. More about Jonathan Swan

Charlie Savage is a Washington-based national security and legal policy correspondent. A recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, he previously worked at The Boston Globe and The Miami Herald. His most recent book is “Power Wars: The Relentless Rise of Presidential Authority and Secrecy.” More about Charlie Savage

Maggie Haberman is a senior political correspondent and the author of “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America.” She was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for reporting on President Trump’s advisers and their connections to Russia. More about Maggie Haberman

A version of this article appears in print on July 17, 2023, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Trump and Allies Seeking Vast Increase of His Power. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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https://**documented**.net/investigations/conservative-partnership-institute

Conservative Partnership Institute (“CPI”) is a$45 million “America First” institution boosted with a $1 million donation from former President Trump’s PAC. Led by former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and former Heritage Foundation president Jim DeMint, CPI is creating the MAGA-oriented political infrastructure that the Trump administration lacked.

CPI is recruiting America First staffers and providing in-depth training for Hill offices, as well as creating legal institutions, opposition research firms, think tanks, and other groups helmed by former Trump officials and allies, including Stephen Miller, Russ Vought, and Cleta Mitchell. Formed in 2017, CPI's fundraising surged to $45 million in 2021.

The group’s ambitions are sprawling, from amplifying conspiracies around stolen elections and “critical race theory,” to tanking Democratic nominees and filing lawsuits against the Biden administration. CPI’s president, Ed Corrigan, helped lead Trump’s 2016 transition team, and the group is positioned to staff and support far-right Congressional offices and the next MAGA administration.

CPI is located blocks from the U.S. Capitol, and serves as a hub for the far-right "America First "movement. The House Freedom Caucus holds weekly meetings at CPI, and texts obtained by the January 6 committee show lawmakers like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Sen. Mike Lee referencing meetings at CPI in the tumultuous period following the 2020 election. Nearly two dozen individuals tied to the January 6 attempted coup are connected to CPI, according to Grid's analysis."CPI is helping to build out the vital infrastructure we need to lead the America First movement to new heights."

Nerve Center for the MAGA Movement

CPI’s Washington D.C. headquarters serve as ahub for the far-right conservative movement. According to CPI, in 2021 the “House Freedom Caucus, the Senate Steering Committee, Congressional Chiefs of Staff, Congressional Communicators, Congressional Legislative Directors, and numerous conservative organizations and activists coalesced regularly at [CPI’s headquarters] to plan their methods and means of attack against the Left to save this country.”

Former Republican CongressmanDenver Riggleman described CPI as playing a "coordinating function" for the House Freedom Caucus, and said that it serves as "sort of like a bizarre Freedom Caucus HQ."

CPI of holding 600 meetings or events in 2021, served as a "strategy center" to oppose President Biden’s vaccine requirements, and hosted multiple “war rooms**” during Judge Ketanji Brown-Jackson’s Supreme Court nomination. CPI is also expanding, and says that it is “in the process of acquiring multiple properties adjacent to our D.C. headquarters in order to create a culture of collaboration and victory for the movement.”

According to CPI, members like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Sen. Rand Paul, Sen. Ted Cruz, Rep. Andy Biggs, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, and Rep. Byron Donalds have made the CPI headquarters “their home away from home.”

At least fifteen members of the House and Senate have disclosed paying membership dues to CPI or its "Conservative Partnership Center" using campaign or leadership PAC funds.

Ties to Trump’s 2020 Coup Attempt

CPI and its affiliate groups “employ or assist at least 20 key operatives reportedly involved in Trump’s failed effort to subvert the 2020 election,” according to Grid, including Cleta Mitchell,the veteran lawyer who supported Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and joined the infamous callwhen the president urged Georgia’s Secretary of State to “find” 11,700 votes; Mark Meadows, Trump's former White House chief of staff who was in communication with alleged Jan. 6 plotters and at least tolerated Trump's attempted coup; and Jeffrey Clark, the former Justice Department lawyer who supported Trump’s desire for DOJ to declare the result fraudulent, and whose home was raided by the FBI in June of 2022.

Texts obtained by the January 6 committee also show Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Sen. Mike Lee referencing meetings at CPI in the tumultuous period after the 2020 election.

Mike Lee to Mark Meadows, Nov. 9 2020:

We had steering executive meeting at CPI tonight, with Sidney Powell as our guest speaker. My purpose in having the meeting was to socialize with Republican senators the fact that POTUS needs to pursue his legal remedies. You have in us a group of ready and loyal advocates who will go to bat for him, but I fear this could prove short-lived unless you hire the right legal team and set them loose immediately.

Marjorie Taylor Greene to Mark Meadows, Dec. 31, 2020:

Good morning Mark, I'm here in DC. We have to get organized for the 6th. I would like to meet with Rudy Giuliani again. We didn't get to speak with him long. Also anyone who can help. We are getting a lot of members on board. And we need to lay out the best case for each state. I'll be over at CPI this afternoon.

CPI hardly shies away from its affiliation with Trump’s failed coup.

Months after the Capitol insurrection, in summer of 2020, CPI hosted a “Hot Gulag Summer” event that served Jan. 6-themed cocktails, including the “Capitol Attaquiri,” “Insurrection on the Beach” and the “Mostly Peaceful Mojito.”

“We’re all going to be sent to the gulag eventually,” the invitation read. “We might as well party and get to know each other before we are all ‘reeducated.’”

"America First" Staffing

CPI boasts of recruiting, recommending, and training Congressional staffers who are committed to advancing an America First agenda. In 2021, CPI claims to have 49 members of Congress and 246 Congressional staffers, and to have 200 Congressional staffing recommendations.

“We gave conservatives on Capitol Hill the right skills, the right people, and the right connections—all for the purpose of making America great again,” CPI described in its annual report. For example, in 2021 CPI held “5-week-long legislative boot camps” taught by Ed Corrigan and Rachel Bovard, where “theyarmedconservative staffers with everytacticthe House and Senate rules gave them: how toforce amendment votes, how to work outside the Establishment- dominated committee process, and how to leverage nominations to wage policy fights:”

“You may have seen that conservatives defeated Biden’s gun-grabbing pick to lead the ATF and stopped a communist- sympathizing economist from becoming comptroller of the currency. That didn’t happen by accident.”

According to CPI, “our trainings have become so respected that conservative congressional offices and grassroots advocacy organizations now come to us when they have job openings to fill. They know that we maintain a databaseof current and prospective congressional staffers who have been through our trainings and are up to the task of putting America first.”

In 2021, CPI purchased a $7.25 million collection of waterfront farms on Maryland's Eastern Shore to hold Congressional staff retreats and trainings. CPI has since held several all-expenses-paid retreats at the property for Congressional staff. Staffers who attend retreats at the CPI-owned property only disclose receiving an estimated $99/night gift of lodging, which helps obscure reveal the actual benefit received.

CPI-Launched Projects, Many Led by former Trump Officials

In 2021, CPI launched eight new projects, as well as entities to provide legal compliance and administrative support for those groups:

Election Integrity Network: Cleta Mitchell, the veteran lawyer who supported Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, joined CPI and launched the Election Integrity Network (EIN) in early 2021, after resigning as a partner with the international law firm Foley and Lardner. Documented obtained leaked audio describing how CPI’s EIN is working with groups like Tea Party Patriots to create “permanent election integrity coalitions in eight target states,” and hosted Trump coup plotter John Eastman at an October 2022 event.
Center for Renewing America: Trump Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director Russ Vought leads the culture war-oriented Center for Renewing America (CRA). “CRA’s strategy is to initiate planned confrontations on major national cultural issues, win those confrontations, and let the resulting political momentum fuel legislative activity at the federal, state, and local levels,” CPI says. CRA has created anti-CRT model legislation, opposed making women eligible for the draft, and opposed Afghan refugee migration.Jeffrey Clark, who Trump wanted to install as Attorney General after the 2020 election and who supported Trump’s desire for the Justice Department to declare the results fraudulent, joined CRA as Senior Fellow in June 2022, shortly beforefederal authorities searched Clark's home as part of the criminal inquiry into Trump's attempted coup. CRA senior fellows also include former Trump advisor Kash Patel, who appeared before a grand jury in the Mar al Lago documents case.
America First Legal Foundation: Trump’s hardline immigration advisor Stephen Miller co-created the America First Legal Foundation (AFL) with Mark Meadows, which claims to give “the 234 new federal judges appointed by Donald Trump the chance to finally hold Washington accountable to the rule of law.” According to the**:{Washington Post, the group "has weaponized the grievance politics embodied by Trump’s 'Make America Great Again' movement through dozens of federal lawsuits, challenging efforts to remedy racial disparities, support LGBTQ students and expand the pool of early voters." In the final weeks of the 2022 elections, AFL spent $4 million on inflammatory anti-transgender radio ads. Casino magnate Steve Wynn, who resigned as RNC finance chair amid allegations of sexual misconduct in 2018, is among AFL's donors, according to the *Post.*}:
American Accountability Foundation: Tom Jones, Ted Cruz’s 2016 oppo research director, leads the group described as the “Slime Machine Targeting Dozens of Biden Nominees” by the *New Yorker*. AAF has taken credit for knocking out President Biden's Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms nominee David Chipman, comptroller nominee Saule Omarova, and Federal Reserve nominee Sarah Bloom Raskin.
American Cornerstone Institute: former Trump cabinet member Ben Carson is founder and chair of American Cornerstone Institute (ACI), where Carsonhosts a podcast and creates YouTube videos, and which created the anti-woke "Little Patriots" platform "to teach children about our founding principles."
American Moment: “American Moment’s mission is to identify, educate, and credential young Americans who will implement public policy that supports strong families, a sovereign nation, and prosperity for all,” according to CPI's annual report. In 2021, American Moment claims to have placed ten fellows at aligned organizations and congressional offices and, according to CPI, paid them “a living wage of $3,000 a month.” CPI plans to quadruple the program to 40 fellows in 2022.
State Freedom Caucus Network: In late 2021, CPI launched the "State Freedom Caucus Network" to replicate the far-right Congressional House Freedom Caucus in statehouses. CPI plans to create state freedom caucuses in every state legislature, according to its annual report, with caucuses already assembled in states including Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, Illinois, Nevada, South Dakota, and South Carolina. Each state caucus will have an executive director, and CPI boasts that "the State Freedom Caucus Network will identify, place, and pay for legislative staffers year-round," and also create a PAC to "defend current and future state freedom caucus members facing tough reelections." Following the 2022 midterm elections in Arizona, for example, that state's freedom caucus promoted false claims of voter fraud andissued a statement calling Maricopa County election officials "incompetent, alleged criminals" who should "resign in shame."

