FOIA Response From DOJ's Office of Information Policy About The Presidential Advisory Commission On Election Integrity - January 31, 2018

Via Certified Mail and Electronic Submission
July 25, 2017

Laurie Day
Chief, Initial Request Staff
Office of Information Policy
Department of Justice
Suite 11050
1425 New York Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20530-0001
Nelson D. Hermilla
Chief, FOIA/PA Branch
Civil Rights Division
BICN Bldg., Room 3234
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Melissa Golden
Lead Paralegal and FOIA Specialist
Office of Legal Counsel
Room 5511, 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Re: Freedom of Information Act Request, Request for Expedited Processing and
Fee Waiver
Ms. Day, Mr. Hermilla, and Ms. Golden:
This is a request on behalf of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law and
the Protect Democracy Project under the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”), 5 U.S.C. § 552,
to the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and its offices, divisions, and components, including but
not limited to the Office of Information Policy (“OIP”), Civil Rights Division (“CRD”), Office
of Legal Counsel (“OLC”), Office of the Deputy Attorney General, Office of the Associate
Attorney General, and Office of the Attorney General. It is also a request for expedited
processing under 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6)(E) and 28 C.F.R. § 16.5(e)(1), and for a fee waiver under
5 U.S.C. §§ 552(a)(4)(A)(ii) & (iii) and 28 C.F.R. § 16.5(k).
I. Background
President Trump issued Executive Order 13799, creating a “Presidential Advisory

Commission on Election Integrity” (the “Commission”), purportedly “to promote fair and honest
Federal elections.” According to the Executive Order, the Commission shall “study the
registration and voting processes used in Federal elections… and shall submit a report to the
President that identifies… those laws, rules, policies, activities, strategies, and practices” that
either “enhance” or “undermine … the American people’s confidence in the integrity of the
voting processes used in Federal elections;” and “those vulnerabilities in voting systems and
practices used for Federal elections that could lead to improper voter registrations and improper
voting, including fraudulent voter registrations and fraudulent voting.” The Executive Order
excludes examination of pressing vulnerabilities in elections systems, like the nation’s aging
voting equipment, and fails to reference any investigation into voter suppression efforts or voter
turnout issues.
The Commission is chaired by the Vice President of the United States and, per the
Executive Order, “shall be informed by, and shall strive to avoid duplicating, the efforts of
existing government entities.”
The Order also provides for “staff to provide support for [the Commission’s] functions.”
Further, “subject to the availability of appropriations, the General Services Administration shall
provide the Commission with such administrative services, funds, facilities, staff, equipment, and
other support services as may be necessary to carry out its mission on a reimbursable basis.”
On May 15, 2017, the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law and The Protect
Democracy Project submitted a FOIA request (“Initial FOIA Request”) to DOJ addressed to OIP,
CRD, and OLC, a copy of which is attached hereto as Exhibit A.
CRD confirmed its receipt of the Initial FOIA Request as of May 16, 2017 and assigned
it tracking number FOI/PA No. 17-00286-F.
OIP confirmed its receipt of the Initial FOIA Request as of May 24, 2017 and assigned it
tracking numbers DOJ-2017-004291, DOJ-2017-004292, and DOJ-2017-004293.
OLC confirmed receipt of the Initial FOIA Request as of June 8, 2017 and assigned it
tracking number FY17-218.
On June 28, 2017, the Commission’s vice chair, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach,
sent letters to chief state election officials requesting they submit “publicly-available data from
state voter rolls and feedback on how to improve election integrity” by July 14. The Commission
explained that “any documents that are submitted to the full Commission will also be made
available to the public.” Civic groups, including the Brennan Center, challenged the
2
Commission’s requests in court, 1 and the Commission subsequently asked states to hold off
submitting data pending a court ruling. 2
President Trump attended and spoke at the Commission’s first meeting, which took place
on July 19, 2017. The Commission has scheduled its next meeting for September 2017.
II. Formal Request
The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law and The Protect Democracy
Project request, to the extent the following are in the possession, custody, or control of DOJ,
CRD, OLC, or OIP:
1. All communications and documents subject to the Initial FOIA Request created, dated,
identified, or modified subsequent to any search previously undertaken by DOJ, CRD,
OLC, or OIP in response to the Initial Request.
2. All communications and documents regarding use of the following databases for any
purpose related to the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, whether
by any employee of DHS or by any commissioner, officer, agent, employee, or assignee
of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity:
a. The Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (“SAVE”) program;
b. The National Security Entry-Exit Registration Systems (“NSEERS”) program;
c. Any cross-state voter database programs, including but not limited to the Electronic
Registration Information Center (“ERIC”) and Interstate Voter Registration
Crosscheck (“IVRC”) program;
d. Any list, program, or other resource that contains or can be used to determine the
citizenship status of any individual, including but not limited to resources at the
disposal of the Executive Office for Immigration Review (“EOIR”);
e. Any other federal database for the purpose of matching, verifying, or investigating
information on voter registration lists, including all lists to which the Commission
was granted access.
3. All communications and documents concerning the Presidential Advisory Commission

on Election Integrity, including but not limited to emails, memoranda, and letters to state
election officials regarding the requests for narrative responses and voter file data sent by
the Commission on or around June 28, 2017.
1
Legal Actions Taken Against Trump’s “Voter Fraud” Commission, Brennan Center for Justice (updated July 21,
2017), https://www.brennancenter.org/legal-actions-taken-against-trump%E2%80%99s-
%E2%80%9Cfraud%E2%80%9D-commission.
2
Spencer S. Hsu, Trump voting panel tells states to hold off sending data while court weighs privacy impact, Wash.
Post (July 10, 2017), http://wapo.st/2tBvySS?tid=ss_mail&utm_term=.f7ce56635876.
3
4. All communications and documents identifying the names and titles of DOJ officers,
agents, employees, or assignees on detail or assignment to the Commission, the
Executive Office of the President (“EOP”), or other agency or government entity to work
with or on behalf of the Commission, including but not limited to memoranda of
understanding with the Commission, EOP, or other agency or government entity
outlining such individuals’ responsibilities while on detail or assignment.
5. All communications and documents regarding the selection of members of the

Commission, including but not limited to selection criteria.
6. All communications and documents regarding the staffing of the Commission, including
but not limited to job descriptions, organization charts, and criteria for hiring.
7. All communications and documents regarding DOJ expenditures directly or indirectly

related to the Commission and Commission activities.
8. All communications and documents regarding the Commission’s July 19, 2017 meeting,
including but not limited to communications and documents concerning the meeting
agenda, staffing, location, and budget and any notes or transcripts of the meeting
proceedings.
9. All communications and documents concerning the Commission’s research or

investigatory activities, including but not limited to communications and documents
concerning the Commission’s research methodologies, identification of experts,
consultation with experts, and materials reviewed in connection with the Commission’s
research and investigatory activities.
10. All communications and documents describing the processing of this request, including
records sufficient to identify search terms used and locations and custodians searched,
and any tracking sheets used to track the processing of this request. If DOJ uses FOIA
questionnaires or certifications completed by individual custodians or components to
determine whether they possess responsive materials or to describe how they conducted
searches, we also request any such records prepared in connection with the processing of
this request.
Definitions
As used in this request—
“Collaborative Work Environment” means a platform used to create, edit, review, approve, store,
organize, share, and access documents and information by and among authorized users,
potentially in diverse locations and with different devices. Collaborative Work Environments
include Google Docs sites, Microsoft SharePoint sites, eRooms, document management systems
(e.g., iManage), intranets, web content management systems (CMS) (e.g., Drupal), wikis, and
blogs.
4
“Communications” means disclosure, transfer, or exchange of information or opinion, however
made, including any transmission of information by oral, graphic, written, pictorial, electronic, or
other perceptible means.
“Documents” means all written, printed, or electronically stored information of any kind in the
possession, custody, or control of DOJ, including information stored on social media accounts
like Twitter or Facebook, chats, instant messages, and documents contained in Collaborative
Work Environments and other document databases. The term includes agreements; letters;
calendar appointments; telegrams; inter-office communications; memoranda; reports; records;
instructions; notes; notebooks; diaries; plans; diagrams; photographs; photocopies; charts;
descriptions; drafts, whether or not they resulted in a final document; agendas and minutes of
meetings, conferences, and telephone or other conversations or communications; recordings;
published or unpublished speeches or articles; publications; transcripts of telephone
conversations; phone mail; electronic-mail; and computer print-outs.
“Including” means including, but not limited to.
“Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity” means the commission created
pursuant to the Executive Order on “Establishment of Presidential Advisory Commission on
Election Integrity,” signed by President Donald Trump on May 11, 2017, or any effort to
establish any task force, commission, or committee, whether through a government agency or
not, to investigate voter fraud, vote suppression, or any other aspect of the voting system.
Unless otherwise noted, the request includes documents and communications dated,
created, identified, or modified between November 8, 2016 and the date of DOJ’s search.
We request that responsive electronic records be provided electronically, in a text-
searchable, static-image (PDF) format (in the best image quality available to the agency),
pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(3)(A)(B) and (C).
III. Request for Expedited Processing
The Brennan Center and The Protect Democracy Project request expedited processing
pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6)(E) and 28 C.F.R. § 16.5(e)(1)(ii), (iv). The Brennan Center and
The Protect Democracy Project intend to disseminate the information obtained in response to this
request to enable the public to effectively monitor, evaluate, participate in, and respond to the
work of the Commission, which has begun in earnest. The Commission has attempted to collect
and make public voter information from all 50 states, held an introductory meeting led by the
Vice President and featuring remarks by the President, and plans to meet again this September.
Both the Commission and the issue of voter fraud have generated extensive public interest and
media coverage, reflecting the public’s urgent concern about election integrity. 3 Accordingly,
3
See, e.g., Ed. Board, The Bogus Voter-Fraud Commission, N.Y. Times, Jul. 22, 2017,
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/22/opinion/sunday/the-bogus-voter-fraud-commission.html; Vann R. Newkirk II,
Trump’s Voter-Fraud Commission Has Its First Meeting, Atlantic, Jul. 19, 2017,
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/trumps-voter-fraud-commission-runs-into-a-
roadblock/534084/; Liz Stark & Grace Hauck, Forty-four states and DC have refused to give certain voter
information to Trump commission, CNN, Jul. 5, 2017, http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/03/politics/kris-kobach-letter-
voter-fraud-commission-information/index.html; CBS News, Trump “voter fraud” commission seeking data from
5
this request meets the criteria for expedited processing because there is “[a]n urgency to inform
the public about an actual or alleged Federal Government activity” and this request concerns “[a]
matter of widespread and exceptional media interest in which there exist possible questions
about the government’s integrity which affect public confidence.” 28 C.F.R. § 16.5(e)(1)(ii), (iv).
The Brennan Center and The Protect Democracy Project are section 501(c)(3) non-profit
organizations that are “primarily engaged in disseminating information” within the meaning of 5
U.S.C. § 552(a)(6)(E)(v)(II) and 28 C.F.R. § 16.5(e)(1)(ii). The Brennan Center regularly writes
and publishes reports and newspaper articles and makes appearances on various media outlets
regarding the fight to preserve and expand the right to vote for every eligible citizen. Through
practical policy proposals, litigation, advocacy, and communications, the Brennan Center works
to ensure that voting is free, fair, and accessible for all Americans. 4
The core mission of The Protect Democracy Project, a new organization awaiting
501(c)(3) status, is to inform public understanding on operations and activities of the
government. This request is submitted in accordance with the organization’s mission to gather
and disseminate information that is likely to contribute significantly to the public understanding
of executive branch operations and activities. The Protect Democracy Project has routinely
demonstrated the ability to disseminate information about its FOIA requests to a wide audience. 5
The Protect Democracy Project has been recognized as an organization that meets this standard.
Protect Democracy Project, Inc. v. U.S. Dep’t of Def., No. 17-CV-00842 (CRC), 2017 WL
2992076 (D.D.C. July 13, 2017). The Protect Democracy Project has no commercial interests.
Furthermore, the Brennan Center and The Protect Democracy Project urgently require the
information sought by this request in order to inform the public of federal government activity.
See 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6)(E)(v)(II); 28 C.F.R. § 16.5(e)(1)(ii). The information requested herein
concerns federal government activity that is of vital interest to the general public. The Brennan
Center and The Protect Democracy Project intend to share any new information about the
Commission and the integrity of federal elections obtained from this request with the public.
In order to adequately inform the public and to monitor the Commission, the Brennan
Center and The Protect Democracy Project need this information expeditiously. The information
all states, June 30, 3017, http://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-voter-fraud-commission-seeking-voter-data-from-

