Before they were formally named to President Trump’s now disbanded voter fraud commission, two conservative activists emailed the commission’s vice chair Kris Kobach about “potential Democratic commissioners,” a federal judge revealed Thursday.
The revelation came in a legal dispute over whether the Trump administration must turn over a batch of commission-related emails to a Democratic member of the panel, Maine Secretary of State Matt Dunlap.
While U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly had previously ordered that the emails in question be released to Dunlap, it now appears she is reconsidering that order, given that the conversations were happening before the commissioners — Hans von Spakovsky and J. Christian Adams — were officially appointed to the panel.
Dunlap sued the commission in 2017, before it was dissolved, seeking internal communications and other documents from commission work he said he was excluded from. So far, Dunlap has been successful in getting many of those materials. But the administration had asked the judge to pause her order, in January, that it produce certain emails about the potential commissioners, because the government was planning on appealing the decision.
In considering the request, Kollar-Kotelly reviewed the emails herself, and earlier this week, she said that review prompted questions about when Adams and von Spakovsky were appointed. She questioned the accuracy of the government’s previous claims that Adams and von Spakovsky were appointed on July 11, 2017. The government, in a filing Thursday morning, insisted that date was accurate.
Her latest order shed some light why she was confused.
“Defendants’ ex parte submission of emails shows that these individuals were in communication with the Office of the Vice President about potential Democratic commissioners prior to their own appointments to the Commission,” her order said. “Although some of Mr. Kobach’s communications occurred after his appointment, his service as Vice-Chair is distinguishable from the role of other commissioners.”
Before her order Thursday, it was not known that the withheld emails were between Kobach, Adams and von Spakovsky. It was also not previously known that the emails were in about potential Democratic commissioners in particular.
However, another now-public email, sent in February 2017, showed that von Spakovsky had complained to allies of then-Attorney General Jeff Session about the “disturbing” news that the White House was considering naming Democrats and “mainstream Republicans” to the panel. The email was forwarded to Sessions himself.
“There isn’t a single Democratic official that will do anything other than obstruct any investigation of voter fraud and issue constant public announcements criticizing the commission and what it is doing, making claims that it is engaged in voter suppression,” von Spakovsky wrote in February 2017, in an email that cc’d Adams.
“That decision alone shows how little the WHouse understands about this issue.”
It may remain unknown whether Adams and von Spakovsky expressed similar alarm in the email exchanges in question over the Democrats being considered for the commission.
The judge’s order on Thursday said that a “premise” of her previous order that the emails be produced “was that the communicating individuals were commissioners at the time of the emails they sent or received.”
For now, she is giving Dunlap until Friday to provide further briefing.
Read the full order below:
Well, that may be enough internet for me today.
So my argument is that they were acting as members before they were “officially” appointed and therefore should be considered members the entire time.
That does make it a little tricky…if they were still private citizens then the rules about releasing their emails change, and the judge has to weigh that against the need to see the emails and understand how the commission worked. It is, however, obvious that the intent behind the commission was to undermine voting rights…the attitude of all three towards the Democrats was that they would “interfere” with the investigation, which basically means bring up evidence that doesn’t agree with what Kobach et al wanted to ram through as a pretext to legislation. Fortunately, it failed, as badly as the court case Kobach was involved in, and for the same reasons: their concept of voter fraud is BS.
I really wonder what historians are going to think looking back at the current Republicans and their efforts to undermine our democracy…the amount of shock they will feel should be really huge.
Just to be clear: This doesn’t make what they did any more proper, but it might mean that under the terms of Dunlap’s discovery request the communications are outside it’s scope.
running the place without even being appointed