CPI also helped launch two organizations to support these projects. Compass Professional Services, which is housed within CPI, provides payroll and administrative services to these entities. Compass Legal Services, also located at CPI headquarters, provides legal, campaign finance, and tax compliance services; according to campaign finance records, CPI members like Marjorie Taylor Greene also pay Compass Legal for legal compliance services, as does Trump's Save America PAC.

CPI Pushing Boundaries of Tax-Exempt Charitable Status

As a 501(c)(3) charity, CPI is exempt from taxation, and its donors get a lucrative tax deduction. But in exchange for those tax benefits, CPI is prohibited from supporting candidates or engaging in partisan political activity.

However, as NPR has reported, CPI is putting its tax-exempt status at risk by closely coordinating its activities with Republican political organizations and selectively offering its facilities and services to Republican candidates. In November 2022, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse sent a letter to CPI inquiring into whether CPI has violated its tax-exempt charitable status.

The NPR report and Sen. Whitehouse's letter detailed several CPI activities that may violate tax law. For example, in the 2022 election cycle, CPI's Election Integrity Network worked closely with the Republican National Committee (RNC) as it worked to recruit and train poll workers and watchers in key swing states, as reported by POLITICO based on audio obtained by Documented. RNC officials have been speakers at several CPI summits, and RNC state election integrity directors are taking part in state-wide election integrity efforts spearheaded by CPI. A 501(c)(3) organization may provide an impermissible private benefit to a political party if it provides programs to recruit and train poll watchers and workers in a partisan manner.

In addition to working closely with the RNC on training and recruiting election observers and poll workers, CPI has hosted political candidates at its events. For example, Governor Ron DeSantis gave the keynote address at CPI’s Florida summit in March of 2022, which amounted to a campaign speech where DeSantis urged people to vote in the election, and stressed that “We need everybody to come out and really, really have a huge, huge November in the state of Florida.”

A 501(c)(3) organization engages in prohibited political campaign intervention by inviting just one candidate to speak at its event, and where that candidate urged support on election day. [audio]

moreover, since late 2020, dozens of GOP candidates have used campaign funds to rent CPI’s facility and services, including for “campaign events” and "fundraising event fees," according to FEC records. Seventeen Congressional candidates and four senatorsreported $4,000 payments to CPI or CPC from their campaign committees or leadership PACs, with the majority of those disbursements described as “membership” payments or dues.

A 501(c)(3) charity engages in prohibited political campaign intervention by selectively offering its facilities to political candidates or committees. There is no record of Democratic candidates renting CPI facilities, and CPI's facilities do not appear available to the general public.

CPI's Fundraising

Since forming in 2017, CPI's fundraising has increased dramatically—most recently, jumping from $7.3 million in 2020 to $45 million in 2021, according to CPI's 2021 tax filing. (CPI's 2021 Annual Report, released in early 2022, reported $19.7 million in revenue plus $25 million in "Capital Fund Revenue").

Trump's Save America PAC gave $1 million to CPI in July 2021. CPI also held a fundraiser at Mar al Lago in April 2021, with former President Trump as the keynote speaker.

As a 501(c)(3) charitable nonprofit, CPI does not publicly disclose its donors.

However, an analysis by Grid identified more than 40 foundations, charities and other organizations that have funded CPI, including $1.25 million from GOP megadonor RichardUihlein’s foundation in 2020, $500,000 from the late gaming machine mogul Stanley E. Fulton’s private foundation, and $200,000 from the Chicago Community Trust.

Donors Trust, the “dark money” funding hub, donated a total of $1.3 million to CPI in 2021, with $200,000 earmarked for American Moment and $10,000 in support ofCleta Mitchell's Election Integrity Network.

CPI has also identified some financial supporters in its 2021 annual report.

David and Brenda Frecka: CPI thanked the pair for their financial support in its 2021 annual report, and named a "David and Brenda Frecka Boardroom" at CPC. In 2021, David Frecka gave $1M to Jim Jordan's House Freedom Action, and Brenda Frecka gave $1.15M to Debbi Meadows's Right on Women PAC

Mike Rydin: According to CPI’s annual report, Ryden “made a generous gift” so that CPI could purchase a townhouse next door to its headquarters “for additional meeting and event space as well as space to host out-of-town guests.” The property sold for $1.5M in 2020.

Dr. William Amos Jr.: The son of the AFLAC founder “has generously supported the Conservative Partnership Institute. For his incredible contributions to CPI’s growth and mission, in 2021, CPI honored Dr. Amos with CPI’s Lifetime Achievement Award.”

Foster Friess "supported many groups in the movement, including CPI. Foster will always be an important part of the CPI story. With love and purpose, Lynn carries on her late husband’s legacy of helping those in need."

Doug and Charlotte Waikart "made the ultimate commitment to sending American values into the future by supporting CPI in their estate plans."

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last summer, while most of official Washington was still reeling from the historic assault on the Capitol, a clubhouse for Trump White House exiles hosted a bash that all but toasted the insurrectionists and plotters responsible.

“Hot Gulag Summer,” held at the nondescript Capitol Hill town house leased by the Conservative Partnership Institute, advertised Jan. 6, 2021-themed cocktails, including the “Capitol Attaquiri,” “Insurrection on the Beach” and the “Mostly Peaceful Mojito.”

“We’re all going to be sent to the gulag eventually,” the invitation read. “We might as well party and get to know each other before we are all ‘reeducated.’”

CPI raised $20 million last year alone, and its network of nearly a dozen affiliate groups, several headed by ex-Trump aides, likely raised more. Donald Trump himself has endorsed the group’s work, boosted its fundraising and even donated $1 million to the group from his PAC in 2021.

“It’s striking how many people who played these key roles in efforts to overturn the election are now involved with CPI,” said Brendan Fischer, a campaign finance legal expert and deputy executive director of the watchdog group Documented. His group has examined at least 11 organizations claiming CPI’s address, 300 Independence Ave., as their home.

A soapbox for the far right

CPI is structured in part to act as a 21st century megaphone for pro-Trump messaging, including media perpetuating false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, furthering MAGA-friendly culture war battles and pushing back against efforts to hold Trumpworld figures accountable.

Its tools reflect a growing right-wing communications strategy, which largely avoids mainstream media in favor of direct-to-supporter platforms like podcasts and social media, or engagements with MAGA-friendly outlets.

The offices at 300 Independence boast an in-house podcasting studio, a television studio and a host of employees with large Twitter followings. Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert is a “frequent visitor” to CPI’s television studio, according to CPI’s annual report, and she records her podcast, “Bullet Points,” at CPI, as do Reps. Andy Biggs of Arizona (“What’s the Biggs Idea?”) and Matt Gaetz of Florida (“Firebrand”), as well as several other right-wing figures.

CPI also opens its facilities to right-wing outlets who help promote Trump-friendly messaging. The Epoch Times, a far-right media company affiliated with the anti-Chinese Communist Party Falun Gong religious movement, films two shows in the building, according to CPI. Right-wing outlet Newsmax filmed a documentary about Jan. 6 at CPI’s television studio.

“A Rorschach test for your sanity”

“This is a Rorschach test for your sanity,” Miller went on. “If you heard this story, and you thought, ‘Man, I believe every word about this and I’m going to go online and say something about it energetically,’ something is wrong with you. Something is wrong with you if you’re that gullible.”

Later that evening, former Trump Pentagon official Kash Patel, now with CPI’s Center for Renewing America, went on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show to join the attacks on Hutchinson. The 26-year-old former Meadows aide, Patel said, was a “junior staffer who is completely, I believe, lying to the Jan. 6 committee for [her] own self-gain.”

OnHannity’s show the day after Hutchinson’s testimony,Freedom Caucus co-founder Rep. Jim Jordanof Ohio laid into the committee: “This is not an unbiased finder of fact. These are nine people as you said, Sean, nine people who voted to impeach President Trump, nine people who are out to get President Trump and don’t want him to run. … All we have got from them is lie after lie after lie.”

Miller, Patel and Jordan declined to respond to Grid’s requests for comment.

Where the money comes from

CPI is thriving. In less than five years, it has grown from a newcomer to a $19.7 million organization. Its network likely has raised much more, because separate organizations that are affiliated with CPI raise funds independently of their parent organization.

The group’s success has irked some Republican operatives who feel CPI is acting as a job provider for otherwise out-of-work ex-Trump aides.

“They’re frauds,” said one longtime Republican strategist who has worked for major campaigns and spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person’s job could be at risk for speaking negatively. “They claim to be fiscal conservatives, but they’ve made a living off of generating conservative outrage in order to raise money for themselves.”