all-states/; Ali Vitali, Peter Alexander & Kelly O’Donnell, Trump Establishes Voter Fraud Commission, NBC
News, May 11, 2017, http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-establish-vote-fraud-commission-
n757796.
4
A list of the Brennan Center’s recent publications is available at
http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resources/publications.
5
See, e.g., Lisa Rein, Watchdog group, citing “integrity of civil service,” sues Trump to find out if feds are being
bullied, Wash. Post, Apr. 27, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/04/27/watchdog-
group-citing-integrity-of-civil-service-sues-trump-to-find-out-if-feds-are-being-bullied/?utm_term=.8647ab128f3e;
Ben Berwick, Going to Court for Civil Servants, Take Care, April 28, 2017, https://takecareblog.com/blog/going-to-
court-for-civil-servants; Charlie Savage, Watchdog Group Sues Trump Administration, Seeking Legal Rationale
Behind Syria Strike, N.Y. Times, May 8, 2017, https://nyti.ms/2pX82OV; Justin Florence, What’s the Legal Basis
for the Syria Strikes? The Administration Must Acknowledge Limits on its Power to Start a War, Lawfare, May 8,
2017, https://www.lawfareblog.com/whats-legal-basis-syria-strikes-administration-must-acknowledge-limits-its-
power-start-war.
6
sought in this request is critical for the public’s monitoring and evaluation of and response to
those immediate activities. The information is also critical to public evaluation and monitoring of
the Commission’s work, to pursue its mission of determining which “laws, rules, policies,
activities, strategies, and practices” enhance or undermine public confidence in elections and
what vulnerabilities exist in America’s voting systems—work which the Commission has
already started. Effective public monitoring and involvement is urgently needed given the
importance of the topics the Commission is charged with addressing.
IV. Application for Waiver or Limitation of All Fees
The Brennan Center and The Protect Democracy Project request a waiver of all search,
review, and duplication fees associated with this request. The Brennan Center and the Protect
Democracy Project are eligible for a waiver of search and review fees pursuant to 5 U.S.C.
§ 552(a)(4)(A)(ii)(II) and 28 C.F.R. § 16.5(k), and for a waiver of all fees, including duplication
fees, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(A)(iii) and 28 C.F.R. § 16.10(k).
First, the Brennan Center and The Protect Democracy Project plan to analyze, publish,
and publicly disseminate information obtained from this request. The requested records are not
sought for commercial use and will be disclosed to the public at no cost.
Second, the Brennan Center and The Protect Democracy Project qualify as
“representative[s] of the news media” for the same reasons that they are “primarily engaged in
dissemination of information,” i.e., because the Brennan Center and The Protect Democracy
Project “gather[] information of potential interest to a segment of the public, uses its editorial
skills to turn the raw materials into a distinct work, and distributes that work to an audience.” 5
U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(A)(ii)(III); Nat’l Sec. Archive v. Dep’t of Def., 880 F.2d 1381, 1387 (D.C.
Cir. 1989). The Brennan Center and The Protect Democracy Project are therefore entitled to a
waiver of search and review fees pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(A)(ii)(II) and 28 C.F.R.
§ 16.10(k).
As a noncommercial requester, the Brennan Center also qualifies for waivers as an
“educational institution” pursuant to 28 C.F.R. § 16.10(d)(1) because it is affiliated with the
NYU School of Law, which is plainly an educational institution.
The Brennan Center and The Protect Democracy Project are also entitled to a waiver of
all fees, including duplication fees, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(A)(iii) and 28 C.F.R.
§ 16.5(e)(1)(ii). First, the subject of the requested records clearly concerns “the operations or
activities of the federal government.” Disclosure of the requested records is therefore in the
public interest because it is likely to contribute significantly to public understanding of how the
government is regulating elections, which is plainly of interest to the public.
Moreover, disclosure is not primarily in the Brennan Center’s or The Protect Democracy
Project’s commercial interests. As stated above, the Brennan Center and The Protect Democracy
Project plan to make any information disclosed as a result of this request available to the public
at no cost. A fee waiver would therefore fulfill Congress’s legislative intent that FOIA be
“liberally construed in favor of waivers for noncommercial requesters.” McClellan Ecological
7
Situation v. Carlucci, 835 F.2d 1282, 1284 (9th Cir. 1987) (quoting 132 CONG. REC. 27, 190
(1986) (Statement of Sen. Leahy)).
In the event you deny our waiver request, please contact us if you expect the costs to
exceed the amount of $500.00.
V. Response Requested in 10 Days
Your attention to this request is appreciated, and the Brennan Center and The Protect
Democracy Project will anticipate your determination regarding our request for expedited
processing within ten (10) calendar days. See 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6)(E)(ii)(I); 28 C.F.R.
§ 16.5(e)(4). I affirm that the information provided supporting the request for expedited
processing is true and correct to the best of my knowledge and belief. See 5 U.S.C.
§ 552(a)(6)(E)(vi).
We also request that you provide us with an estimated completion date, as required by 5
U.S.C. § 552(a)(7)(B)(ii). If the request is denied in whole or in part, we ask that you justify all
deletions by reference to specific exemptions to FOIA. We expect the release of all segregable
portions of otherwise exempt material. We reserve the right to appeal a decision to withhold any
information or to deny a waiver of fees.
Please furnish all applicable records to:
Wendy R. Weiser
Director, Democracy Program
Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law
120 Broadway, Suite 1750
New York, NY 10271
(646) 292-8310
www.brennancenter.org
Should you have any questions regarding this request, please contact Ms. Weiser at the
address above, by telephone at (646) 292-8310, or by e-mail at weiserw@brennan.law.nyu.edu;
or Larry Schwartztol by telephone at (202) 599-0466 email or by email at
larry.schwartztol@protectdemocracy.org.
8
Sincerely,
_______________________________ _______________________________
Larry Schwartztol, Counsel Wendy Weiser, Director

The Protect Democracy Project Tomas Lopez, Counsel
2020 Pennsylvania Ave NW, #163 Democracy Program
Washington, DC 20006 Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School
of Law
120 Broadway, Suite 1750
New York, New York 10271
9
U.S. Department of Justice
Office of Information Policy
Suite 11050
1425 New York Avenue, NW
Telephone: (202) 514-3642
January 31, 2018
Re: DOJ-2017-004083 (OLP)

DOJ-2017-004291 (AG)
DOJ-2017-004292 (DAG)
DOJ-2017-004293 (ASG)
DOJ-2017-005582 (AG)
DOJ-2017-005734 (DAG)
Ms. Wendy Weiser DOJ-2017-005735 (ASG)
Brennan Center for Justice DOJ-2017-005736 (OLP)
120 Broadway, Suite 1750 DOJ-2017-005737 (OIP)
New York, NY 10271 17-cv-06335 (S.D.N.Y.)
lopezt@brennan.law.nyu.edu VRB:CJOK:BPF
Dear Ms. Weiser:
This is an interim response to your Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests dated
and received in this Office on May 15, 2017 and July 25, 2017, in which you requested records
pertaining to (1) the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity (the
Commission), and (2) communications and documents involving the use of specific databases
and activities of the Commission. This response is made on behalf of the Offices of the
Attorney General (OAG), Deputy Attorney General (ODAG), Associate Attorney General
(OASG), Legal Policy (OLP), and Information Policy (OIP).
Please be advised that our records searches on behalf of OAG, ODAG, OASG, OLP,
and OIP, as well as of the Departmental Executive Secretariat, the official records repository
for OAG, ODAG, and OASG, are now complete. At this time, I have determined that ninety-
eight pages containing records responsive to your requests are appropriate for release without
excision, and copies are enclosed. Please note that the enclosed pages also contain records that
are not responsive to your requests. Those records have not been processed and are marked
accordingly. We are continuing to process remaining records that are potentially responsive to
your requests, and will respond to you again by March 31, 2018 pursuant to your letter filed
with the court on January 10, 2018. (See ECF, No. 40).
For your information, Congress excluded three discrete categories of law enforcement
and national security records from the requirements of the FOIA. See 5 U.S.C. § 552(c) (2015)
(amended 2016). This response is limited to those records that are subject to the requirements
of the FOIA. This is a standard notification that is given to all our requesters and should not be
taken as an indication that excluded records do, or do not, exist.
-2-
If you have any questions regarding this response, please contact Casey Kyung-Se Lee,
Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York at 212-637-2714.
Sincerely,
Vanessa R. Brinkmann
Senior Counsel
Enclosures
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL’ S
NEWS BRIEFING
PREPARED FOR THE OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, US DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE BY BULLETIN INTELLIGENCE WWW.BULLETININTELLIGENCE.COM/JUSTICE
TO: THE ATTORNEY GENERAL AND SENIOR STAFF

DATE: SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2017 7:30 AM EDT
Non-Responsive Record
Document ID: 0.7.14363.16479-000002 20180129-0000033

Non-Responsive Record Non-Responsive Record
Kobach Confirms Payment For Breitbart
Columns. The Hill (9/1 , Manchester, 1.68M) reports
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, the head of President
Trump’s Commission on Election Integrity, has confirmed that
24
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DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
NEWS CLIPS

DATE: SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2017 7:30 AM EDT
Document ID: 0.7.14363.16479-000004 20180129-0000232

Trump Voter Fraud Panel Head Confirms He’s A Paid Breitbart Columnist
By Julia Manchester
The Hill, September 1, 2017
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, the head of President Trump’s Commission on Election Integrity, is a paid
columnist at the conservative Breitbart News website.

“I get paid for my columns … just like you’re paid,” Kobach told The Kansas City Star.
Kobach has published seven columns on Breitbart, most recently on why the program known as Deferred Action for
Ch ldhood Arrivals (DACA) should be ended.

“DACA is inconsistent with the rule of law, inconsistent with the president’s own promises, and inconsistent with the
president’s principled stand against illegal immigration. It must end,” Kobach, who is running for governor of Kansas on a strict
immigration platform, wrote on the website.

His four most recent pieces are labeled as exclusives.
Kobach’s other pieces highlight immigration, as well as his own Commission on Election Integrity.
The Star reports that Kobach, who has defended Breitbart, has other columns for the conservative publication lined up.
“I think Breitbart.com appeals to anyone who is Republican or conservative in any way,” Kobach said, according to the
Star, adding “it appeals to a broad spectrum of conservative readers.”

While Kobach is currently running for governor of Kansas, there was also some talk that he could be a candidate for
secretary of Homeland Security.

Kobach is not the only Trump administration official to have ties to Breitbart.
The president’s former chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, left the site to chair Trump’s campaign and later work in the White
House.
He returned to Breitbart last month after he left the White House, along with former White House aide Sebastian Gorka,
who worked as a national security editor at the site.

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NEWS BRIEFING

DATE: FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2017 7:30 AM EDT
Document ID: 0.7.14363.37674-000002 20180129-0001244

Voter Fraud Panel Head Calls For
Transparency. CNN (8/31, Jarrett, 33.59M) reports that
“the head of President Donald Trump’s voter integrity
commission is reaching out to fellow panel members to
ensure the group’s meeting next month operates with ‘the
highest levels of transparency,’ after the Justice Department
fell on its sword about prior document disclosure failures to a
federal judge in DC Wednesday. ‘I wanted to contact you with
a request regarding any written materials for the September
12 meeting,’ said Kris Kobach, vice chair of the commission
in a letter to the other commissioners. ‘We want to ensure we
operate with the highest level of transparency and in a way
that allows the public to be fully informed of our commission’s
work.’” CNN notes that Justice Department attorney Elizabeth
Shapiro “apologized to US District Judge Colleen Kollar-

Kotelly in court for what she called a ‘misunderstanding’ over
what documents the commission was required to produce in
advance of its first meeting on July 19 under the Federal
Advisory Committee Act.”

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NEWS CLIPS

DATE: FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2017 7:30 AM EDT
Document ID: 0.7.14363.37674-000004 20180129-0001541

DOJ Admits ‘Chaotic’ Start To Voter Fraud Panel As Kobach Calls For Transparency
By Laura Jarrett
CNN, August 31, 2017
The head of President Donald Trump’s voter integrity commission is reaching out to fellow panel members to ensure the
group’s meeting next month operates with “the highest levels of transparency,” after the Justice Department fell on its sword
about prior document disclosure failures to a federal judge in DC Wednesday.
“I wanted to contact you with a request regarding any written materials for the September 12 meeting,” said Kris Kobach,
vice chair of the commission in a letter to the other commissioners. “We want to ensure we operate with the highest level of
transparency and in a way that allows the public to be fully informed of our commission’s work.”
Justice Department lawyer Elizabeth Shapiro apologized to US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in court for what she
called a “misunderstanding” over what documents the commission was required to produce in advance of its first meeting on July
19 under the Federal Advisory Committee Act.

“It was a chaotic start to the commission,” Shapiro said. “There was a little bit of unknown and a little bit of disorganization
in terms of how the meeting would happen.”

Kobach sent a letter to all 50 states requesting a slew of voter-roll data in late June and states began sending their records
earlier this month.

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The current lawsuit – one of at least seven pending against the commission – was brought by the Lawyers’ Committee for
Civil Rights Under Law in early July. While the judge denied the group’s initial request to block the commission from holding its
meeting in July, she allowed the suit to move forward with the understanding that it would turn over materials prepared for or by
the panel.
Kollar-Kotelly agreed Wednesday with the Lawyers’ Committee that the commission failed to “live up to the
representations” made to the court before the first meeting.

