Abuse of Power

Campaign-finance laws were designed to limit the influence of private actors in elections — “to prevent not only the actual corruption of public officials but even the appearance of corruption that could undermine voter faith in government,” as Paul S. Ryan, the vice president of policy and litigation at the election-watchdog group Common Cause, told me.

“This is a slush fund. That’s the bottom line,” said Paul S. Ryan, a longtime campaign finance attorney with the good government group Common Cause. “Trump may just continue to string out this meritless litigation in order to fleece his own supporters of their money and use it in the coming years to pad his own lifestyle while teasing a 2024 candidacy.”

Today, Common Cause called on General Services Administration (GSA) Administrator Emily W. Murphy to uphold her duty and comply with the Presidential Transition Act by immediately ascertaining President-Elect Joe Biden and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris as stewards of the incoming administration. The letter to Administrator Murphy emphasized that a peaceful and orderly transition of power is vitally important to national security, to public health during the COVID-19 pandemic, and to our democracy. The Act defines the President-Elect and Vice President-Elect as the “apparent successful candidates for the office of President and Vice President, respectively, as ascertained by the Administrator following the general elections.”

Aaron Scherb, the director of legislative affairs at Common Cause, told ABC News on Monday that the "petty and unproductive" decision by GSA to withhold key resources to the Biden transition could have the "potential for catastrophic results."  "By GSA not signing off on this, there is certainly some classified intelligence information that the incoming administration would not have access to -- and would potentially not be fully prepared on day one to be able to counteract ongoing efforts from our adversaries like all previous incoming administrations have," Scherb said.    "If the Biden transition team doesn't have access to some of the documents and information," he continued, "there are national security concerns."

Today, a third federal court blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to omit undocumented immigrants from the census numbers for the apportionment of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. The U.S. District for the District of Maryland, in Useche v. Trump, ruled that President Trump’s memorandum ordering this unprecedented change  violates U.S. statutes governing the census and apportionment.

Leaders of two nonpartisan organizations sent Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey a letter urging him to take further action to stop Mr. Trump from posting more on his platform about the presidential race. The plea from the presidents of Common Cause and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law followed Democratic congressmen similarly calling a day earlier for Twitter to suspend Mr. Trump.  Mr. Trump has repeatedly violated Twitter‘s policies recently, they noted, evidenced by the company acting on several of his posts on the social media service after Election Day ended Tuesday. They argued that simply applying warning labels or limiting the spread of Mr. Trump‘s recent posts has proven to be “insufficient,” however, and encouraged Twitter to intervene further. “We fear that, in the absence of action by Twitter, the President may be successful in his goal of delegitimizing the integrity of our democratic processes for many, and not just Twitter users but other voters and members of the public, sowing uncertainty about the voting and elections process and potentially inciting violence against civil servants or others,” they warned in the letter.