Other Republican luminaries who have donated to CPI include the late GOP megadonor Foster Friess, who is known for helping fund the Koch donor network. The late gaming machine mogul Stanley E. Fulton’s private foundation gave $500,000 to CPI, according to its records. The Chicago Community Trust reported $200,000 in contributions to the group.

“They’ve got a lot of money, and they’re willing to use that money in any way to advance their goals,” said Norm Ornstein, election expert and emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. “And their goals are radical goals about voter suppression, overturning election results if they don’t like them and trying to keep any Democrat who’s in office from governing.”

A who’s who of Jan. 6

Several of the figures of greatest interest to the Jan. 6 committee are now employed by CPI or its subsidiary groups, including:

Mark Meadows: Meadows, Trump’s fourth chief of staff, was allegedly a key enabler of Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. He promoted false fraud claims and was a point of contact for election-denying members of Congress, Giuliani and other key operatives. Meadows participated in pivotal meetings and conversations with state and federal officials, according to reports and the Jan. 6 committee. Meadows joined CPI as senior partner just three weeks after Jan. 6.
Cleta Mitchell: Mitchell was a legal adviser to Trump’s campaign. She was on the infamous call between Trump and Georgia election officials, which cost her a job as a partner at the Foley and Lardner law firm. The Jan. 6 committee subpoenaed Mitchell and deposed her. Mitchell is a senior legal fellow at CPI and runs the CPI-backed Election Integrity Network, which holds “election integrity summits” to train partisan volunteers who want to get involved in election administration. Mitchell records her election-themed podcast, “Who’s Counting?” at CPI.
Jeffrey Clark: A former Department of Justice environmental lawyer, Clark was Trump’s pick for attorney general when William Barr declined to pursue vote fraud claims. Clark allegedly circulated a letter encouraging state officials in Georgia to decertify their election results. Federal agents raided his home on June 23, the same day a committee hearing focused on him. Clark was recently hired by the CPI-founded group, the Center for Renewing America.
Kashyap “Kash” Patel: The former Department of Defense chief of staff was allegedly in contact with Meadows on Jan. 6, and the Jan. 6 committee believed he had “important insight and information” into the Pentagon and White House preparations for and response to the Capitol riot. Patel joined the Center for Renewing America as senior fellow for national security and intelligence in September 2021. Patel also records his Epoch Times TV show, “Kash’s Corner,” at the CPI studio.
Stephen Miller: Trump’s former senior adviser for policy and speechwriter has been subpoenaed by the Jan. 6 committee for his involvement in the day’s events. He may have prepared some of Trump’s remarks at the Stop the Steal event before the riot. He is identified as a founder of America First Legal, a nonprofit legal organization with Meadows and former counsel Gene Hamilton, which is associated with CPI. Miller did not respond to a request for comment from Grid.

Several of these figures work for CPI affiliates, which report operating from the same building as CPI and get support from the organization but have distinct names and legal identities, and at times list addresses other than CPI’s Independence Avenue headquarters. The website for Miller’s America First Legal, for instance, lists the group’s address as a nearby UPS store.

“We try to keep out — we don’t try to take credit,”DeMintsaid earlier this year to supporters, according to audio reviewed by Grid. “We try to give other people the credit, because that’s how you are going to build the movement and build trust.”

“We’re honored our Trump White House colleagues like Kash Patel and Jeff Clark are on our teamto punch back against the Deep State,” Semmel said. “We only hire fighters at Renewing America.”

CPI and several of its other affiliate groups, like Mitchell’s Election Integrity Network, did not respond to interview requests or requests for comment for this story.

Freedom Caucus

CPI has forged close ties to the Freedom Caucus, the far-right group of Republican House lawmakers co-founded by Meadows that was deeply involved in the events leading up to Jan. 6, according to reports and sworn testimony.

Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania allegedly connected Trump with little-known DOJ lawyer Clark and participated in planning meetings with Trump prior to Jan. 6;
Founding Freedom Caucus member and former chair Rep. Jim Jordan was being contacted by Meadows from the White House on Jan. 6, according to testimony;
Former caucus chair Rep. Andy Biggs allegedly helped organize the rally that segued into the storming of the Capitol, and pressured Rusty Bowers, the Arizona House speaker, to decertify electors;
Rep. Matt Gaetz, a close associate of the Freedom Caucus, but not an official member, has been one of the former president’s most vocal supporters and has spread conspiracy theories about the “feds” being behind the Capitol riot. According to testimony, Gaetz was one of several members of Congress who requested broad pardons from Trump. Gaetz was a speaker at CPI’s 2022 leadership conference and records his podcast at CPI’s studios;
Jan. 6 committee testimony revealed that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene asked Trump for a pardon, but she denies this. She faced a lawsuit in her home state of Georgia where she was forced to testify on her involvement in the effort to overturn the election. She often said she couldn’t recall key moments and meetings. In its 2021 annual report, CPI listed Greene as a “Hero of 2021,” and she spoke at the organization’s 2022 leadership conference.

Neither Perry, Jordan, Biggs, Gaetz nor Greene responded to requests for comment for this story.

A MAGA institution?

Rather than tarnish the reputation of the burgeoning think tank, having allies like Meadows and Greene have helped CPI burnish its identity, Washington Republicans said.

The group’s focus at the moment may be on deflecting attention from Jan. 6, but its gaze is facing forward, at future elections — and future MAGA administrations.

“Everything we love and care about in this country goes down the drain if the election system continues the way it is,” DeMint told attendees at an event this spring, according to a recording reviewed by Grid.

DeMint warned the crowd they would be unfairly painted by liberals and the media: “What we’re doing today is what the left says is the ‘Big Lie,’” he said. “You’re involved with the ‘Big Lie.’”

“It’s aiming to be more than just a place where former Trump officials can cool their heels until the next administration,” said Fischer, of Documented. “It appears to be taking some pretty serious steps to try to establish itself as an institution in Washington D.C. and create that political infrastructure to support the America First movement.”

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https://www.rawstory.com/jim-jordan-2661556363/

no lnx raw 6 23

Jim Jordan leads GOP push to cripple 'fight against disinformation': report

Matthew Chapman

June 19, 2023,

Republican lawmakers are joining forces with far-right activists to attack universities and even private businesses that are investigating the spread of disinformation online — claiming that this amounts to an effort to silence conservatives on the internet, according to a report.

The New York Times posted a details of the actions they are taking on Monday.

"The effort has encumbered its targets with expansive requests for information and, in some cases, subpoenas — demanding notes, emails and other information related to social media companies and the government dating back to 2015. Complying has consumed time and resources and already affected the groups’ ability to do research and raise money, according to several people involved," reported Steven Lee Myers and Sheera Frenkel.

"They and others warned that the campaign undermined the fight against disinformation in American society when the problem is, by most accounts, on the rise — and when another presidential election is around the corner. Many of those behind the Republican effort had also joined former President Donald J. Trump in falsely challenging the outcome of the 2020 presidential election."

The House Judiciary Committee, under Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), has been leading the charge. Meanwhile, a group founded by far-right former Trump adviser Stephen Miller has filed a class-action lawsuit in federal court going after the same entities.

"Targets include Stanford, Clemson and New York Universities and the University of Washington; the Atlantic Council, the German Marshall Fund and the National Conference on Citizenship, all nonpartisan, nongovernmental organizations in Washington; the Wikimedia Foundation in San Francisco; and Graphika, a company that researches disinformation online," said the report.

"In a related line of inquiry, the committee has also issued a subpoena to the World Federation of Advertisers, a trade association, and the Global Alliance for Responsible Media it created. The committee’s Republican leaders have accused the groups of violating antitrust laws by conspiring to cut off advertising revenue for content researchers and tech companies found to be harmful."

The new push is part of a broader, years-long conspiracy theory among right-wing activists that the government and "big tech" companies are colluding to silence conservative speech on the internet. There is no evidence of any such conspiracy; in fact, research shows conservative content actually spreads more easily on Facebook and Twitter.

LNX

There is no evidence of any such conspiracy; in fact, research shows conservative content actually spreads more easily on Facebook and Twitter.

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his BS is being cited escalator

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“significant” number of children who were U.S. citizens were separated by the Trump administration from their parents, a result of the then-president’s broader “zero-tolerance” anti-immigrant polices created to send a message to migrants in Central America to not travel to the United States or risk their families being permanently destroyed.

“A government task force is tracking the fates of U.S. citizen children taken from migrant parents during the Trump administration. Some have spent years in foster care,” The New York Times revealed in a bombshell report Tuesday. “Hundreds, and possibly as many as 1,000, children born to immigrant parents in the United States were removed from them at the border, according to lawyers and immigrant advocates who are working with the government to find the families.”

Just as with the more than 5000 immigrant children the Trump administration separated from their families who the Biden administration has been actively working to re-unite, some of the 1000 children who are U.S. citizens have also yet to be reunited with their families.

“In many cases, the U.S.-born children were placed into foster care for lengthy periods, and some have yet to be reunited with their parents, lost in the system nearly five years after the separations took place.”

The Trump administration built what many called concentration camps to house the thousands of migrant children it had taken from their parents, as Trump administration attorneys argued in court the children did not need soap or toothbrushes.

The Times notes, “anyone wronged by the United States can bring claims against the government, and many families are doing so with the help of the A.C.L.U. as well as other groups and private lawyers.”

attorney Leecia Welch, deputy litigation director at Children’s Rights, told The Times, “When you think it can’t get any worse, you hear additional facts about the horror of the policy.”