In a written order later Wednesday, the judge ordered that the commission to submit a detailed declaration to court now
explaining its process for identifying documents to be disclosed going forward, as well as an index listing “what specific
documents have been collected with respect to the Commission to date, which of those have been disclosed, and if they have
not been disclosed, on what basis.”

The judge denied the request to depose Kobach for now.
The Justice Department declined to comment.
Document ID: 0.7.14363.37674-000004 20180129-0001655

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DATE: THURSDAY, AUGUST 31, 2017 7:30 AM EDT
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many as one million voters to the state’s rolls, was signed by

Gov. Bruce Rauner, a Republican who had vetoed similar

legislation last year.”


DOJ Attorney Apologizes After Judge Blasts
Voting Panel’s Failure To Disclose Information.

The Washington Post (8/30, Hsu, 10.38M) reports that US
District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington, DC on
Wednesday “tore into President Trump’s voter commission
for reneging on a promise to fully disclose public documents
before a July 19 meeting, ordering the government to meet
new transparency requirements and eliciting an apology from
administration lawyers.” Judge Kollar-Kotelly said the Election
Integrity Commission “released only an agenda and proposed
bylaws before its first meeting at the White House complex
last month,” but “once gathered, commissioners sat with thick
binders that included documents the public had not seen,
including a specially prepared report and a 381 -page
‘database’ purporting to show 1,100 cases of voter fraud,
both from the Heritage Foundation, and also received a typed
list of possible topics to address from the panel vice
chairman, Kansas Secretary of State Kris W. Kobach.”

Politico (8/30, Gerstein, 3.6M) reports that Justice
Department attorney Elizabeth Shapiro, representing the
commission, “apologized” to Judge Kollar-Kotelly “over the
panel’s failure to abide by a promise to disclose all relevant
records ahead of the group’s first meeting last month.”
Shapiro “said the highly scrutinized panel and its staff did not
realize that the pledge to make materials public could be
interpreted to include the presentations and reports that
individual panel members brought to the inaugural July 19

session. ‘I want to apologize first and foremost for the
misunderstanding,’” Shapiro told the judge, who said “she
appreciated the government’s apology,” but also said “you
didn’t live up to the representations” made before the
meeting.
NYTimes Praises Illinois Action On Voter
Registration. The New York Times (8/31, Subscription
Publication, 13.56M) editorializes, “In the face of America’s
abysmal voter participation rates, lawmakers have two
choices: They can make voting easier, or they can make it
harder. Illinois made the right choice this week” by enacting
automatic voter registration. The bill, “which could add as
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WPost: Trump Election Commission Could
Disenfranchise Millions. In an editorial, the
Washington Post (7/30, 12.92M) says that in an email to a
Trump transition official, Kansas Secretary of State Kris
Kobach, who now chairs President Trump’s election integrity
commission, “said he was preparing an amendment to the
National Voter Registration Act to allow states to demand
documentary proof of citizenship for new registrants.” The
Post says the commission is “stacked with Kobach clones
who have made voter suppression into a political cottage
industry,” and if it “endorses the Kansas model, or even
recommends requiring documentary proof of citizenship as a
condition of voter registration, millions of Americans will face
disenfranchisement, and democracy itself will be at risk.”

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NEWS CLIPS

DATE: FRIDAY, AUGUST 11, 2017 7:30 AM EDT
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Partners In Voter Suppression

New York Times, August 11, 2017
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The Trump administration moved deeper into the politics of voter suppression this week by reversing the federal
government’s opposition to Ohio’s effort to purge tens of thousands of voters from the rolls simply because they vote
infrequently.
A federal appeals court blocked Ohio’s move last year as a violation of voting laws, in a case brought by civil rights
advocates and backed by the Obama administration’s Department of Justice. Now that an appeal has been accepted for this
term by the Supreme Court, Trump appointees at Justice — not career professionals — have changed the government’s position
to side with Ohio, in effect endorsing the purge and asking that it be allowed to go forward.
The case is a major challenge to the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 and the Help America Vote Act of 2002, which
require states to update rolls by deleting voters who move away, but bar the states from deregistering people simply because of
voting inactivity.
Viewed in a wider lens, the Justice Department reversal is a transparent part of the Trump administration’s embrace of
voter suppression tactics engineered by red-state Republicans in the name of preventing “voter fraud” — a nonexistent problem,
according to repeated nonpartisan research. The real goal is to block minority and poor citizens who tend to vote for Democrats.
In February, after Attorney General Jeff Sessions was sworn in, the government dropped Obama-era opposition to Texas’
oppressive voter ID law, which a federal court ruled in April intentionally discriminated against black and Latino voters. President
Trump further elevated this phony issue by alleging without proof that voter fraud cost him the popular presidential vote. He
imperiously created a commission dominated by partisan lackeys to drum up evidence of supposed fraud. The commission has
become a bipartisan political joke, scorned by state election officials for its zealotry.
The Ohio law removed voters from eligibility for sitting out three election cycles and failing to respond to a state warning
that their eligibility was at risk; this was proof enough, the state said, that the voters had moved elsewhere. Ohio says the law is
no more than housekeeping, an effort to tidy up the rolls, not voter suppression. But the United States Court of Appeals for the
Sixth Circuit ruled last September that it violated federal law protecting registrants who choose not to vote.
Opponents said the law was designed to target poor and minority voters, who were less likely than more affluent voters to
respond to a mailed warning that their eligib lity was at risk. After the law was blocked, 7,500 people who would have been
ineligible managed to vote in November, according to the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio.
The Trump administration claims Ohio acted responsibly. Opponents see it as a subversion of democracy. The case could
be a template for further electoral mischief, boosted now by a shamelessly politicized Justice Department.
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5 Big Unanswered Questions About The Russia Investigations : NPR

By Philip Ewing
NPR, August 10, 2017
The Senate is long gone. The House? Splitsville. The president is at his golf club in New Jersey. Only the hardiest swamp
creatures continue to scuttle in and out of the half-empty offices of late-August Washington, D.C.
Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller and his team, however, haven’t gone anywhere.
His attorneys and investigators are using a federal grand jury to interview witnesses and issue subpoenas as they look into
potential connections between President Trump’s campaign and Russia’s attack on the 2016 election.
News also emerged this week that FBI agents searched a home owned by former Trump campaign chairman Paul
Manafort, and that Manafort and other people in Trump world, including Donald Trump Jr., had submitted hundreds of
documents to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

If all that has been established, many other questions remain about Mueller’s investigation — just who else is he
interviewing? What specific materials does he want? — as well as the rest of the sprawling Russia imbroglio.
1. What inning is this?
Does Mueller’s use of the grand jury mean this game is almost over — or has everyone on the starting lineup even had a
chance at bat? Does the FBI search warrant mean the tempo is increasing?
Mueller hasn’t uttered more than a peep on the record since he’s been in his job. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein
has talked about the probe in general terms, but no one seems to have a sense about how far along this story might be — only
that it’s focused appropriately.

“It’s not a fishing expedition,” Rosenstein recently told Fox News Sunday.
The more time Mueller takes, the greater the political pressure in Washington.
The leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees said at one time they hoped to complete their investigations
about Russia’s election interference by the fall.

That may prove optimistic, but if they do wrap up their work and Mueller’s investigation continues into the new year and
beyond, it could turn into a big factor in the 2018 congressional midterm elections.
2. How much classified, or otherwise confidential, evidence will become public?
The Russia soap opera is frustrating to try to understand because it’s an iceberg, only partly visible above the water.
Much more of the evidence remains hidden — teased by current or former intelligence officials but never deta led. One big
example: electronic intercepts of communications between Americans and Russians allegedly involved in the interference.
“I was worried by a number of the contacts that the Russians had with U.S. persons,” as former CIA Director John Brennan
told the House Intelligence Committee this spring. “By the time I left office ... I had unresolved questions in my mind as to
whether or not the Russians had been successful in getting U.S. persons involved in the campaign or not work on their behalf.”
Mueller and the congressional intelligence committees have access to this evidence — believed to be intercepted emails or
other messages from key Americans to key Russians.

There’s also classified material from allied intelligence services. Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper
confirmed to the Senate Judiciary Committee that European spy agencies had sent material to Washington in 2016 — but said
nothing more.
“It’s quite sensitive,” he warned in May.
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It also hasn’t been described in anything like helpful detail. U.S. government officials have spoken about it anonymously to
reporters — for example, CNN reported that Russians discussed conversations with then-Trump campaign chairman Manafort
— but very little is solidly on the record.

Until it is, the widespread skepticism among many Americans about the theory of the case — that Donald Trump or some
of his top campaign aides might have colluded with Russians who targeted the election — will likely endure.
3. What if Trump or associates did something other than “collude?”
So far, prosecutors haven’t accused the president or anyone in his camp of doing anything wrong. But allegations about
Trump’s business practices, and those of his associates, swirled for years before his run for office.
Separately, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and others have said they want to know whether Trump might
have obstructed justice by firing FBI Director James Comey and taking other actions to try to protect himself or his aides —
whatever the merits of the underlying DOJ investigation into possible collusion with Russia.
These issues aren’t trivial, and they’re all tied together with the original mandate for Mueller’s investigation: Did, per press
reports, Russian underworld figures have a relationship with Trump? If so, did Russian political leaders’ awareness of these ties
put the president in a position in which he might be subject to coercion?

Trump alluded obliquely to this thread of the story in his interview with The New York Times. He told the newspaper that
he’d consider it a “breach” of Mueller’s mandate for the special counsel to look into his or his family’s business practices.
“I mean, it’s possible there’s a condo or something, so, you know, I sell a lot of condo units, and somebody from Russia
buys a condo, who knows?” Trump said. “I don’t make money from Russia.”
That’s not the account The New Republic, for example, gave in its story “Trump’s Russian Laundromat,” which described
decades’ worth of business relationships between the Trumps and Russian underworld figures who allegedly used the
president’s properties to launder illicit money.

The magazine reported, among other things, that at least 13 people connected to Russian organized crime have “owned,
lived in and even run criminal activities out of Trump Tower and other Trump properties.”
If Mueller’s investigators substantiate organized crime connections to Trump himself, but no “collusion” with Russia’s
election mischief, would they reveal it? And, if so, what happens next?
4. Will the U.S. ever deploy any safeguards or countermeasures?
Although some Americans — particularly Trump supporters — don’t believe the Russians attacked the election,
Washington has officially rebuked Moscow over it. Members of Congress passed and Trump himself signed legislation imposing
new sanctions and constraining the president’s ability to lift them on his own.
Before he told supporters at a political rally in West Virginia that the story was a “hoax,” Trump said in signing the sanctions
bill that he supported “making clear that America will not tolerate interference in our democratic process, and that we w ll side
with our allies and friends against Russian subversion and destabilization.”
(The question of whether U.S. sanctions actually change Russia’s policies is a different matter.)
But many members of Congress and outside advocates say Washington must do much more to deter future Russian
interference in elections and respond in kind to Russia’s war of information against the U.S.
State governments are bitterly frustrated with the federal government’s follow-up to the election interference, from the
awkwardness of the outreach by the Department of Homeland Security to a White House “voter fraud” commission widely viewed
as partisan.
At the same time, former diplomats and intelligence officers complain that Washington has all but surrendered the
battlefield of public opinion to Moscow. The Russian government is spending millions of rubles on both open and covert influence
operations against the West, from cable TV networks to Twitter bots, but commentators argue the U.S. isn’t even trying to level
the playing field.

Two members of Congress asked why the State Department reportedly isn’t using funds that have been set aside exactly
for that purpose.

“Countering foreign propaganda should be a top priority, and it is very concerning that progress on combating this problem
is being delayed because the State Department isn’t tapping into these resources,” complained Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio.
“This is indefensible,” said Sen. Chris Murphy D-Conn.
A State Department spokeswoman told reporters that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson plans to review global “engagement”
following Trump’s approval of the sanctions bill, but she acknowledged that much of the work now is focused on the Islamic
State.
Clapper told lawmakers earlier this year he thought they should bring back a “U.S. Information Agency on steroids,”
targeting Russians and “giving them some of their own medicine much more aggressively than we’ve done now.”
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Will Congress heed his advice? Will it increase federal scrutiny of the security of state election systems and their vendors
— or will the politics, along with all the other priorities that await lawmakers when they return in September, make it all too
fraught?
5. What threats will face American elections by 2018 or 2020?
“Generals are always fighting the last war,” or so goes the military bromide.
One potential danger facing policymakers in Washington, however, is that whatever precautions and preparations they take
ahead of big upcoming American elections, the threats from foreign powers may be different.
New technology might enable a whole new strain of “fake news” — real-looking videos, for example, in which public figures
are made to appear to be saying things they never actually did.