That child separation policy was created and promoted by White House Senior Advisor to the President Stephen Miller, a far-right extremist who “promoted white nationalist literature, pushed racist immigration stories and obsessed over the loss of Confederate symbols,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

4 23 grand jury jack?

https://www.alternet.org/stephen-miller-testifies-again/

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schedule and speakers list for this week’s Conservative Political Action Conference make it clear that the gathering will be dominated by the undemocratic and unprincipled power-seeking strategies for which former President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement are known.

Lying About Elections, Undermining Democracy

The choice of Kari Lake to keynote the event’s gala, the “Ronald Reagan Dinner,” makes it clear that CPAC will continue to promote damaging false claims about voter fraud. Trump’s refusal to admit that voters rejected him in 2020 fueled the violent attempt to stop Congress from affirming President Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory.

Following in Trump’s footsteps, Lake has refused to accept her defeat by Arizona voters in last year’s governor’s race. Instead, she inflames supporters with bogus claims of election fraud, filing lawsuit after rejected lawsuit seeking to overturn her loss. Right Wing Watch reported that this month Lake took her complaints to two programs hosted by far-right broadcasters who have called for violence against political opponents. On one, when the host claimed that conservative Christians are being provoked to unleash “violence or bloodshed,” Lake responded, “I don’t know how much longer the people can take it.” As we saw on Jan. 6, 2021, this strategy is dangerous for democracy.

In addition to Trump himself, other speakers include Trump family members, right-wing funder and promoter of debunked election conspiracies Mike Lindell, MAGA strategist Steve Bannon, and far-right “Pizzagate” promoter Jack Posobiec.

Previous CPAC gatherings have celebrated authoritarian strongmen leaders like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Brazil’s former president, Jair Balsonaro, whose supporters attacked government buildings after his defeat. Bolsonaro’s son Eduardo, a right-wing legislator, will speak at CPAC this year.

‘Parents with Pitchforks’: Limiting the Freedom to Learn

Right-wing political leaders are aggressively restricting freedom in the name of attacking “wokeness,” which they have invoked to restrict honest teaching about racism, purge library books that feature Black and LGBTQ characters, and deny access to essential health care for transgender people. This is an expansion of the cynical right-wing strategy launched during the Trump administration to vilify “critical race theory” and then slap the label on anything right-wing activists didn’t like.

One strategy in the war on “wokeness” is stoking racial resentment and grievance among conservative white voters. Before last year’s election, a group run by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller ran digital ads denouncing “anti-white bigotry” and falsely claiming that the Biden administration “put white people last in line for COVID relief funds.” Miller, an architect of Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies with a documented affinity for white nationalism, is listed as a CPAC speaker.

One Thursday CPAC segment dubbed “Parents with Pitchforks” includes Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears, whose boss Gov. Glenn Youngkin has just launched an investigation of the AP African American Studies class attacked by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Another segment on “Sacking the Woke Playbook” features Sen. Tommy Tuberville and former acting attorney general Matt Whitaker, who once insisted that all judicial nominees should share his “biblical view of justice.”

Christian Nationalism

Also likely to be promoted at CPAC is the increasingly aggressive Christian nationalism espoused by religious-right activists and promoted by far-right politicians like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and North Carolina’s vehemently anti-LGBTQ Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who exclaimed in 2021, “As for this not being a Christian nation, yes, it is! If you don’t like it, I’ll buy your plane, train, or automobile ticket right up out of here.”Both Greene and Robinson are listed as speakers at this year’s gathering. Scholars have documented that white evangelicals are the group most likely to strongly embrace Christian nationalism, and those who do are more likely to support authoritarianism and political violence.

A ‘Principled’ Alternative?

A group of non-Trumpist conservatives has organized an alternative to CPAC, which they call the Principles First Summit. In a Substack column promoting the summit, organizer Heath Mayo denounced the evolution of CPAC in the Trump era, saying “What once set a budding movement’s standards for principles and character is now a showcase of its worst ills.” CPAC, Mayo wrote, “actively applauds a conspiratorial fringe of our politics completely unmoored from ethical constraints and moral commitments.”

Tags: Donald Trump Eduardo Bolsonaro Jack Posobiec Kari Lake Marjorie Taylor Greene Mark Robinson Mike Lindell Stephen Miller Steve Bannon Winsome Sears Censorship Christian Nationalism CPAC CPAC 2023 Critical Race Theory Stop the Steal CPAC

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an 12 22 also gorka and?

On Friday night, November 9, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, according to Politico, attended a “private holiday party” in the home of Conservative Political Action Conference Chairman Matt Schlapp. Kavanaugh’s decision to attend, reporter Lydia Wheeler writes in Bloomberg Law on December 12, “raises questions about when a justice’s personal relationships cross a line and become problematic.”’

One of the other people who attended Schlapp’s party, according to Politico, was MAGA RepublicanStephen Miller, who was a policy adviser for the Trump Administration. Miller heads the America First Legal Foundation, a group that, Wheeler notes, “has interests in cases now pending before the Court.”

Kavanaugh’s decision to attend Schlapp’s party comes at a time when the High Court is suffering from historically low approval ratings. The Court’s unpopularity to a variety of things, including its decision to overturn Roe v. Wade after 49 years in the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

Other controversies that have dogged the High Court in recent months range from efforts by Ginni Thomas (wife of Justice Clarence Thomas) to overturn the 2020 presidential election results to allegations that Justice Samuel Alito or his wife leaked the Court’s decision in 2014’s Burwell v. Hobby Lobby before it was officially announced — an allegation that Alito has vehemently denied.

Wheeler notes that “Democrats have recently renewed calls for sitting Supreme Court justices to follow a formal judicial code of ethics.”

Tonja Jacobi, a professor at Emory University Law School in Atlanta, told Bloomberg Law, “Supreme Court justices should be extraordinarily careful in not only having no actual ethical difficulties, but having no appearance of an ethical conundrum as well…. The legitimacy of the Court at the moment is taking a severe beating.”

Charles Geyh, a professor at Indiana University’s Maurer School of law, implied that Kavanaugh was showing very poor judgement by attending Schlapp’s party. Geyh told Bloomberg Law, “This is the worst possible time for this.”

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DIRTY TRICKS

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/16/democratic-strategists-launch-war-room-00065498

Democratic leadership on the Hill has been briefed about the project’s relaunch, according to a person familiar with its plans.

The project “will exploit every tactic available,” Woodhouse said, adding: “It’s not enough to wait and see what they’re going to do and how far they’re going to go.”

other GOP areas of interest include the withdrawal from Afghanistan, Ukraine aid and a coronavirus probe that is likely to sweep up longtime public health adviser Anthony Fauci.

POLITICO---

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In attendance were aides to the top Republicans on the House Transportation and Infrastructure, Ways and Means and Oversight committees, as well as a senior aide to Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), who is considered a leadership contender.
Aides toSenate Banking Committee ranking member Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and Sens. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Mike Braun (R-Ind.) also attended.

If they win congressional majorities, Republicans plan to use that power in retrospective fashion to dig into Biden administration conduct going back to his inauguration.
That will mean a congressional microscope on Biden administration policies and spending. It will also bring stepped-up GOP scrutiny of private sector actors such as tech companies that Republicans see as politically adversarial.

Behind the scenes: Over two days, congressional aides at the retreat got briefings from prominent conservative activists and organizations on a host of investigative tactics.

Gene Hamilton, a former senior aide in Trump's Justice Department and a board member of the America First Legal Foundation, briefed staffers on how to use legal experts and the federal court system to conduct research and "advance conservative priorities in the courts."
Alexa Walker, the Banks aide and the Republican Study Committee's coalitions director, and Scott Gast, a former senior aide in the Trump White House counsel's office, discussed strategies for coordinating congressional oversight with outside research and investigative groups.
Mike Howell and Roman Jankowski of the Heritage Foundation led a training on the Freedom of Information Act.
AAF chief Tom Jones briefed attendees on tactics for investigating presidential nominees and appointees.
Phil Reboli of CPI trained staffers on effective communications strategies to sell oversight efforts to outside groups and the press.

"The American people are deeply frustrated by the failed policies and lack of leadership of the Biden Administration. They expect good government groups like ours and Congressional leaders to work together to hold this administration accountable."

"What's going to happen next Congress is, you've got to do four years of oversight in two years. That's going to be an immense lift, and it means that they cannot wait to get these committees situated," he said in an interview.
"There are thousands of people who served in the Trump administration, myself included, who experienced what was probably the most intense congressional oversight to date," Howell said. They "are now chomping at the bit to deploy these skills that they've learned back at the Biden administration."

Between the lines: The event provides a glimpse of where Republicans see potentially fruitful oversight avenues.

Senate Banking has been at the center of Biden nomination fights, with committee Republicans successfully sinking two high-profile nominees.
The Oversight Committee, whose chief counsel for oversight attended, has a broad mandate. Its ranking Republican, Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), has recently signaled scrutiny of Biden's immigration policies, his son Hunter’s business dealings abroad and tech companies' ostensible political bias.
The Transportation Committee's Republican general counsel wrote in a disclosure filing that the training would help the committee ensure "fiscal stewardship and effective oversight of the recently passed infrastructure bill and other items within T&I's jurisdiction."
The Ways and Means Committee, which sent two Republican aides to the retreat, is a powerful panel with oversight jurisdiction over tax and financial policies at the center of a national furor over inflation.

Republican oversight won't be confined to federal agencies or the White House, Howell said.

"Big Tech is in the crosshairs," he said. "They're going to be subject to document requests and subpoenas and depositions."
Howell pointed to the subpoena power wielded heavily by the Jan. 6 select committee, which has sought private phone and bank records, among other documents.
"It's really a whole new frontier that has been opened with a whole bevy of new tactics and techniques, which were once thought out of bounds. They're now going to be a tool in the hands of the other side."

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https://www.mediamatters.org/jack-posobiec/fbi-warns-threats-state-poll-workers-right-wing-media-and-denialist-groups-spread

mma 10 22

a combination of local election denialist groups and national conservative media figures are driving conspiracy theories about voter fraud in Pennsylvania — the same falsehoods and misinformation that are putting election workers at an increased risk of violence, according to the FBI and Department of Justice. Pennsylvania is one of several states that have seen increased threats of violence toward election officials, driven by false claims that the 2020 election was stolen and that future voter fraud is likely.

Nearly all of the groups and media figures pushing these narratives in Pennsylvania support the gubernatorial campaign of Republican state Sen. Doug Mastriano, who helped to incite the attempted coup on January 6, 2021, and has embraced numerous extremist positions. Mastriano also unsuccessfully used his position to attempt to overturn Pennsylvania’s presidential election results, ingratiating himself to some of the state’s most extreme conservative activists.

Against this backdrop, former President Donald Trump has already begun organizing attempts to challenge the results of the state’s midterm elections, according to Rolling Stone.

Trump has been briefed on plans in multiple states and critical races — including in Georgia. But Pennsylvania has grabbed his interest most keenly, including in the Senate contest between Democrat John Fetterman and the Trump-endorsed GOP contender Mehmet Oz. If the Republican does not win by a wide enough margin to trigger a speedy concession from Fetterman — or if the vote tally is close on or after Election Night in November — Trump and other Republicans are already preparing to wage a legal and activist crusade against the “election integrity” of Democratic strongholds such as the Philly area.

Already, MAGA activists and Republican Party officials are creating the conditions that make voter suppression and violence against workers more likely. Earlier this month, the Republican National Committee's director for election integrity in Pennsylvania said on a conference call with election denialist group Audit the Vote PA that they’d filled “6,000 poll watcher positions in the state this year, compared with 1,000 in 2020,” according to Reuters, which noted that “election conspiracy groups also often appear at events with Republican officials, focused on recruiting volunteers to help watch the polls, according to the groups themselves and county officials.”

Pennsylvania’s acting secretary of state recently told PennLive that “a lot of these threats are fueled by mis- and disinformation,” emphasizing, “It’s important to get out accurate information about the election process in Pennsylvania so voters and the public know that when there are delays in counting, it doesn’t mean anything nefarious happening.”

The deep connections between these denialist influencers, their groups, and right-wing media outlets illustrate the extent to which conspiracy theories about voter fraud have become a unifying principle in conservative organizing. Now, those same false claims are potentially driving threats and harassment against election workers across the country.

Right-wing media champion Doug Mastriano’s campaign

Mastriano rose to prominence challenging Biden’s win in Pennsylvania in 2020, and election denialism has been at the forefront of his campaign for governor. He has spread these conspiracy theories across conservative media while rejecting mainstream interviews. He’s a frequent guest on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast, which has become a hub for election denialists from all over the country.

One of Mastriano’s top champions in conservative media is neo-Nazi collaborator and “Pizzagate” conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec, who has appeared at campaign events for Mastriano as recently as this month. Posobiec is another War Room mainstay and occasional guest host,often using Bannon’s platform to praise Mastriano’s campaign, including in an interview in July

CitationFrom the July 20, 2022, edition of War Room: Pandemic, streamed on Rumble

"The question on everybody’s mind I believe, certainly for this audience, the War Room audience, and if Steve were here right now he’d be asking the same exact question, is voter integrity,” Posobiec said near the beginning of the segment, focusing on the false idea that Pennsylvania's elections are insecure. “What can be done between now and November for the current election that you are in to preserve that idea of voter integrity and fight back against some of these issues that we’ve brought up in the past?” (Bannon was not on his show that day because he was in court unsuccessfully fighting his contempt of Congress case for refusing to testify before the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection.)

“We’re going to have to have eyeballs on all the election stations,” Mastriano responded. “I need 20,000 poll watchers to cover the state.”

He then implored War Room listeners who were interested in volunteering “instead of complaining” to go to his website and sign up. To underline the point, Posobiec closed the interview by reminding the audience where they could go to volunteer to become a poll watcher.

More recently, Posobiec told War Room viewers that the governor’s race in Pennsylvania is even more important than in many other states, stating that whoever controlled that office would determine the state’s electoral votes in two years.

“If you’re looking at 2024, you have to understand that Pennsylvania is the keystone,” Posobiec said on October 1. “I railed on this in 2020. The secretary of state in Pennsylvania is an appointed Cabinet position of the governor. It is not a separately elected office.”

“That means the 2022 race for governor is the presidential race, because that determines who your secretary of state is going to be in a state which gives you 20 electoral votes,” he continued. “We’re going to make sure everybody understands the stakes that are at play here, because this is the game for our republic.”

Posobiec’s comments illustrate how Mastriano’s allies in right-wing media continue to shore up his conservative bona fides, even as his campaign attempts to obscure his extremist views. After winning the Republican gubernatorial primary in May, Mastriano or his staff apparently began deleting some of his more controversial videos and social media posts from his official accounts. These actions follow a pattern; as Media Matters previously reported, Mastriano has also posted and deleted more than 50 tweets in support of the QAnon conspiracy theory.

He may now be attempting to downplay his rampant election denialism in the weeks before the midterms. On the morning that Bannon was sentenced for contempt of Congress, Posobiec sat in as a guest co-host to interview Mastriano, and the two avoided the topic completely.

The previous evening, Mastriano appeared on conservative YouTuber Tim Pool’s show, further illustrating the candidate’s total enmeshment in right-wing media. Over the course of that more than two hour-long interview, Mastriano largely avoided pushing voter fraud conspiracy theories as well. Yet even when he seemingly attempts to moderate his position, Mastriano still perpetuates the idea that elections are fundamentally insecure and voter fraud is rampant.

“We’re working real hard to get at least one trained poll watcher in every polling station for transparency and accountability,” he said on Newsmax on October 24.

“Merely asking questions about the elections — it does not make me an election denier,” he said on One America News the same day.

But Mastriano had struck a very different tone immediately after the 2020 election. “We're going to take our power back,” he said on Bannon’s War Room on November 27, 2020, promising to “seat the electors" from a fake pro-Trump slate instead of recognizing Biden’s victory in the state.

A web of election denialist influencers

War Room has also been a platform for some of Pennsylvania’s most active conspiracy theorists, includingToni Shuppe, who heads denialist group Audit the Vote PA.Shuppe has argued that the Pizzagate conspiracy theory – which purports that high-ranking Democrats were involved in a child sex trafficking ring – is “absolutely real.” She also claimed that QAnon, which has many of the same themes as Pizzagate, is a “very valuable resource.” Perhaps not coincidentally, Posobiec also pushed the Pizzagate conspiracy theory and created disinformation about the origins of QAnon in an apparent effort to save the Trump campaign from embarrassment.

In August, Shuppe appeared on War Room to advocate against using machines to count and tabulate votes, based on the debunked theory that voting machines were used to rig the 2020 election.

“We have a massive grassroots movement in Pennsylvania,” Bannon said. “It’s essentially what got President Trump elected in 2016, and to be brutally frank, it’s real votes, certifiable votes, it’s what got him to win Pennsylvania in 2020.” (In reality, Trump lost Pennsylvania in 2020.)

“We’re dealing with a weaponized government, which, I don’t have to tell you or anybody that watches your show that that’s what we’re dealing with,” Shuppe told Bannon. “So there’s a risk there, but there’s nothing in the law that says we can’t make these changes in our report that’s on our website.

[vid CitationFrom the August 29, 2022, edition of War Room: Battleground, streamed on Rumble

in addition to appearing frequently on War Room and failing Fox News competitor One America News, Shuppe hosts her own streaming show, also called Audit the Vote PA. The show serves as a combination of propaganda outlet and organizing space to enlist new adherents and keep those already engaged active in the run-up to the midterms.

In July, Shuppe interviewed election denialist and retired CIA officer Sam Faddis, who reportedly recently met with Trump to lay out plans for challenging the midterm results in Pennsylvania.In that segment, Faddis promoted an upcoming rally he was participating in with election denier Catherine Engelbrecht,whose group True the Vote has become a leading voice in the nationwide denialist movement. Faddis also defended Mastriano, and cautioned that conservatives should not become demoralized at the prospect of needing to overcome stolen elections.

“And just in case you’re thinking about staying home and not voting, I get the frustration around 2020 isn’t fixed, we still have what appears to be an illegitimate president, and it is very tempting to throw in the towel and say, ‘What’s the point of voting?’” Shuppe said. “But I strongly encourage you otherwise because November 2022 in Pennsylvania is going to be a pivotal election, not just for our state, but I believe for the rest of the country.”

Shuppe also interviewed Posobiec earlier this month and the two pushed conspiracy theories about the state’s supposed election vulnerabilities.

“If you can get everything right in terms of turnout, if you get everything right in terms of integrity, then you get Pennsylvania back, you flip Pennsylvania,” Posobiec said. He later added, “In order to do that, you need to lay the groundwork out years ahead of the race. And that’s what Sen. Mastriano provides.”

Shuppe responded by claiming Democratic gubernatorial nominee and state Attorney General Josh Shapiro is “ultimately afraid that we’re going to get a transparent, free and fair election process with a Gov. Mastriano and they won’t be able to stuff ballots and cheat the way they did in 2020 [vid CitationFrom the October 5, 2022, edition of Audit the Vote PA, streamed on Rumble

on October 19, Shuppe interviewed local denialist activist Bill Borton, who opposes the use of drop boxes on the false grounds that they have been used to perpetuate widespread ballot stuffing.