Or a cyberattack might look completely different on Election Day 2020, for example, than the ones the Russians launched
during the 2016 cycle: Instead of snooping in state records but permitting operations to go smoothly, attackers might try to erase
millions of names from voting records, or register the same people in multiple places or otherwise sabotage the day itself to
cause maximum disruption.
The news environment could be completely different, too.
Facebook and Google might get control of the online bots that promote or suppress stories seen by specific groups of
users. But what if Russia gradually turns up the volume on its overt messaging? Online amplifiers and trolls already sometimes
make common cause with some factions in the U.S., including, for example, in a recent, sustained attack against national
security adviser H.R. McMaster.

If the presence of such a force is no longer a surprise by 2018 or 2020, will it become so loud it changes the campaign
landscape? W ll the states and the federal government be ready?

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OTHER NATIONAL NEWS:

Poll: Half Of Republicans Would Back Postponing 2020 Election If Trump Proposed It
By Rebecca Savransky
The Hill, August 10, 2017
Slightly more than half of Republicans say they would support postponing the 2020 presidential election if President Trump
proposed it to make sure only eligible American citizens can vote, according to a new survey.
According to a poll conducted by two academic authors and published by The Washington Post, 52 percent of Republicans
said they would back a postponement of the next election if Trump called for it.
If Trump and congressional Republicans proposed postponing the election to ensure only eligible citizens could vote,
support from Republicans rises to 56 percent.

Pollsters found 47 percent of Republicans think Trump won the popular vote.
A majority of Republicans, 68 percent, also thinks millions of illegal immigrants voted in the presidential election and 73
percent think voter fraud happens somewhat or very often.

The poll was conducted from June 5-20 among 1,325 Americans. The survey focused on the 650 respondents who said
they identified with or leaned toward the Republican Party.

Earlier this year, Trump called for an election integrity commission to investigate his claims of voter fraud in last year’s
presidential election.
Dozens of state election officials from both parties have rebuked Trump’s claim that millions of illegal votes were cast
during the 2016 presidential race.

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“Critics” Say Trump’s Voter Fraud
Commission Creates Hacking Risk. The AP (8/9,
Mulvihill) reports, “Officials from both major political parties”
said in 2016 that “US elections are so decentralized that it
would be impossible for hackers to manipulate ballot counts
or voter rolls on a wide scale.” However, says the AP, “the
voter fraud commission established by President Donald
Trump could take away that one bit of security.” It “has
requested information on voters from every state and recently
won a federal court challenge to push ahead with the
collection, keeping it in one place. By compiling a national list
of registered voters, the federal government could provide
one-stop shopping for hackers and hostile foreign
governments seeking to wreak havoc with elections, critics
say.” Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes
(D), “who has refused to send data to the commission,” told
the AP, “Coordinating a national voter registration system
located in the White House is akin to handing a zip drive to
Russia.”
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collection, keeping it in one place,” and “by compiling a
national list of registered voters, the federal government could
provide one-stop shopping for hackers and hostile foreign
governments seeking to wreak havoc with elections.”

Voting Fraud Panel Could Create Easy Target
For Hackers. The AP (8/8, Mulvihill) reports from Cherry
Hill, NJ that “officials from both parties had a consistent
answer last year when asked about the security of voting
systems: U.S. elections are so decentralized that it would be
impossible for hackers to manipulate ballot counts or voter
rolls on a wide scale,” but “the voter fraud commission
established by President Donald Trump could take away that
one bit of security.” According to the AP, “the commission has
requested information on voters from every state and recently
won a federal court challenge to push ahead with the
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New York To Share Voter Data With Trump’s Voter

Fraud Commission. POLITICO New York (8/2, Mahoney)

reports that the state of New York will “share a database

containing almost all of the” record requested by President

Trump’s commission on voter fraud. This, despite Gov. Andre

Cuomo’s declaration in June that “New York’s secretary of

state, Rossana Rosado, would not fulfill the commission’s

request for the names, party affiliation, partial Social Security

Numbers, addresses and participation history of Empire State
voters.” While Cuomo “stated that New York ‘refuses to
perpetuate the myth voter fraud played a role in our election,’”
the decision “was never his to make; the database is
maintained by the Board of Elections, which is not directly

under the governor’s purview.”
In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal (8/2, Von
Spakovsky, Adams, Subscription Publication, 6.99M), two
members of the President’s election integrity commission,
Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage
Foundation, and J. Christian Adams, president and general
counsel of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, take issue
with claims from the New York Times, the Washington Post
and others that the commission is engaging in voter
suppression.


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NEWS CLIPS

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Critics Try To Smear Trump’s Election-Integrity Commission

Calling us racists and ‘voter-suppression superstars’ is shameful and corrosive to civility.
By Hans Von Spakovsky And J. Christian Adams
Wall Street Journal, August 2, 2017
Full-text stories from the Wall Street Journal are available to Journal subscribers by clicking the link.
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WPost: Trump Election Commission Could
Disenfranchise Millions. In an editorial, the
Washington Post (7/30, 12.92M) says that in an email to a
Trump transition official, Kansas Secretary of State Kris
Kobach, who now chairs President Trump’s election integrity
commission, “said he was preparing an amendment to the
National Voter Registration Act to allow states to demand
documentary proof of citizenship for new registrants.” The
Post says the commission is “stacked with Kobach clones
who have made voter suppression into a political cottage
industry,” and if it “endorses the Kansas model, or even
recommends requiring documentary proof of citizenship as a
condition of voter registration, millions of Americans will face
disenfranchisement, and democracy itself will be at risk.”

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NEWS CLIPS

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Hackers Break Into Voting Machines In Minutes At Hacking Competition

By John Bowden
The Hill, July 29, 2017
Hackers at at a competition in Las Vegas were able to successfully breach the software of U.S. voting machines in just 90
minutes on Friday, illuminating glaring security deficiencies in America’s election infrastructure.

Tech minds at the annual “DEF CON” in Las Vegas were given physical voting machines and remote access, with the
instructions of gaining access to the software.

According to a Register report, within minutes, hackers exposed glaring physical and software vulnerabilities across
multiple U.S. voting machine companies’ products.

Some devices were found to have physical ports that could be used to attach devices containing malicious software.
Others had insecure Wi-Fi connections, or were running outdated software with security vulnerabilities like Windows XP.
The Register reported that the challenge was designed by Jake Braun, the Chief Executive Officer of Cambridge Global
Advisors and Managing Director of Cambridge Global Capital.

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“Without question, our voting systems are weak and susceptible. Thanks to the contributions of the hacker community
today, we’ve uncovered even more about exactly how,” Braun said.
“The scary thing is we also know that our foreign adversaries – including Russia, North Korea, Iran – possess the
capabilities to hack them too, in the process undermining principles of democracy and threatening our national security.”
The machines were bought on Ebay, and were manufactured by major U.S. voting machine companies such as Diebold
Nixorf, Sequoia Voting Systems, and Winvote.

In January, President Trump signed an executive order establishing a commission to investigate possible voter fraud in the
2016 election.
The commission, chaired by Vice President Mike Pence, is expected to “study the registration and voting processes used
in Federal elections” as well as “fraudulent voter registrations and fraudulent voting,” the order says. Trump himself has made
baseless claims about millions of illegal voters during the 2016 election.
“You can never really find, you know, there are going to be — no matter what numbers we come up with there are going to
be lots of people that did things that we’re not going to find out about,” Trump said in January. “But we will find out because we
need a better system where that can’t happen.”

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Roll Call (7/25, Garcia, 91 K) reports that Jonathan
Thompson, CEO and executive director for the National
Sheriffs’ Association, “praised Sessions for his support of law
enforcement. ‘We have complete confidence in Attorney
General Sessions,’ he said in a statement. ‘Attorney General
Sessions has restored law enforcement’s trust in the federal
government and we applaud his efforts to back the men and
women in law enforcement.’” Kenneth Blackwell, “the former
Ohio secretary of state who served on Trump’s transition
team and sits on his voter fraud commission, also praised
Sessions. ‘Under his leadership, the DOJ has followed the
law and put in place policies to crack down on illegal
immigration and sanctuary cities,’ Blackwell said in a post on
his Facebook page. ‘Additionally, General Sessions and the
DOJ are coming down hard on violent criminals ravaging our
cities, and on gangs that are infiltrating communities across
America.’”
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NEWS CLIPS

DATE: WEDNESDAY, JULY 26, 2017 7:30 AM EDT
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Conservative Groups Come To Sessions’ Defense

By Eric Garcia
Roll Call, July 25, 2017
Conservative groups are rushing to Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ defense after repeated criticism from President Donald
Trump and reports that his days are numbered.

Jonathan Thompson, CEO and executive director for the National Sheriffs’ Association, praised Sessions for his support of
law enforcement.
“We have complete confidence in Attorney General Sessions,” he said in a statement. “Attorney General Sessions has
restored law enforcement’s trust in the federal government and we applaud his efforts to back the men and women in law
enforcement.”
The statements come as Trump criticized Sessions in interviews and on Twitter both for recusing himself from the Russia
investigation and for not prosecuting Hillary Clinton. News organizations have reported that Trump is considering firing Sessions.
Kenneth Blackwell, the former Ohio secretary of state who served on Trump’s transition team and sits on his voter fraud
commission, also praised Sessions.

“Under his leadership, the DOJ has followed the law and put in place policies to crack down on illegal immigration and
sanctuary cities,” Blackwell said in a post on his Facebook page. “Additionally, General Sessions and the DOJ are coming down
hard on violent criminals ravaging our cities, and on gangs that are infiltrating communities across America.”
Former Sen. Jim DeMint, who used to lead the Heritage Foundation and just started the Conservative Partnership Institute,
tweeted that he agreed there was too much of a focus on Russia, but defended Sessions.
Sessions also got a boost from the socially conservative Family Research Council’s president Tony Perkins.
“If there’s one thing we know about the Attorney General, it’s that he understands the importance of all of our God-given
rights, respects the law, and is making tremendous progress to restore our nation to greatness,” Perkins said in a statement.
The support comes alongside support from numerous conservative members of Congress and senators such as Sen. Ted
Cruz, who batted down speculation he was being considered as a replacement.

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The sheer number of lawsuits presents a challenge for Justice Department lawyers, who must respond to them all. On a
single day in March, the government’s point man in the travel ban case, acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall, was forced to
defend the policy in two federal courts nearly 5,000 miles apart — in person in Maryland, by phone in Hawaii.
The Natural Resources Defense Council, one of many aggressive environmental groups, is involved in 27 cases
challenging Trump administration policies, from its easing of restrictions on mercury and methane pollution to the status of the
rusty patched bumble bee.

“That’s about one a week, and it’s going to accelerate,” says Mitch Bernard, the group’s chief counsel. On Thursday, the
group sued over potential vulnerabilities at a uranium processing plant in Tennessee.

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed 26 lawsuits on the travel ban alone. The group also is in court over the
government’s threat to withhold federal funds from immigrant-friendly sanctuary cities, and it’s defending Iraqi nationals facing
deportation in Detroit and a Somali-American family detained at the Canadian border.

American Oversight, a watchdog group created in March to press for greater government transparency and accountability,
has filed 11 lawsuits seeking information on topics ranging from the potential costs of Trump’s planned border wall to his claim of
being wiretapped at Trump Tower in New York last year.

States v. Feds
Democratic attorneys general from Maine to Hawaii have taken a leading role in the legal onslaught, just as their
Republican counterparts did in challenging President Barack Obama’s signature achievements on health care, immigration and
environmental regulation.
“I go into the office, I sue the federal government, and I go home,” Texas’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott, said in
describing his job as the state’s attorney general in 2013.

Four years later, Democratic attorneys general have been quick to file lawsuits on the travel ban, as well as the Education
Department’s delay in helping students who took out fraudulent loans and the Energy Department’s delay of energy efficiency
standards.
Hawaii Attorney General Douglas Chin led his Democratic colleagues in challenging the Trump administration’s travel ban.
(Photo: Caleb Jones, AP)

To succeed like other litigants, states must show they will be harmed, often economically, by the policies they’re
challenging. Texas, for instance, led a group of states with Republican governors who beat back Obama’s order easing
immigration rules for parents by citing the need to pay for processing new driver’s licenses.
“The state attorneys general are in a terrific position to bring these lawsuits, to try to check the federal government,” says
Raymond Brescia, an Albany Law School professor who has studied the trend. “They have the resources to do this.”
Many of the lawsuits have been triggered by Trump’s effort to reverse actions taken by his predecessor. “The
administration came in very aggressively to dismantle a lot of the framework for environmental and human health protection,”
Bernard says. “The most effective way to resist that is through litigation.”
If unsuccessful at repealing Obamacare, Trump has talked about letting it collapse. That could lead to a lawsuit based on
the Take Care Clause of the Constitution, which requires that the president “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”
“Donald Trump doesn’t follow the rule of law,” says Sean Rankin, executive director of the Democratic Attorneys General
Association. “This is not something that we’ve seen before.”’Constitutional crisis’

That was the theme of a panel discussion Wednesday featuring the litigators behind three lawsuits that accuse Trump of
profiting as president from his private businesses, which may violate the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause. The first of them
was filed on Jan. 23 at 9 a.m. — the first business day following Trump’s inauguration.
“We believe he’s creating an unprecedented constitutional crisis,” said District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine,
who filed one of the lawsuits along with Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh.
Neither the White House nor the Justice Department would comment on the rash of ongoing litigation, much of which is
triggered by Freedom of Information Act requests that go unanswered.