“I am reasonably certain there hasn't been a free and fair election in the United States in over 20 years,” Borton said. “Maybe longer.”

“I would agree,” Shuppe responded.

Borton is a plaintiff in a lawsuit brought by America First Legal (AFL), a conservative legal group founded by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller,against Chester County, Pennsylvania, over allegations that ballots had been dropped in unmonitored drop boxes in violation of state law. Borton, who helped obtain the footage, hopes the case or others like it will bring an end to ballot drop boxes altogether.

“Me being the eternal optimist that I am, this could conceivably mean that a day or so after the drop boxes open, we nab a couple people, have proof of it, and they all get shut down for the rest of the time leading up to the election,” Borton told Shuppe.

Though the complaint alleges that surveillance video shows “over 300 individuals” dropping off more than one ballot, which is against Pennsylvania law, some extremist media figures have exaggerated this case as an example of verified, intentional voter fraud and pressed that this exemplifies the need for physical monitoring at drop boxes.

Infowars’ resident insurrectionist Owen Shroyer opened his September 19 discussion of the subject by complaining that the media is “demonizing conservatives, demonizing Republicans for staking out polling locations and drop boxes,” citing evidence from the AFL that allegedly “found individuals stuffing ballot boxes, same people showing up multiple times with dozens of ballots.” Shroyer asked his audience, “Why don’t Democrats want you watching drop boxes? Because Democrats are using drop boxes to cheat and steal an election.: judge in a similar case brought by AFL in Pennsylvania ruled that in-person monitoring was not necessary.

“Since mail-in ballots have been in use, no fraud has been detected in Lehigh County with the mail-in ballot process,” Judge Thomas Capehart wrote.

Fox News hosts amplify bogus ballot stuffing claims

[vid]

Borton has played an outsized role in some of the national media attention on Pennsylvania’s elections. Most of the national conservative media coverage centers around mail-in voting and ballot drop boxes, both of which have been identified, incorrectly, by Pennsylvania election deniers and the Republican Party as previous sites of voter fraud.

Fox host Mark Levin celebrated AFL’s Chester County complaint as a win, adding, “I suspect there's a hell of a lot more than one.”

Separately, a long-running legal fight over undated mail-in ballots came to a head on October 11, when the Supreme Court vacated a lower court ruling that allowed undated ballots to be counted in a 2021 local county judge election. Pennsylvania law requires that mail-in ballot envelopes be hand-signed and dated, though both the state’s Commonwealth Court and 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that this provision was designed to unfairly throw out ballots. Acting Secretary of State Leigh Chapman issued guidance that same day directing counties to continue to count undated mail-in ballots, as the Supreme Court’s decision was not relevant to midterms.

On his radio show,Fox host Sean Hannity pressed that Chapman’s guidance was an excuse for Democrats to give their voters an advantage: “Of course, Democrats, they don't want to follow laws. They want to make them up as they go along and, you know, make everything work to their advantage.”

Levin was more direct, arguing that this shows “they're trying to steal the election for” Democratic Senate nominee and current Lt. Gov. John Fetterman. According to Levin, “This is the sort of thing that changes election results.”

On a previous show, Levin accused Democrats of “causing all this anguish, this anarchy,” as “the Republicans aren't in there trying to change state law through well-placed Republican officials. It’s the Democrats.”

Of course, as Posobiec outlined above, this is exactly the election denialist plan for 2024: Disrupt midterms, get Republicans elected, and lay the groundwork for an easy 2024 Trump win.

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/10/dark-money-groups-gop-senate/

an 10 22 comm dr

The finding comes a month after Senate Republicans tanked a bill that would have required dark money groups to disclose their donors and funding sources.

Shadowy organizations that are legally allowed to hide their donors have pumped nearly $1 billion into the Republican Party's effort to retake the U.S. Senate, according to an NPR analysis released Saturday.

In total, NPR found that "more than $1.6 billion has been spent or booked on TV ads in a dozen Senate races, with $3 out of every $4 being spent in six states—Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Wisconsin, Nevada, and Ohio."

"Most of that money is coming from dark money outside groups with little-to-no donor transparency—and Republicans are getting a huge boost from them," the outlet reported.

Nearly 90% of the money spent on pro-Republican television ads this midterm cycle has been from dark money groups, according to NPR's analysis of ad data. By comparison, 55% of spending on ads boosting Democrats has come from dark money organizations, which have exploded in number and influence since the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010Citizens United decision.

Predictably, key battleground states such as Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Arizona have drawn massive ad spending from outside groups in recent months as Senate races there tighten with just over two weeks until the November midterms.

Outside organizations have poured more money into Pennsylvania—where Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman is locked in a competitive Senate contest with Republican nominee Dr. Oz—than any other state this cycle.

"Outside groups have spent nearly $64.9 million to back Fetterman or sway voters away from the celebrity doctor, while conservative outside spenders have poured $66 million into the race," OpenSecrets noted Friday. "One of the top outside spenders is the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R–Ky.). The super PAC has made Fetterman their top target, spending almost $37.2 million to oppose the Democrat."

[grfx]

NPR's analysis came a month after Senate Republicans unanimously voted down legislation that would have required dark money organizations to disclose their large donors and funding sources, a step that would shine light on the forces attempting to sway critical races.

OpenSecrets discovered last month that a newly created dark money group that has spent big on ads mocking and attacking progressive candidates in battleground states is "connected to officials in former President Donald Trump's administration who now work with the America First Legal Foundation."

"The group, Citizens for Sanity, has paid for billboards emblazoned with messages like 'Protect Pregnant Men from Climate Discrimination' and 'Real progressives support violent criminals in their hour of need' in states across the country—including Massachusetts, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, California, Michigan, Texas, Illinois, and Georgia," the watchdog noted. "The ads have been described as racist and transphobic."

"Federal Communications Commission records reviewed by OpenSecrets reveal that the group's board includes three former Trump administration officials involved in theAmerica First Legal Foundation, a group founded by former Trump White House official Stephen Miller," OpenSecrets added.

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/supreme-court-states-establishment-clause/

no lnx many twt

A far-right legal group believes states are exempt from the Establishment Clause. Some Supreme Court justices agree

Alex Henderson June 29, 2022

During the 1990s, Justice Clarence Thomas and the late Justice Antonin Scalia were viewed as the lunatic fringe of the U.S. Supreme Court. But their theocratic views and far-right social conservatism were balanced out by other justices, from liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to moderate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor to Justice Anthony Kennedy — a Ronald Reagan appointee and right-wing libertarian who, although fiscally conservative, was quite protective of abortion rights and gay rights.

Those days are long gone. Theocrats, thanks largely to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and former President Donald Trump, now dominate the High Court— a fact that was painfully evident when the Court announced, on Friday, June 24, that it had voted to overturn Roe v. Wade and Thomas argued in favor of reconsidering protections for contraception and gay rights as well.

Freedom of religion is guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution — specifically, the 1st Amendment’s Establishment Clause, which states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The Establishment Clause makes it abundantly clear that while people of all faiths can freely practice and promote them, the government cannot establish an official religion. This means that while Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and Bahais are more than welcome to gather on New York City’s 5th Avenue and promote their faiths, the government itself has a strict separation of church and state.

[Read more: Columnist likens U.S. Supreme Court’s right-wing supermajority to a ‘junta in long black robes’

But in Christian Right legal circles, some theocrats, including the far-right group America First Legal, are arguing that individual states are exempt from the Establishment Clause — and Reuters reporter Lawrence Hurley notes that the group believes that states have a right to decide “whether and to what extent they will establish religion within their borders.”

Moreover, America First Legal is hoping that the U.S. Supreme Court will officially take that position in a future ruling.

According to Religion News Service (RNS) reporter Jack Jenkins, Thomas and Justice Neal Gorsuch share America First Legal’s view of the Establishment Clause — and Justice Amy Coney Barrett has “expressed interest in the idea.”

Thomas, Gorsuch and Barrett are among the justices who voted to strike down Roe v. Wade in the case Dobbs v. Women’s Health Organization.

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/merrick-garland-investigation/

no lnx

former Trump senior advisor Stephen Miller's legal group is demanding the U.S. Department of Justice Inspector General launch an investigation into Attorney General Merrick Garland's memo that directs the FBI to discuss threats against school board officials.

The Garland memo is exceptionally weak, stating: "I am directing the Federal Bureau of Investigation, working with each United States Attorney, to to convene meetings with federal state, local, Tribal, and territorial leaders" to "facilitate the discussion of strategies for addressing threats."

Nothing more.

After months of coaching and training of "grassroots" activists by right wing groups, including parents across the country, the nation has witnessed countless threats against school board officials and education professionals by parents whose anger is falsely ginned up by Fox news and other right wing media claims over critical race theory, masks, and vaccines.

Miller sees it differently, claiming his group is "demanding an investigation into AG Garland's memo unleashing federal law enforcement against parents fighting racism/CRT.Letter includes shocking info on origins of the memo."

Here is a copy of the letter America First Legal sent the DOJ Inspector General demanding an investigation into AG… https://t.co/T1aqGPokAW

— Stephen Miller (@Stephen Miller) 1634069778.0

Look at that language: "unleashing," "parents fighting racism," "shocking info" – all designed to create outrage.

(Also, parents who oppose CRT are not "fighting racism.")

As NCRM has previously reported, school board members and educators in at least nine states this year have been targeted with threats, death threats, and often racist death threats, including in Virginia, Arizona, Connecticut, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Vermont, according to local news reports.

According to Miller, who was one of the architects of Donald Trump's child separation policy, parents engaging in these threats should not be subjected to legal investigation, but protection.

Miller's Senior Counselor Reed Rubinsteinclaims that "the nationwide protests by parents against public school policies and practices—regardingCritical Race Theory indoctrination; anti-religious and anti-family gender ideology; and/or forced online education and mask mandates—are entitled to the most robust federal constitutional protection."

Rubinstein claims that "the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, and others, have combined to oppress, threaten, and intimidate parents to chill and prevent them from exercising the rights or privileges secured by the Constitution," offering no reason why they would do this, especially given they have not done it before.

He also claims, again, offering no proof, that in "early September, Biden Administration stakeholders held discussions regarding avenues for potential federal action against parents with a key Biden Domestic Policy Council official (Jane Doe #1) and White House staff (John Doe #1). Stakeholders also held discussions with senior department officials, including at least one political appointee in the department's Civil Rights Division (Jane Doe #2). Jane Doe #1, John Doe #1, and others in the White House separately expressed concern regarding the potential partisan political impact of parent mobilization and organization around school issues in the upcoming midterm elections."

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

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Education and early career

Hamilton was raised in Arizona.^[2] He received a Bachelor's degree from the University of Georgia, and a J.D. from the Washington and Lee School of Law in 2010.^[9] While attending law school, Hamilton interned at the Krome Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in Miami, Florida;^[2][10] upon graduation he accepted a role as an Honors Attorney at the Department of Homeland Security,^[11] eventually returning to ICE in its Office of Chief Counsel in Georgia.

References

...

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am over

as former top Trump administration officials search for new roles outside of government, one such political appointee — Gene Hamilton, who held prominent positions in the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice — has been involved in the creation of a new conservative group led by former White House Senior Adviser Stephen Miller.

The organization, America First Legal, aims to organize Republican attorneys general to mount legal challenges to Biden administration policies. Hamilton is expected to spearhead the group’s legal efforts, which have so far included a lawsuit claiming that the American Rescue Plan Act discriminates against white ranchers and another attempting to prevent President Biden from softening border restrictions.

Hamilton, often working behind the scenes, was an influential player in the Trump administration’s immigration policy. In an October 2017 deposition, later obtained by the New Yorker, Hamilton said that he had been the Trump transition team’s “lead on development of all immigration-policy issues.” After Trump’s inauguration, Hamilton went to work at the Department of Homeland Security, and in late 2017 he became an aide to then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions. While working for the Trump administration, Hamilton was instrumental in setting refugee caps at historic lows and in ending Temporary Protected Status for people from Sudan and South Sudan in 2017. He is credited with writing the memo that ended Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, and a recent report by the DOJ inspector general named him as a key player in the “zero tolerance” policy that resulted in separating hundreds of children from their families.

Previously, American Oversight reported on records obtained through Freedom of Information Act litigation that reveal frequent contact between Hamilton and Miller during the height of family separation. While Miller is often cited as the architect of Trump’s most severe anti-immigration policies, it’s clear that Hamilton’s role was equally crucial in enacting that agenda.

In his new role with America First Legal, Hamilton joins an extensive network of pressure groups attempting to prevent the Biden administration from rolling back the immigration policies that he helped create.

He is no stranger to this community. While he was working in the Trump administration, as American Oversight has previously reported, Hamilton maintained contact with many such anti-immigrant groups. He granted them a high level of access: agreeing to organize meetings, to share data, and to discuss policy.

One such contact was Maria Espinoza, who founded the Remembrance Project, which has been designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). The group has pushed a false narrative linking immigration to crime, purporting to advocate for victims of crimes committed by undocumented immigrants. In the last decade, Espinoza has aligned herself with white nationalist and nativist organizations.

:{In a March 2017 email:{, Espinoza thanked Hamilton for setting up a meeting with then-DHS Secretary John Kelly, which she called “an exciting first step in what we believe will be a great partnership.” Espinoza listed several of the “action items” that had been discussed, including information on “the “scale of illegal alien crime” and potential grants to “help fund our pro-Trump agenda.”}:

Another far-right contact of Hamilton who appears in documents uncovered by American Oversight is Steven Camarota, the research director of CIS, which has also emphasized a spurious connection between immigrants and crime and has been designated as a hate group by the SPLC.

In July 2017, Camarota emailed Hamilton and asked if the administration could “delay” an announcement regarding a temporary increase in new H-2B temporary worker visas so that CIS could “put some stuff out” to argue that there was “no need” for the expansion. The government appears to have adopted the group’s desired timing on the announcement, allowing CIS to publish materials referencing a policy change that was coming “any day.”

In the following months, Hamilton maintained other contacts at CIS. In January 2018, he sent an email indicating that he was planning to meet with the CIS Executive Director Mark Krikorian and Art Arthur, a resident fellow. He said that they would be joined by James McHenry, who was serving as director of the Executive Office of Immigration Review, and Devin O’Malley, who was then a Justice Department spokesman.

In addition, Hamilton appears to have been acquainted with numerous employees of the conservative Heritage Foundation. In February 2019, he scheduled a meeting with James Jay Carafano, the vice president of the foundation’s Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy. The next month, Carafano invited Hamilton to have a “sit down with our team that works on immigration security issues” in order to have an “open off the record discussion.” Hamilton appears to have accepted the invitation. In April, Carafano sent Hamilton a link to an opinion piece he wrote for Fox News that claimed undocumented immigrants come with a “big sticker price” of “providing public services” and that sanctuary cities have served as “magnets for criminals.” (Each of these claims has been contested by research.)

In August 2019, Hamilton received an email from Paul Winfree, director of Heritage’s Institute for Economic Policy, copying Norbert Michel, director of Heritage’s Center for Data Analysis. Winfree noted that Michel had “questions about data regarding visas.” Hamilton set up a meeting with Michel later that month, and he told Winfree that they should “plan on catching up soon.”

Hamilton’s relationship with the Heritage Foundation has continued. In March, he participated in a panel discussion on the “Biden border crisis” hosted by Carafano, alongside Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Rep. Tom McClintock of California.

American Oversight also obtained records showing that Hamilton corresponded with members of the Federalist Society,a conservative organization that exercises enormous influence on the courts. In March 2019, Vice President and General Counsel Dean Reuter emailed Hamilton, asking for a “chance to discuss some immigration issues.” Hamilton agreed, and they met for lunch later that month.

American Oversight continues to investigate Hamilton and his role in immigration policy. We continue to litigate for his communications with Stephen Miller, as well as for his communications with right-leaning organizations.

Part of Investigation:

Stephen Miller’s Influence on Immigration Policy — and Throughout the Administration

===

America First Legal — About

Vought Russ served as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget after formerly serving as the Deputy Director and Acting Director. Gene Hamilton Gene served as Counselor to the Attorney General at the United States Department of Justice from 2017-2021—providing legal advice, counsel, and strategic guidance. Ed Corrigan

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Gene_Hamilton_(lawyer)

Gene Hamilton (lawyer) - Wikipedia

Hamilton currently serves as the Vice President of America First Legal, a legal action group founded by former Trump administration officials, including Stephen Miller. In this role, he has represented the state of Texas in a lawsuit aiming to reinstate Trump-era policies that bar unaccompanied migrant children from entering the United States.

https://www.aflegal.org

America First Legal

washington, d.c. - yesterday, america first legal (afl) filed a freedom of information act (foia) request seeking records from u.s. immigration and customs enforcement (ice) about its use of americans' hard-earned dollars to facilitate the distribution of smuggled and trafficked illegal aliens to all corners of the united states and, in turn, the …

https://www.americanoversight.org › former-trump-administration-official-gene-hamiltons-contacts-with-far-right-anti-immigration-groups](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=gene%20hamilton%20american%20first%20legal%20miller%20vought+site:www.americanoversight.org)}:

Former Trump Administration Official Gene Hamilton ... - American Oversight

May 6, 2021As former top Trump administration officials search for new roles outside of government, one such political appointee — Gene Hamilton, who held prominent positions in the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice — has been involved in the creation of a new conservative group led by former White House Senior Adviser Stephen Miller.. The organization, America First Legal, aims to ...

https://www.oann.com › america-first-legal-vp-gene-hamilton-on-title-42

America First Legal VP Gene Hamilton on Title 42

Apr 28, 2022America First Legal VP Gene Hamilton on Title 42 OAN Newsroom UPDATED 7:50 AM PT - Thursday, April 28, 2022 America First Legal partnered with the state of Texas to file a lawsuit and a motion for...

https://www.sourcewatch.org › index.php?title=America_First_Legal

America First Legal - SourceWatch

America First Legal America First Legal (AFL) is a right-wing litigation center launched by Stephen Miller, senior advisor for policy and White House director of speechwriting to former President Donald Trump. AFL officially received 501 (c)3 tax-exempt status from the IRS in February 2021.

https://www.foxnews.com › politics › stephen-millers-america-first-legal-deal-significant-blow-woke-cult-year-ahead

Stephen Miller's America First Legal looks to deal 'significant blow ...