President Trump has been sued for mixing business with pleasure by groups seeking a list of visitors to his Mar-a-Lago
retreat. (Photo: DON EMMERT, AFP/Getty Images)

Occasionally, those lawsuits result in quick victories. The administration recently agreed to turn over visitor logs for Trump’s
Mar-a-Lago retreat in Palm Beach, Fla. One of the litigants, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said it would
release the logs publicly when they’re received in September.

Another watchdog group, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, is among four groups challenging Trump’s fledgling
voter fraud commission. It’s also seeking to make public the intelligence agencies’ report on Russian interference in last year’s
election, as well as Trump’s tax returns.
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Document ID: 0.7.14363.35675-000003 20180129-0023885

code to the AccuVote TS to change the record of the votes to produce whatever outcome the code writers desired. And the code
could spread from one machine to another like a virus.

That was more than a decade ago, but Georgia still uses the AccuVote TS. The state is one of five ― the others are
Delaware, Louisiana, New Jersey and South Carolina ― that rely entirely on DREs for voting. Ten other states use a
combination of paper ballots and DRE machines that leave no paper trail. Many use a newer version of the AccuVote known as
the TSX ― even though computer scientists have demonstrated that machine, too, is vulnerable to hacking. Others use the
Sequoia AVC Advantage, which Princeton professor Andrew Appel demonstrated could be similarly manipulated in a 2007 legal
filing. Appel bought a Sequoia machine online for $82 and demonstrated that he could remove 10 screws and easily replace the
Sequoia’s memory card with a modified version that would alter the outcome of an election.
Election security, typically a niche topic, emerged as a mainstream concern last summer after the Democratic National
Committee announced that Russian hackers had penetrated their computer systems. The DNC hack was an early indication that
Moscow had decided to interfere with the U.S. presidential election, raising alarms that their efforts could extend to the
vulnerable touch-screen machines that record millions of votes around the country. By the time the cyberattack became public, it
was too late to replace them, but in the year since the DNC hack revelations, there has been little tangible progress in securing
America’s voting machines.

“Basically nothing has changed, except that we are now at least more aware of the threat,” said Halderman, who is now a
computer science professor at the University of Michigan. “Ten years ago, had you said a foreign government is going to try to
hack U.S. election equipment, I’d say it’s technically possible but so unlikely. But what we saw in 2016 was a concerted attempt
by a foreign power to attack election infrastructure.”

Verified Voting
Computer scientists like Halderman, Appel and Felten have been warning states about the risks of DRE machines for over
a decade, urging them to replace touch-screen machines with paper ballots that can be read with an optical scanner and easily
audited after an election. Paper ballots create a physical copy of the voter’s choice that can be checked against the results; with
DRE machines, it’s impossible to verify whether the choice the person intended to select is, in fact, what the machine recorded.
Felten even started to post pictures of unguarded voting machines on a blog to show how easily a hacker could access
them.
Most states have listened and gradually replaced their touch-screen voting equipment with paper ballots or added “voter
verifiable paper audit trail” printers (VVPAT) to their DRE machines that prompt the voter to confirm their selections on a
separate paper record before the computer logs the vote. But in close elections, security weaknesses in even a handful of states
risk swinging the outcome.

During a House congressional hearing in September, Dan Wallach, a computer science professor at Rice University who
studied under Appel and Felten, warned that none of the systems used to register voters, cast votes or tabulate the outcome “are
ready to rebuff attacks from our nation-state adversaries, nor can we replace them in time to make a difference.”
“Even if nothing goes wrong, and all this turned out to be nothing but hot air,” Wallach said at the time, “we should treat
these events as a warning.” Even if nothing goes wrong, and all this turned out to be nothing but hot air, we should treat these
events as a warning. Dan Wallach, computer science professor, on Russian election interference
On Nov. 7, the day before last year’s elections, former CIA Director James Woolsey flagged DRE voting machines as a key
vulnerability. “If I were a bad guy from another country who wanted to disrupt the American system … I think I’d concentrate on
messing up the touch-screen systems,” he told Fox News.

Russian hackers tried to access election-related computer systems in at least 21 states during last year’s election,
according to the Department of Homeland Security. Intelligence officials say there is no evidence that hackers changed any
votes. But experts like Halderman, who was able to infiltrate a voting machine while he was just a student, have no doubt that
Russian intelligence operatives have the capability to change votes.

Halderman testified before a Senate panel last month that DHS has not performed computer forensics on any of these
DREs in order to prove that there wasn’t any tampering or attempted tampering during last year’s election.
HuffPost reached out to the five states that rely exclusively on DRE machines and several states that use a mix of
electronic machines and paper ballots. Election officials cited the high cost of replacing their electronic machines and insisted
that they were taking the necessary precautions to ward off cyber-intruders and verify the results.
Meg Casper Sunstrom, press secretary for the Louisiana secretary of state, was dismissive of the criticism from computer
scientists. “None of them have ever worked in an election,” said Sunstrom, arguing that the machines are secure because they
are tested before and after the election, locked and secured with a tamper-proof seal before voting begins and are never
connected to the internet.
36
Document ID: 0.7.14363.15489-000004 20180129-0025750

And although there is no paper trail to audit, Sunstrom says the computer printout of the vote totals allows officials to verify
that the number of votes cast matches the number of voters who signed in at each precinct.
The computer scientists lobbying against DREs aren’t convinced, however. Machines don’t need to be connected to the
internet to be infected with malware, and the computer printouts “provide no protection whatsoever against hacked machines,”
Halderman wrote in an email. “Someone who hacks the machine can cause it to print out whatever they want. My group did that
with the Diebold DREs we hacked, for instance.”

Bloomberg/Getty Images A Diebold electronic voting machine is demonstrated in New York in 2004.
The touch-screen voting machines in Louisiana are more than 10 years old, and the state is looking to replace them ―
though Sunstrom says they don’t plan to use paper ballots because “people don’t like paper ballots at all!”
Even in jurisdictions where election officials want to get rid of their touch-screen machines, most states don’t have the
money to purchase new equipment. After the George W. Bush-Al Gore recount debacle in 2000, when punch-card voting
machines rendered some ballots unreadable, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act in 2002, which has provided states
with over $3 billion to modernize their equipment. All 50 states took the money, and most of them used it to buy touch-screen
DRE voting machines.

The act, passed in 2002, “fundamentally changed the market for voting machines,” election experts Lawrence Norden and
Christopher Famighetti wrote in a Brennan Center for Justice report. By 2006, 38 percent of registered voters used electronic
voting machines, compared with 12 percent in 2000.

But within a few years, demonstrations of how vulnerable those new machines are to tampering caused most jurisdictions
to switch to paper ballots. Last November, at least 80 percent of voters made their selections on a paper ballot or an electronic
machine that also produces a paper trail, the Brennan Center found.
The Brennan Center estimates that replacing the country’s paperless voting machines would cost $130 million to $400
million ― a fraction of what Congress allocated in 2002. But most states have already spent the money they got from the federal
government, and some of those still using touch-screen systems are simply accustomed to their convenience.
When election officials argue that their DRE machines are secure, it’s hard to tell if they really doubt warnings from experts
or if they are reluctant to cast doubt on machines they can’t afford to replace. Officials are “sensitive to the risk of undermining
confidence in elections,” said Felten, who went on to serve in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy under
President Barack Obama. “That can make it difficult to have straightforward conversations about the risks that exist.”
New Jersey, which is among the states that rely entirely on electronic voting machines, passed a law in 2005 requiring all
voting machines to produce a voter-verified paper record by Jan. 1, 2008, ahead of the state’s presidential primary. But the law
was extended and ultimately never implemented because of funding issues. Upgrading the state’s voting systems was projected
to cost $19 million.

“That $19 million is going to be used to help people who can’t find jobs, feed their families or heat their homes,”
Assemblywoman Joan Quigley said in 2009.

Part of the reason it is so difficult to get the nation equipped with secure voting equipment is the decentralized nature of
elections in the U.S. There are about 8,000 election jurisdictions in the country, and procedures are regulated at the state level.
The Help America Vote Act created an Election Assistance Commission, but its guidelines are voluntary and “not at all rigorous,”
Halderman argues. Lawmakers have, by and large, been hesitant to impose more restrictive standards on states out of fear that
they’ll be accused of federal overreach.

Donna Curling, a 62-year-old stay-at-home mother in Georgia, spent two years traveling to Washington to lobby lawmakers
to pass a law requiring states to use election equipment that would leave a paper trail. Members of Congress were sympathetic
to her concerns about the electronic machines used in her home state, but most ― especially Republicans, she recalled ― said
it wasn’t the federal government’s place to tell states how to run elections.
Curling stopped making the trips to D.C. in 2009, after years of unsuccessful conversations with lawmakers. “It takes over
your life,” she said.

But then Curling read a news story in March about a data breach at Kennesaw State University’s Center for Election
Systems, which tests and programs Georgia’s voting machines, and decided it was time to get involved again. Curling filed a
lawsuit against Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp earlier this year in an effort to force the use of paper ballots in the June
20 congressional runoff election, in which Republican Karen Handel defeated Democrat Jon Ossoff.
Fulton County Clerk Cathelene Robinson wrote in June that the Curling’s “concern that the DRE voting system lack a
verification feature is legitimate” but ultimately denied the request, citing a lack of evidence and a sovereign immunity clause that
applies to the secretary of state.

Curling filed another lawsuit earlier this month, this time asking the judge to overturn the June 20 election results and get
rid of the state’s electronic voting machines. She says she isn’t motivated by a preference in candidates but by a concern that it’s
37
Document ID: 0.7.14363.15489-000004 20180129-0025751

Washington (CNN)As President Donald Trump lashes out at former President Barack Obama for failing to take a harder
line against Russia for election meddling, Trump’s own advisers are struggling to convince him that Russia still poses a threat,
according to multiple senior administration officials.

“I just heard today for the first time that Obama knew about Russia a long time before the election, and he did nothing
about it,” Trump told Fox News in an interview that aired Sunday. “To me – in other words – the question is, if he had the
information, why didn’t he do something about it? He should have done something about it.”
But the Trump administration has taken no public steps to punish Russia for its interference in the 2016 election. Multiple
senior administration officials said there are few signs the President is devoting his time or attention to the ongoing election-
related cyber threat from Russia.
“I’ve seen no evidence of it,” one senior administration official said when asked whether Trump was convening any
meetings on Russian meddling in the election. The official said there is no paper trail – schedules, readouts or briefing
documents – to indicate Trump has dedicated time to the issue.

Top intelligence officials have raised alarm about Russia’s cyberattacks, calling them a “major threat” to the US election
system. In public hearings on Capitol Hill and classified briefings behind closed doors, intelligence officials have drawn the same
conclusions: Russia launched an unprecedented attack on America’s electoral process during the 2016 presidential campaign
and – barring a full-throated response from the US – the Russians are almost certain to do so again.
It’s a warning some fear the White House isn’t taking seriously.
House Russia investigators interview John Podesta
In a recent closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill, National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers expressed frustration to
lawmakers about his inability to convince the President to accept US intelligence that Russia meddled in the election, according
to a congressional source familiar with the meeting.

Another congressional source said Rogers has shared concerns with lawmakers about the lack of White House focus on
the continued threat from Russian cyber efforts, particularly relating to US voting systems. In addition, the US intelligence
community sees such potential threats not only from Russia but also from China, North Korea and Iran.
One intelligence official said the intelligence community continues to brief Trump on Russia’s meddling in the election as
new information comes to light. The source said the President appears no less engaged on issues surrounding Russian election
meddling than on any other matters covered in the presidential daily brief. But the official acknowledged that Trump has vented
his frustration with officials outside of the briefings about the amount of attention paid to the investigation into Russian election
interference.
Former NATO ambassador: Trump, Obama should have done more to combat Russia hacking
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer insisted Trump is taking Russian cyberattacks seriously and said the
administration is taking action – albeit quietly.

“The United States continues to combat on a regular basis malicious cyber activity, and will continue to do so without
bragging to the media or defending itself against unfair media criticism,” Spicer said in a statement.
Spicer noted that Trump has upheld the sanctions the Obama administration put in place against Russia, signed a
cybersecurity executive order to consolidate responsibility for protecting the government from hackers and created an election
commission. That commission has yet to convene in person but met via conference call on Wednesday.
But some in Trump’s own party believe he hasn’t done enough to repudiate Russia’s actions and are pushing him to back a
sanctions package Congress is considering.

“We haven’t done anything,” Sen. John McCain said Tuesday. “We passed a bill through the Senate, and it’s hung up in
the House. Tell me what we’ve done?”