Jul 5, 2022Gene Hamilton, who worked as a senior Justice Department (DOJ) lawyer in the Trump administration before joining AFL, was similarly optimistic about the battles that lie ahead. "Our organization...

https://www.aflegal.org › news › senior-trump-officials-launch-america-first-legal-foundation

Senior Trump Officials Launch America First Legal

Apr 6, 2021WASHINGTON, DC - Today, top-ranking former Trump administration officials launched America First Legal (AFL), a new conservative nonprofit organization committed to upholding America First principles and combating the left's radical and lawless agenda. The organization will be headed by Stephen Miller, former Senior Advisor to President Trump.

https://spectator.org › mark-meadows-stephen-miller-america-first-legal

The Debut of America First Legal - USA News and Politics

Apr 16, 2021April 16, 2021, 12:01 AM Stephen Miller discusses America First Legal Fund on Fox News, April 8, 2021 (YouTube screenshot) P acking the Supreme Court with four leftist justices. Expanding the U.S....

https://www.bizpacreview.com › 2021 › 07 › 24 › america-first-legal-sees-early-wins-sets-their-aim-even-higher-1108145

America First Legal sees early wins, sets their aim even higher

Jul 24, 2021— America First Legal (@America1stLegal) July 20, 2021 The stunning victory came a day after Miller himself bluntly announced at the American Conservative Union Texas conference of 2021 that "we" —...

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https://www.americanoversight.org/?s=american+first+legal

11 pp

Displaying results from across AmericanOversight.org. For a more detailed search of government records, FOIA requests, and court filings, click here to visit our Documents Library. To search within documents please try your search on Document Cloud.

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FOIA Request

RECORDS REQUEST TO FLORIDA SENATE FOR COMMUNICATIONS REGARDING HB 1557 SENT BY LEGISLATORS TO SPECIFIC ENTITIES

05/23/2022

Public records request to Florida legislators and their aides asking for communications with homophobic groups concerning the "Don't Say Gay Bill."

FOIA Request

RECORDS REQUEST TO THE FLORIDA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES FOR COMMUNICATIONS REGARDING HB 1557 SENT BY LEGISLATORS TO SPECIFIC ENTITIES

05/23/2022

Public records request to Florida legislators and their aides asking for communications with homophobic groups concerning the "Don't Say Gay Bill."

FOIA Request

RECORDS REQUEST TO FLORIDA DOH FOR COMMUNICATIONS WITH SPECIFIC ORGANIZATIONS ABOUT ANTI-GENDER AFFIRMING CARE GUIDANCE

05/10/2022

Records request to Florida Department of Health asking for communications with key terms related to anti-gender affirming care guidance and for communications with homophobic organizations.

FOIA Request

RECORDS REQUEST TO FLORIDA GOVERNOR’S OFFICE FOR COMMUNICATIONS REGARDING ANTI-GENDER AFFIRMING CARE GUIDANCE

05/10/2022

Records Request to Florida Governor's Office asking for communications with key terms related to anti-gender affirming care guidance and for communications with homophobic organizations.

FOIA Request

RECORDS REQUEST TO THE SOUTH CAROLINA OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR COMMUNICATIONS CONCERNING AMERICA FIRST LEGAL

05/03/2022

Records request to the South Carolina Office of the Attorney General seeking communications with and about America First Legal

FOIA Request

RECORDS REQUEST TO THE OKLAHOMA OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR COMMUNICATIONS CONCERNING AMERICA FIRST LEGAL

05/03/2022

Records request to the Oklahoma Office of the Attorney General seeking communications with and about America First Legal.

FOIA Request

RECORDS REQUEST TO THE TEXAS OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR COMMUNICATIONS CONCERNING AMERICA FIRST LEGAL

05/03/2022

Records request to the Texas Office of the Attorney General seeking communications with and about America First Legal

FOIA Request

RECORDS REQUEST TO THE ARKANSAS OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERALFOR COMMUNICATIONS CONCERNING AMERICA FIRST LEGAL

05/03/2022

Records request to the Alaska Office of the Attorney General seeking communications with and about America First Legal.

FOIA Request

RECORDS REQUEST TO THEMISSOURI OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR COMMUNICATIONS CONCERNING AMERICA FIRST LEGAL

05/03/2022

Records request to the Missouri Office of the Attorney General seeking communications with and about America First Legal.

News

EMAILS SHOW TRUMP ALLY PUSHING FEDERAL OFFICIALS TO AUDIT VOTING MACHINES IN THE WEEKS AFTER THE 2020 ELECTION

04/12/2022

The records obtained by American Oversight show that Trump allies’ attempts to get the federal government to help them reverse election results went even broader than previously known,” reported Politico.

AboutAbout

I am a veteran of the United States Marine Corps and a graduate of the Antonin Scalia Law School. I am passionate about criminal justice reform, constitutional law issues, and protecting civil liberties.I am a veteran of the United States Marine Corps and a graduate of the Antonin Scalia Law School. I am passionate about criminal justice reform, constitutional law issues, and protecting civil liberties.

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Loaded 3 Comments posts

**Jacob M.** commented on a post • 6mo6moIt’s not your job to force health on people. Stop trying to be everyone’s nanny. If people want to smoke, it may be a mistake, but it’s their decision not yours.

It’s not your job to force health on people. Stop trying to be everyone’s nanny. If people want to smoke, it may be a mistake, but it’s their decision not yours.

**Jacob M.** commented on a post • 7mo7moJohn Bernhardt even on your grounds, the fault there would be that BB underestimated the capacity of Hamas for pure evil, and tolerated them on Israel’s borders for too long. That argues for a more militant response, and potentially a leadership shift to put even more focus on security. It doesn’t suggest complicity

John Bernhardt even on your grounds, the fault there would be that BB underestimated the capacity of Hamas for pure evil, and tolerated them on Israel’s borders for too long. That argues for a more militant response, and potentially a leadership shift to put even more focus on security. It doesn’t suggest complicity

**Jacob M.** commented on a post • 11mo11moCongrats man!

Congrats man!

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Experience

America First LegalAmerica First Legal Full-time · 3 yrs 2 mosFull-time · 3 yrs 2 mos

AttorneyAttorney Nov 2022 - Present · 1 yr 8 mosNov 2022 to Present · 1 yr 8 mos
- Law ClerkLaw Clerk May 2021 - Nov 2022 · 1 yr 7 mosMay 2021 to Nov 2022 · 1 yr 7 mosArlington, Virginia, United StatesArlington, Virginia, United States

Law ClerkLaw Clerk

Texas Attorney General · Full-timeTexas Attorney General · Full-timeMay 2020 - Aug 2020 · 4 mosMay 2020 to Aug 2020 · 4 mosAustin, Texas, United StatesAustin, Texas, United States

Legal AssistantLegal Assistant

Convention of StatesConvention of StatesNov 2018 - May 2020 · 1 yr 7 mosNov 2018 to May 2020 · 1 yr 7 mosArlingtonArlington

- Assistant to the general counselAssistant to the general counsel

CorporalCorporal

United States Marine CorpsUnited States Marine CorpsDec 2014 - Dec 2018 · 4 yrs 1 moDec 2014 to Dec 2018 · 4 yrs 1 mo

Education

George Mason University - Antonin Scalia Law SchoolGeorge Mason University - Antonin Scalia Law School Juris Doctor, LawJuris Doctor, Law2019 - May 20222019 - May 2022

Park UniversityPark University Bachelor of Science - BS, Social PsychologyBachelor of Science - BS, Social Psychology2017 - 20192017 - 2019

- Most coursework completed while on active duty in the United States Marine Corps.

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sb 1

DRAG

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF TENNESSEE NASHVILLE DIVISION L.W., by and through parents and next ) friends, Samantha Williams and Brian ) Williams, et al., ) ) Plaintiffs, ) ) and ) No. 3:23-cv-00376 ) JUDGE RICHARDSON UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ) JUDGE NEWBERN ) Plaintiff-Intervenor, ) ) v. ) ) JONATHAN SKRMETTI, et al., ) ) Defendants. ) Brief of Amici Curiae Arkansas, Alabama, and 15 Other States in Support of Defendants

Nicholas R. Barry TN Bar No. 031963 AMERICA FIRST LEGAL FOUNDATION 611 Pennsylvania Ave SE #231 Washington, DC 20003 (615) 431-9303 Nicholas.Barry@aflegal.org Steve Marshall Attorney General Edmund G. LaCour Jr. Solicitor General A. Barrett Bowdre Principal Deputy Solicitor General OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL STATE OF ALABAMA 501 Washington Avenue P.O. Box 300152 Montgomery, AL 36130-0152 (334) 242-7300 Edmund.LaCour@AlabamaAG.gov Tim Griffin Attorney General Nicholas J. Bronni Solicitor General Dylan L. Jacobs Deputy Solicitor General Hannah L. Templin Assistant Solicitor General OFFICE OF THE ARKANSAS ATTORNEY GENERAL 323 Center Street, Suite 200 Little Rock, AR 72201 (501) 682-6302 Dylan.Jacobs@ArkansasAG.gov Counsel for Amici Curiae

INTEREST OF AMICI Amici curiae are the States of Arkansas, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Utah. Like Tennessee, Amici are concerned about the surge in recent years of children suffering from gender dysphoria and other forms of gender-related psychological distress. And like Tennessee, Amici are concerned because these vulnerable children are suffering greatly and need help. The question is how to help them. Throughout their briefs, Plaintiffs and the United States asserts that gender transition procedures—puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical interventions—are “widely accepted and endorsed for the treatment of gender dysphoria” by several “well-established medical organizations.” Doc. 41 at 3; accord Doc. 33 at 3. But those briefs— like those medical interest groups they cite—paper over widespread disagreement with these gender transition procedures. Indeed, experts in several European countries and the State of Florida have moved away from those treatments. And a growing number of States, including some of the Amici, have banned them altogether. Amici thus write in support of Tennessee’s similar law. ARGUMENT I. Gender-Transition Procedures Are Not Evidence-Based

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