Roger Stone agrees to meet with House intelligence committee
Asked what he wants the President to do, the Arizona Republican said he should tell the House “to take up the bill we
passed through the Senate. Sign it, get it out there.”

The CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment for this story. The NSA did not respond
to requests for comment.

The President doesn’t differentiate between investigations into Russian election meddling and investigations into potential
collusion between Trump campaign associates and Russia, according to sources that have spoken to Trump about the issues.
The collusion probe is only one element of a larger landscape. The FBI’s counterintelligence team has been trying to piece
together exactly how Russia interfered in the election, in order to learn techniques and adapt for the future. This part is less about
collusion and more about Russian cyberattacks against US political organizations and attempted hacks of voters’ personal
information.
39
Document ID: 0.7.14363.26791 20180129-0028987

Former US Ambassador to NATO Nicholas Burns, testifying in front of the Senate intelligence committee Wednesday,
faulted Obama for failing to take action against Russia more quickly when he was president. But he unleashed his fury at Trump
for doing so little to curtail Russian aggression.

“It is his duty, President Trump’s, to be skeptical of Russia. It’s his duty to investigate and defend our country against a
cyber offensive because Russia is our most dangerous adversary in the world today,” said Burns, a career foreign service officer
who has served under presidents of both parties. “And if he continues to refuse to act it’s a dereliction of the basic duty to defend
the country.”
Controversial Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak is leaving the US
At a Senate hearing last week, Bill Priestap, the assistant director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division and a career civil
servant, also highlighted the ongoing threat from Russia, saying, “I believe the Russians will absolutely continue to try to conduct
influence operations in the US, which will include cyber intrusions.”

But the President’s muted interest in election interference stands in stark contrast to the collusion investigation, which has
consumed his attention. Trump takes questions about Russia personally, sources said, because he sees them as an effort to
undermine the legitimacy of his presidency.

“He thinks one equates with the other,” one Republican congressional source said. “He can’t admit anything that may taint
his election. He is more hung up on how it affected the election outcome than what Russia did.”
In his statement for this story, Spicer also referenced the election outcome, saying, “The ballot boxes were not hacked and
the tallies were unaffected. Numerous authorities have confirmed this.”

What Russia’s bold attempt to influence the 2016 election says about US political polarization
Another source close to the President says Trump sees everything regarding Russia as being “organized as a challenge to
him.”
Trump aired those frustrations this week on Twitter, writing, “There is no collusion & no obstruction. I should be given
apology!”
In Trump’s mind “he had nothing to do with Russia,” one source said. “He knows in his own mind there is not one single
iota of anything that could implicate him.”

One administration official suggested there wasn’t necessarily a need for Trump to convene briefings on election
interference – aside from his daily intelligence briefing – because little has changed since Trump was briefed on the matter in
January, before his inauguration.

At that point, the 17 intelligence agencies released a declassified report concluding that Russian President Vladimir Putin
ordered a campaign to influence the 2016 election with the goal of disparaging Hillary Clinton while boosting Trump and
undermining the public’s faith in the democratic process.

Since that briefing, there have been major developments on the cyber front. The final days of the French election featured
a hack-and-leak attack targeting Emmanuel Macron, now the president of France. And US officials believe Russia hacked Qatari
state-run media and planted a fake news story that which helped trigger a diplomatic crisis among critical US allies in the Gulf.
Trump’s skepticism
During the campaign and since taking office, Trump has repeatedly questioned whether Russia was responsible for the
election-related cyberattacks. He has blamed the Democratic National Committee, China and “someone sitting on their bed that
weighs 400 pounds.”

Trump has only once stated clearly and in public that Russia was behind the hacks – during a news conference as
President-elect on January 11 , just days after his briefing from top intelligence officials.
“As far as hacking, I think it was Russia. But I think we also get hacked by other countries and other people,” Trump said.
On Monday, Spicer said the President stands by his assessment from January. The intelligence community has found no
evidence that other countries also meddled in the election, an intelligence official said.
Trump demands apology, accuses Obama of having ‘colluded or obstructed’
A source familiar with the President’s thinking said he views Russia’s action as something that “everybody has been doing
to each other for years. Everybody spies,” the source said. “He believes that intel operations hack each other.”
The result: Trump sees the Russian hacking story as “nothing new.” In fact, the source said, Trump views it as “the
establishment intelligence community trying to frame a narrative that is startling to the average viewer, but he regards it as
business as usual.”
Intelligence experts disagree. They describe Russia’s actions as far from the usual foreign espionage attempts.
John Hultquist, the director of intelligence analysis at FireEye, a cyber security and threat intelligence company, said
Russia broke the rules in the “gentlemen’s game of espionage” by stealing information, leaking it and using it to try to influence
voters and undermine the democratic process.

40
Document ID: 0.7.14363.26791 20180129-0028988

“In every previous incident, we believed they wouldn’t cross the next red line. They’ve shown us they’re willing to do so,”
said Hultquist, who has a military background and is an expert in cyberespionage. “If we fail to respond with resolve they learn
that they can get away with it.”

First on CNN – Devin Nunes: I can ‘take the investigation over’ after stepping aside
The administration’s inaction is raising alarm with experts like Clint Watts, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research
Institute and a counter-terrorism expert who recently testified in front of the Senate intelligence committee about Russia’s efforts
in the 2016 election.

“It’s ridiculous that nothing’s been done,” Watts said. “There is no Russia policy. No one knows if they can work on Russia.
No one knows what their assignment is with regards to Russia.”

While Trump may have little concern about Russia’s election aggression, other top officials in the administration have been
vocal about the threat.

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said in May that Russian cyberattacks remain a “major threat” to the United
States, especially after Russia showcased its aggressive posture by interfering in the 2016 election. But he acknowledged that
the US still hasn’t devised a clear strategy to counter the Kremlin.

“Relative to a grand strategy, I am not aware right now of any – I think we’re still assessing the impact,” Coats told the
Senate intelligence committee in early May.

Later that month he reiterated his concerns in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Spicer: Trump was ‘joking’ when he asked Russia to hack Clinton
“I think we’re learning that we do need to take this seriously – which we do,” Coats said. “And shaping a policy and a plan
to address this, I think, rises to a top priority.”

But across the government, administration officials appear to be publicly confirming the concerns NSA Director Rogers
expressed privately --Russia’s attacks on American democracy aren’t a top priority for Trump.
Former FBI Director James Comey, who was fired by Trump, testified earlier this month that during his nine private
conversations with Trump, the President never asked about Russia’s meddling in the election or what was being done to protect
the country against future Russian interference.

“I don’t recall a conversation like that,” Comey told the Senate intelligence committee, shortly after his testimony describing
a President who seemed much more interested in making sure that the public knew he wasn’t personally under investigation as
part of the Russia probe.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions testified that he had never received a briefing on Russia’s election meddling efforts – even
before he officially recused himself from the collusion investigation.

Working around the President
Obama retaliated against Russia’s interference in the election in January with a package of sanctions that included ejecting
35 Russian diplomats from the US, closing two Russian compounds and sanctioning two Russian intelligence services.
While the Trump administration has upheld those measures, it has not taken additional steps.
But lawmakers have tried. The Senate passed a bill to slap Russia with new sanctions for its election interference and the
legislation has moved to the House, which would also need to pass it before it goes to Trump’s desk. But congressional sources
said the Trump administration is hoping to water down the sanctions package, which the White House is eyeing warily.
“I think our main concern overall with sanctions is how they – how will the Congress craft them and any potential erosion of
the executive branch’s authority to implement them,” Spicer said Friday.

There are also bipartisan efforts underway in Congress to develop a policy to prevent Russian meddling in future US
elections.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, says he is working with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York, on legislation to
create a 9/11-style commission to explore what happened in 2016 on the cyber front.
How one typo helped let Russian hackers in
Graham tells CNN their idea is to create a commission made up of all experts – no politicians. “We want to look at the
vulnerabilities on cyber security and get policy recommendations from experts on how to harden our infrastructure,” said
Graham.
Meanwhile, top US cybersecurity leaders are taking action on their own to prevent future meddling.
“This is one of our highest priorities,” Jeanette Manfra, one of the Department of Homeland Security’s top officials handling
cyber issues and a career civil servant said at a Senate hearing last week. “And I would also note that we’re not just looking
ahead to 2018, as election officials remind me, routinely, that elections are conducted on a regular basis. And so – highest
priority, sir.”
41
Document ID: 0.7.14363.26791 20180129-0028989

Washington (CNN)As President Donald Trump lashes out at former President Barack Obama for failing to take a harder
line against Russia for election meddling, Trump’s own advisers are struggling to convince him that Russia still poses a threat,
according to multiple senior administration officials.

“I just heard today for the first time that Obama knew about Russia a long time before the election, and he did nothing
about it,” Trump told Fox News in an interview that aired Sunday. “To me – in other words – the question is, if he had the
information, why didn’t he do something about it? He should have done something about it.”
But the Trump administration has taken no public steps to punish Russia for its interference in the 2016 election. Multiple
senior administration officials said there are few signs the President is devoting his time or attention to the ongoing election-
related cyber threat from Russia.
“I’ve seen no evidence of it,” one senior administration official said when asked whether Trump was convening any
meetings on Russian meddling in the election. The official said there is no paper trail – schedules, readouts or briefing
documents – to indicate Trump has dedicated time to the issue.

Top intelligence officials have raised alarm about Russia’s cyberattacks, calling them a “major threat” to the US election
system. In public hearings on Capitol Hill and classified briefings behind closed doors, intelligence officials have drawn the same
conclusions: Russia launched an unprecedented attack on America’s electoral process during the 2016 presidential campaign
and – barring a full-throated response from the US – the Russians are almost certain to do so again.
It’s a warning some fear the White House isn’t taking seriously.
House Russia investigators interview John Podesta
In a recent closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill, National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers expressed frustration to
lawmakers about his inability to convince the President to accept US intelligence that Russia meddled in the election, according
to a congressional source familiar with the meeting.

Another congressional source said Rogers has shared concerns with lawmakers about the lack of White House focus on
the continued threat from Russian cyber efforts, particularly relating to US voting systems. In addition, the US intelligence
community sees such potential threats not only from Russia but also from China, North Korea and Iran.
One intelligence official said the intelligence community continues to brief Trump on Russia’s meddling in the election as
new information comes to light. The source said the President appears no less engaged on issues surrounding Russian election
meddling than on any other matters covered in the presidential daily brief. But the official acknowledged that Trump has vented
his frustration with officials outside of the briefings about the amount of attention paid to the investigation into Russian election
interference.
Former NATO ambassador: Trump, Obama should have done more to combat Russia hacking
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer insisted Trump is taking Russian cyberattacks seriously and said the
administration is taking action – albeit quietly.

“The United States continues to combat on a regular basis malicious cyber activity, and will continue to do so without
bragging to the media or defending itself against unfair media criticism,” Spicer said in a statement.
Spicer noted that Trump has upheld the sanctions the Obama administration put in place against Russia, signed a
cybersecurity executive order to consolidate responsibility for protecting the government from hackers and created an election
commission. That commission has yet to convene in person but met via conference call on Wednesday.
But some in Trump’s own party believe he hasn’t done enough to repudiate Russia’s actions and are pushing him to back a
sanctions package Congress is considering.

“We haven’t done anything,” Sen. John McCain said Tuesday. “We passed a bill through the Senate, and it’s hung up in
the House. Tell me what we’ve done?”

Roger Stone agrees to meet with House intelligence committee
Asked what he wants the President to do, the Arizona Republican said he should tell the House “to take up the bill we
passed through the Senate. Sign it, get it out there.”

The CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment for this story. The NSA did not respond
to requests for comment.

The President doesn’t differentiate between investigations into Russian election meddling and investigations into potential
collusion between Trump campaign associates and Russia, according to sources that have spoken to Trump about the issues.
The collusion probe is only one element of a larger landscape. The FBI’s counterintelligence team has been trying to piece
together exactly how Russia interfered in the election, in order to learn techniques and adapt for the future. This part is less about
collusion and more about Russian cyberattacks against US political organizations and attempted hacks of voters’ personal
information.
39
Document ID: 0.7.14363.32801-000003 20180129-0030673

Former US Ambassador to NATO Nicholas Burns, testifying in front of the Senate intelligence committee Wednesday,
faulted Obama for failing to take action against Russia more quickly when he was president. But he unleashed his fury at Trump
for doing so little to curtail Russian aggression.

“It is his duty, President Trump’s, to be skeptical of Russia. It’s his duty to investigate and defend our country against a
cyber offensive because Russia is our most dangerous adversary in the world today,” said Burns, a career foreign service officer
who has served under presidents of both parties. “And if he continues to refuse to act it’s a dereliction of the basic duty to defend
the country.”
Controversial Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak is leaving the US
At a Senate hearing last week, Bill Priestap, the assistant director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division and a career civil
servant, also highlighted the ongoing threat from Russia, saying, “I believe the Russians will absolutely continue to try to conduct
influence operations in the US, which will include cyber intrusions.”

But the President’s muted interest in election interference stands in stark contrast to the collusion investigation, which has
consumed his attention. Trump takes questions about Russia personally, sources said, because he sees them as an effort to
undermine the legitimacy of his presidency.

“He thinks one equates with the other,” one Republican congressional source said. “He can’t admit anything that may taint
his election. He is more hung up on how it affected the election outcome than what Russia did.”
In his statement for this story, Spicer also referenced the election outcome, saying, “The ballot boxes were not hacked and
the tallies were unaffected. Numerous authorities have confirmed this.”

What Russia’s bold attempt to influence the 2016 election says about US political polarization
Another source close to the President says Trump sees everything regarding Russia as being “organized as a challenge to
him.”
Trump aired those frustrations this week on Twitter, writing, “There is no collusion & no obstruction. I should be given
apology!”
In Trump’s mind “he had nothing to do with Russia,” one source said. “He knows in his own mind there is not one single
iota of anything that could implicate him.”

One administration official suggested there wasn’t necessarily a need for Trump to convene briefings on election
interference – aside from his daily intelligence briefing – because little has changed since Trump was briefed on the matter in
January, before his inauguration.

At that point, the 17 intelligence agencies released a declassified report concluding that Russian President Vladimir Putin
ordered a campaign to influence the 2016 election with the goal of disparaging Hillary Clinton while boosting Trump and
undermining the public’s faith in the democratic process.

Since that briefing, there have been major developments on the cyber front. The final days of the French election featured
a hack-and-leak attack targeting Emmanuel Macron, now the president of France. And US officials believe Russia hacked Qatari
state-run media and planted a fake news story that which helped trigger a diplomatic crisis among critical US allies in the Gulf.
Trump’s skepticism
During the campaign and since taking office, Trump has repeatedly questioned whether Russia was responsible for the
election-related cyberattacks. He has blamed the Democratic National Committee, China and “someone sitting on their bed that
weighs 400 pounds.”

Trump has only once stated clearly and in public that Russia was behind the hacks – during a news conference as
President-elect on January 11 , just days after his briefing from top intelligence officials.
“As far as hacking, I think it was Russia. But I think we also get hacked by other countries and other people,” Trump said.
On Monday, Spicer said the President stands by his assessment from January. The intelligence community has found no
evidence that other countries also meddled in the election, an intelligence official said.
Trump demands apology, accuses Obama of having ‘colluded or obstructed’
A source familiar with the President’s thinking said he views Russia’s action as something that “everybody has been doing
to each other for years. Everybody spies,” the source said. “He believes that intel operations hack each other.”
The result: Trump sees the Russian hacking story as “nothing new.” In fact, the source said, Trump views it as “the
establishment intelligence community trying to frame a narrative that is startling to the average viewer, but he regards it as
business as usual.”
Intelligence experts disagree. They describe Russia’s actions as far from the usual foreign espionage attempts.
John Hultquist, the director of intelligence analysis at FireEye, a cyber security and threat intelligence company, said
Russia broke the rules in the “gentlemen’s game of espionage” by stealing information, leaking it and using it to try to influence
voters and undermine the democratic process.

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“In every previous incident, we believed they wouldn’t cross the next red line. They’ve shown us they’re willing to do so,”
said Hultquist, who has a military background and is an expert in cyberespionage. “If we fail to respond with resolve they learn
that they can get away with it.”

First on CNN – Devin Nunes: I can ‘take the investigation over’ after stepping aside
The administration’s inaction is raising alarm with experts like Clint Watts, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research
Institute and a counter-terrorism expert who recently testified in front of the Senate intelligence committee about Russia’s efforts
in the 2016 election.

“It’s ridiculous that nothing’s been done,” Watts said. “There is no Russia policy. No one knows if they can work on Russia.
No one knows what their assignment is with regards to Russia.”

While Trump may have little concern about Russia’s election aggression, other top officials in the administration have been
vocal about the threat.

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said in May that Russian cyberattacks remain a “major threat” to the United
States, especially after Russia showcased its aggressive posture by interfering in the 2016 election. But he acknowledged that
the US still hasn’t devised a clear strategy to counter the Kremlin.

“Relative to a grand strategy, I am not aware right now of any – I think we’re still assessing the impact,” Coats told the
Senate intelligence committee in early May.

Later that month he reiterated his concerns in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Spicer: Trump was ‘joking’ when he asked Russia to hack Clinton
“I think we’re learning that we do need to take this seriously – which we do,” Coats said. “And shaping a policy and a plan
to address this, I think, rises to a top priority.”

But across the government, administration officials appear to be publicly confirming the concerns NSA Director Rogers
expressed privately --Russia’s attacks on American democracy aren’t a top priority for Trump.
Former FBI Director James Comey, who was fired by Trump, testified earlier this month that during his nine private
conversations with Trump, the President never asked about Russia’s meddling in the election or what was being done to protect
the country against future Russian interference.

“I don’t recall a conversation like that,” Comey told the Senate intelligence committee, shortly after his testimony describing
a President who seemed much more interested in making sure that the public knew he wasn’t personally under investigation as
part of the Russia probe.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions testified that he had never received a briefing on Russia’s election meddling efforts – even
before he officially recused himself from the collusion investigation.

Working around the President
Obama retaliated against Russia’s interference in the election in January with a package of sanctions that included ejecting
35 Russian diplomats from the US, closing two Russian compounds and sanctioning two Russian intelligence services.
While the Trump administration has upheld those measures, it has not taken additional steps.
But lawmakers have tried. The Senate passed a bill to slap Russia with new sanctions for its election interference and the
legislation has moved to the House, which would also need to pass it before it goes to Trump’s desk. But congressional sources
said the Trump administration is hoping to water down the sanctions package, which the White House is eyeing warily.
“I think our main concern overall with sanctions is how they – how will the Congress craft them and any potential erosion of
the executive branch’s authority to implement them,” Spicer said Friday.

There are also bipartisan efforts underway in Congress to develop a policy to prevent Russian meddling in future US
elections.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, says he is working with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York, on legislation to
create a 9/11-style commission to explore what happened in 2016 on the cyber front.
How one typo helped let Russian hackers in
Graham tells CNN their idea is to create a commission made up of all experts – no politicians. “We want to look at the
vulnerabilities on cyber security and get policy recommendations from experts on how to harden our infrastructure,” said
Graham.
Meanwhile, top US cybersecurity leaders are taking action on their own to prevent future meddling.
“This is one of our highest priorities,” Jeanette Manfra, one of the Department of Homeland Security’s top officials handling
cyber issues and a career civil servant said at a Senate hearing last week. “And I would also note that we’re not just looking
ahead to 2018, as election officials remind me, routinely, that elections are conducted on a regular basis. And so – highest
priority, sir.”
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“The vice president stands by his comments and enjoys a great working relationship with all departments within the White
House,” said Jarrod Agen, a Pence spokesman.

Although Trump and Pence enjoy a warm personal relationship, Pence allies say he faces two stark challenges. First, in a
West Wing filled with competing factions vying for supremacy, the best interests of the vice president sometimes get lost.
Perhaps more importantly, they say, Pence is simply too loyal and willing to parrot the White House message, even at his own
potential peril.
One former Pence adviser described the vice president’s role within the White House as more of a “super senior staffer”
than an empowered executive. Pence, who has an office in both the West Wing and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, is
often seen floating in the hallways that connect to the Oval Office, not unlike other staffers. Another former aide mentioned
Pence’s almost “military-style orientation toward authority.”

Faced with the revelation that Flynn had misled him over contacts with Russians, for instance, Pence had to be urged by
staff to forcefully voice his frustrations with Flynn to the president, according to two people with knowledge of the incident.
And while aides said Pence does give Trump his honest and unvarnished counsel in one-on-one meetings, some Pence
allies privately wish he would be bolder in asserting his opinions in the group debates the president enjoys.
The flip-side, of course, is that by publicly keeping his opinions close, the vice president — who, for instance, urged the
president to withdraw from the Paris climate accord but did not crow about his victory — has not only engendered good will with
Trump, but also managed to often steer clear of the sniping and power struggles that plague the administration.
“Pence has found a way to execute the balance between having enormous influence and being an honest broker, which is
a hard thing to pull off,” said Ralph Reed, founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition.
The vice president — who routinely tamps down talk of a future “President Pence” — raised suspicions among Trump
loyalists when he launched his super PAC, “Great America Committee” in mid-May, just a week after Trump fired Comey and
during a moment of particular political danger for the president. Though the group had been long-planned and approved at the
highest levels of the White House — the outside group can, for instance, help pay for travel expenses related to campaigning —
the timing was inauspicious.
Some in the West Wing wondered if the vice president was trying to position him at the expense of Trump, and Roger
Stone, a longtime confidant of the president, took to Twitter. “No Vice President in modern history had their own PAC less than 6
months into the President’s first term,” Stone wrote. “Hmmm.”

Pence’s super PAC team had originally planned a bigger roll-out, which they quickly scrapped, and both Ayers and Obst
stressed to Trump aides that the group had been in the works for several months and was intended solely to help the vice
president push the administration’s agenda across the country.

“People can’t have it both ways,” said Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, in defending Pence. “They can’t say
he’s loyal to a fault and then also say he’s somehow competing with the president.”
This summer, Pence will ramp up his fundraising efforts for various Republican Party committees and will begin helping
individual GOP candidates campaign and fundraise during the August recess and into the fall. He is expected to campaign with
Ed Gillespie, the Republican nominee for governor in Virginia.

He will also focus on outreach to various conservative groups, and in August is planning a four-country trip to South
America to focus on trade and security issues.

Trump initially chose Pence, in part, because he looked like a vice president out of central casting — a sort of generically
handsome politician, with a close-cropped helmet of white hair and a compact physique that seemed to recall an iconic,
Republican male from a bygone era.

But under Trump the former reality TV star, Pence, who heaps plaudits on Trump and frequently refers to his “broad-
shouldered leadership,” has in some ways become a parody of a deferential vice president — a servant in waiting, eager to
serve his master’s whims.

One Republican operative remembers a meeting with business leaders in the Roosevelt Room, to which Pence arrived
late. Though there was an open seat at the table reserved for Pence near Trump, the operative recalled, the vice president stood
alongside the outskirts of the room like a staffer before waiting for a break in the conversation to take his seat.
Others say differences in background and temperament have also prevented Pence from ever becoming a true Trump
confidant. The president, after all, habitually evaluates others based on their personal wealth and Pence — who joked on the
campaign trail that he and Trump were separated by “a whole bunch of zeros” — can never compete with Trump’s mogul friends.
People familiar with the interactions between the two men say the president often finds ways to remind Pence who is the
ultimate boss. He jokingly yet repeatedly ribs Pence for, as Indiana governor, endorsing Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) over him in
the state’s primary and often teases Pence about his far smaller crowd sizes — a quip Pence himself has deployed.
26
Document ID: 0.7.14363.31505-000003 20180129-0043442

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach gained a national reputation for championing tough voter identification laws and
helping to draft state and local laws aimed at cracking down on illegal immigration. He’s jumping into the 2018 governor’s race
only two days after Kansas legislators enacted a law rolling back past income tax cuts championed by Republican Gov. Sam
Brownback over Brownback’s veto. Kobach criticized the Legislature’s move.

“Our people deserve so much better than what’s happening in Topeka right now,” Kobach said Thursday in a speech
kicking off his campaign. “We’re going in the wrong direction.”

Kobach opened his campaign at a barn converted into an events center in the Kansas City suburbs of Johnson County, the
state’s most populous county and home to about 22 percent of all Kansas voters. It’s crucial, vote-rich territory for any candidate
for governor, and Kobach has a strong base there, though he now lives on a farm outside Lawrence, about 30 miles west.
Kobach, 51, is a strong abortion opponent and gun-rights advocate, Harvard-, Yale- and Oxford-educated former law
professor, ex-U.S. Justice Department official and former Kansas Republican Party chairman. He has advised Trump for months,
first on immigration, then on election fraud issues.

Before pursuing voter ID laws, Kobach was best known for helping to draft tough laws against illegal immigration, including
Arizona’s “show your papers” law in 2010.

Trump named Kobach vice chairman of the election fraud commission, with Vice President Mike Pence as chairman. The
voter ID laws in Kansas that Kobach advocated have sparked multiple lawsuits from such groups as the American Civil Liberties
Union. He has served as Kansas’ elected secretary of state since 2011 and is the only chief state elections officer with the power
to prosecute voter fraud – authority he sought from legislators.

“By nominating Kris Kobach for governor, the Republican Party would continue to endorse the failures of Sam Brownback,”
Kansas Democratic Party Chairman John Gibson said in an email statement after Kobach’s announcement. “Whoever our
colleagues on the other side of the aisle choose as their standard bearer, we look forward to a vigorous debate about the
direction of our state.”

Brownback is term-limited, and there has been speculation that he’ll resign by the fall to take an ambassador’s position in
the Trump administration, automatically elevating Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer to governor. Colyer is considered a potential Republican
candidate regardless, but Kobach brings a base of ardent conservative supporters into the race.
The contest could become crowded. A Wichita oil company owner, Wink Hartman, has been campaigning for the
Republican nomination since February, and former state Rep. Ed O’Malley, CEO of the Kansas Leadership Center in Wichita, is
exploring the GOP race. On the Democratic side, former Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer and former state Agriculture Secretary
Joshua Svaty have announced they’re running, though the GOP wields a major electoral advantage in the state.
Kobach has never been shy about weighing in on issues outside the formal bounds of the secretary of state’s office.
He’s recently been commenting on the Legislature’s debate about raising taxes to fix the state budget and provide extra
money for public schools. Many voters soured last year on the tax-cutting Brownback experiment initiated in 2012 and elected
more Democrats and GOP moderates to the Legislature – setting the stage for this week’s rollback.
In a tweet, Kobach labeled as “obscene” the tax increase approved by lawmakers, $1.2 billion over two years.
“It is time to drain the swamp in Topeka,” Kobach tweeted Wednesday morning, after Brownback’s veto was overridden,
adopting a Trump presidential campaign slogan.

Copyright 2017 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or
redistributed.
Trump Ally To Start Campaign For Kansas Governor

By Mark Hensch
The Hill, June 8, 2017
A key ally of President Trump on Thursday entered the race for the Republican nomination for governor of Kansas,
according to his spokeswoman.

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach is formally beginning a campaign to succeed current Gov. Sam Brownback (R),
Samantha Poetter confirmed to The Associated Press.
Kobach, the vice chairman of Trump’s “election integrity” commission to probe voter fraud, also launched a campaign
website and changed his Twitter background to highlight his new bid.
The AP reported that Kobach opened his campaign at Thompson Barn in Johnson County, which is Kansas’s most
populous county and the home of about 22 percent of its voters.

The chairman of Kansas’s Democratic Party on Thursday warned Republicans against nominating Kobach as Brownback’s
replacement.
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“By nominating Kris Kobach for governor, the Republican Party would continue to endorse the failures of Sam Brownback,”
John Gibson told the AP in an email statement.

“Whoever our colleagues on the other side of the aisle choose as their standard bearer, we look forward to a vigorous
debate about the direction of our state.”

Brownback is term-limited heading toward Kansas’s 2018 gubernatorial race, and the AP reported there is speculation he
may accept an ambassador’s position in Trump’s administration.

Wichita oil company owner Wink Hartman has been seeking the GOP’s nomination for governor of Kansas since February.
The AP reported that Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer and former state Rep. Ed O’Malley are also weighing bids for the Republican
mantle in Kansas.
Former Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer and former state Agriculture Secretary Joshua Svaty have previously launched bids for
the Democratic nomination for governor of Kansas.

Kobach in February said he believes that “in excess of a million people” may have fraudulently voted in the 2016
presidential election.
The former aide on Trump’s transition team has earned national headlines for his tough views on illegal immigration and
policing of voter fraud in Kansas.
Trump Voter Fraud Official Announces Bid For Kansas Governor

By Timothy McLaughlin
Reuters, June 8, 2017
Full-text stories from Reuters currently cannot be included in this document. You may, however, click the link above to
access the story.
Kris Kobach Launches Campaign For Kansas Governor

By Bryan Lowry
Kansas City (MO) Star, June 8, 2017
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach launched his campaign for Kansas governor on Thursday, decrying a culture of
corruption in Topeka and vowing to crack down on illegal immigration in a speech with echoes of President Donald Trump.
Kobach, the architect of controversial election and immigration laws, advised Trump on immigration policy throughout the
2016 election. He emphasized his connections to the president and promised to center his campaign on fighting “corruption,
taxation and illegal immigration” during a speech at the Thompson Barn in Lenexa.
Kobach, who is a figure of national controversy for his hardline stance on illegal immigration, called Kansas the “sanctuary
state of the Midwest” and claimed that the state spends hundreds of millions on public services for illegal immigrants.
He lambasted Kansas lawmakers for raising taxes “on hard-working Kansans” by repealing Gov. Sam Brownback’s tax
cuts Tuesday to fill the state’s budget hole and contended that the state could have saved dollars by restricting immigration.
“Why don’t they tackle the problem of illegal immigration in the state of Kansas and see if we could save some money
there?” he said.
Kobach cited figures from the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group considered an extremist group by the
Southern Poverty Law Center, in support of this claim. He also pointed to a 2004 law that allows people who entered the country
illegally to pay in-state tuition at Kansas universities if they’ve lived in the state for at least three years and have graduated from a
Kansas high school.

“We are also the only state in the five-state area that rewards illegal immigration by giving in-state tuition to illegal aliens
when our own students are barely able to afford college. I don’t know what I’m going to do when these five get old enough to go
to college,” Kobach said, gesturing to his five daughters.

“I mean, think about it. The price of college is going up and up and up,” Kobach said. “The Board of Regents and the
universities tell us, oh, they have to keep on increasing tuition, they have to keep on taking more from the taxpayer in legislative
spending. But they give away hundreds of millions of dollars to maintain what is a subsidy to illegal aliens. ... It’s unfair. It’s
unreasonable, and it will stop when I’m governor.”
Only 686 illegal immigrants took advantage of the in-state tuition program in 2016, mostly for community college, according
to data from the Kansas Board of Regents. Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, a Topeka Democrat, accused Kobach of
exaggerating the cost of the policy. He questioned Kobach’s logic that the state could fix its budget by cracking down on illegal
immigration.
“It’s very laughable, and it just scapegoats a segment of the population,” Hensley said.
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Kobach touted his role in crafting immigration laws around the country, including a 2010 Arizona law that critics say
encouraged racial profiling by requiring law enforcement officers to determine a suspect’s immigration status if there is
reasonable suspicion he or she is in the country illegally. Kobach has repeatedly rejected accusations of racial bias.
His candidacy was condemned by the Fair Immigration Reform Movement, a national group that advocates for immigrant
rights.
“Kobach is an Architect of Hate and he’s relied on hate and fear to financially profit as he advanced and defended policies
aimed at severely restricting immigration in the United States. He is simply not fit to be governor of Kansas — or hold any public
office,” the group said in a statement.

Rep. John Carmichael, a Wichita Democrat who has been a vocal critic of Kobach, accused him of running “on a platform
of hate.”
Kobach, who appears regularly on cable news shows and previously hosted a weekly talk radio show, has developed an
intensely loyal following both in Kansas and among conservatives nationally for his focus on immigration. Several attendees at
Kobach’s campaign kickoff cited his focus on the issue as a major reason for their support.
“My daughter 10 years ago was killed by an illegal alien in a car crash near Basehor, Kansas. She paid the price for
somebody being here illegally,” said Dennis Bixby, a Tonganoxie resident. “... He and Donald Trump are the only people talking
about it. Otherwise, it wouldn’t even be on the radar.”

Kobach’s announcement comes less than a month after he was tapped by Trump to serve as vice chairman of a special
commission to study voter fraud.
During his six-year tenure as secretary of state, Kobach has repeatedly made claims of widespread voter fraud that
election experts say are overblown. He became the only secretary of state in the nation with prosecutorial power in 2015 and has
so far secured nine convictions for election crimes.

He crafted a law that requires Kansas voters to provide proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate or passport, to vote.
Kobach has repeatedly said the law ensures the integrity of Kansas elections, but opponents, including the American Civil
Liberties Union, say that the law makes it harder for rightful voters to participate in elections. Dale Ho of the ACLU’s Voting
Rights Project referred to Kobach as the “king of voter suppression” last month when his appointment to the commission was
announced.
The law blocked thousands of potential voters from participating in the state’s last gubernatorial election, but it could not be
fully enforced in 2016 under orders of judges at both the state and federal level. The cases remain pending.
Kobach, a former chairman of the Kansas Republican Party, called for term limits and restrictions on how quickly a former
lawmaker can become a lobbyist as he spoke to a crowd that included several current and former lawmakers, including former
Rep. Travis Couture-Lovelady, who left the Legislature to become a lobbyist for the National Rifle Association. Couture-Lovelady
declined to comment and emphasized that the NRA has not yet endorsed a candidate for governor.
“Travis has done great work for the NRA...The NRA lobbies in every state. Now Travis could lobby in Missouri or some
other state,” Kobach said. “But the point is you don’t want to have legislators profiting from the relationships they have with the
other legislators.”
Kobach appeared at 4 p.m. Thursday on “Beer Hour,” which streams live from The Star’s Facebook page.
Kobach is the third Republican candidate to enter the 2018 race. Wichita oil magnate Wink Hartman, a Republican
megadonor, and former state Rep. Ed O’Malley, a moderate who now runs the Kansas Leadership Center, launched campaigns
earlier in the year.

Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer is also expected to enter the race in the near future. U.S. Rep. Kevin Yoder, an Overland Park
Republican, weighed a run but appears increasingly likely to pursue another run for Congress instead of the governor’s mansion.
Two Democratic candidates, former Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer and former state Secretary of Agriculture Josh Svaty, have
also announced campaigns.
Kobach Announces 2018 Bid To Become Kansas Governor

By Morgan Chilson
Topeka (KS) Capital-Journal, June 8, 2017
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach announced Thursday he will run for governor in 2018, appointing a treasurer in
campaign finance documents and updating his personal website to reflect his intentions.
Supporters handed out signs at a noon press conference, splashed with Kobach’s campaign slogan, “Time to Lead.”
Kobach, 51, has become a controversial figure known nationally for policies he has crafted on immigration and voter
identification. He was elected Kansas Secretary of State in 2010 and won a second term in 2014.
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FOIA Response From DOJ's Office of Information Policy About The Presidential Advisory Commission On Election Integrity - January 31, 2018

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FOIA Response From DOJ's Office of Information Policy About The Presidential Advisory Commission On Election Integrity - January 31, 2018

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Via Certified Mail and Electronic Submission

July 25, 2017

Ms. Day, Mr. Hermilla, and Ms. Golden:

President Trump issued Executive Order 13799, creating a “Presidential Advisory

a. The Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (“SAVE”) program;

b. The National Security Entry-Exit Registration Systems (“NSEERS”) program;

3. All communications and documents concerning the Presidential Advisory Commission

5. All communications and documents regarding the selection of members of the

7. All communications and documents regarding DOJ expenditures directly or indirectly

9. All communications and documents concerning the Commission’s research or

all states, June 30, 3017, http://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-voter-fraud-commission-seeking-voter-data-from-

Please furnish all applicable records to:

Larry Schwartztol, Counsel Wendy Weiser, Director

Telephone: (202) 514-3642

January 31, 2018

Re: DOJ-2017-004083 (OLP)

Dear Ms. Weiser:

TO: THE ATTORNEY GENERAL AND SENIOR STAFF

Document ID: 0.7.14363.16479-000002 20180129-0000033

Kobach Confirms Payment For Breitbart

Columns. The Hill (9/1 , Manchester, 1.68M) reports

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, the head of President

Trump’s Commission on Election Integrity, has confirmed that

Document ID: 0.7.14363.16479-000002 20180129-0000056

TO: THE ATTORNEY GENERAL AND SENIOR STAFF

Document ID: 0.7.14363.16479-000004 20180129-0000232

columnist at the conservative Breitbart News website.

Ch ldhood Arrivals (DACA) should be ended.

immigration platform, wrote on the website.

Star, adding “it appeals to a broad spectrum of conservative readers.”

secretary of Homeland Security.

who worked as a national security editor at the site.

Document ID: 0.7.14363.16479-000004 20180129-0000376

TO: THE ATTORNEY GENERAL AND SENIOR STAFF

Document ID: 0.7.14363.37674-000002 20180129-0001244

Transparency. CNN (8/31, Jarrett, 33.59M) reports that

“the head of President Donald Trump’s voter integrity

commission is reaching out to fellow panel members to

ensure the group’s meeting next month operates with ‘the

highest levels of transparency,’ after the Justice Department

fell on its sword about prior document disclosure failures to a

federal judge in DC Wednesday. ‘I wanted to contact you with

a request regarding any written materials for the September

12 meeting,’ said Kris Kobach, vice chair of the commission

in a letter to the other commissioners. ‘We want to ensure we

operate with the highest level of transparency and in a way

that allows the public to be fully informed of our commission’s

work.’” CNN notes that Justice Department attorney Elizabeth

Shapiro “apologized to US District Judge Colleen Kollar-

what documents the commission was required to produce in

advance of its first meeting on July 19 under the Federal

Advisory Committee Act.”

Document ID: 0.7.14363.37674-000002 20180129-0001266

TO: THE ATTORNEY GENERAL AND SENIOR STAFF

Document ID: 0.7.14363.37674-000004 20180129-0001541

19 under the Federal Advisory Committee Act.

in terms of how the meeting would happen.”

earlier this month.

Document ID: 0.7.14363.37674-000004 20180129-0001654