First, the bad news. Today the Supreme Court greenlighted one of Trump’s voter suppression schemes.
The Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the Trump administration can deploy an expansive online system that combines citizenship information, Social Security numbers and other sensitive data about millions of Americans, allowing states to use it to hunt for ineligible voters.
Critics fear that states could use the system to purge large numbers of valid voters from their rolls ahead of the midterm elections.
The decision is a win for President Trump, who has pressed his administration to find evidence of widespread noncitizen voting, even though such instances are exceedingly rare. However, it remains to be seen how much enthusiasm there will be among local and state election officials to use the federal system, as it has mistakenly flagged U.S. citizens as noncitizens in past searches.
It’s possible this could backfire on Trump. From what I’m reading it’s up to the states to choose to use the database. If state or local election boards can opt out, it’s a safe bet the bluer states or precincts won’t use them. Even some redder places may decide it’s too close to the midterm election to start tossing people off voter rolls. And if the program makes mistakes, which it does, it’s as likely to toss Republicans as Democrats unless the people running the program add a filter for party registration. And some might.
Update: I’m hearing a fellow on the teevee predicting that states that don’t use the database are likely to be threatened with prosecution by the Administration. So we’ll see.
The dispute dates back to late March, when President Donald Trump issued an executive order that (among other things) directed the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to set up systems that would permit state and local governments to verify voters’ citizenship and immigration status. Those agencies then modified the Department of Homeland Security’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database, known as the SAVE system, to include the records of U.S.-born citizens, to give it access to Social Security numbers, and to allow users to conduct multiple searches simultaneously.
Also,
In a dissenting opinion joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson called Friday’s decision a “questionable interim ruling[] about two statutory provisions” that the Supreme Court “has never before interpreted.” She also contended that the majority “focuses only on the harms the Government will purportedly suffer absent a stay, disregarding the harms that the” use of the modified database “has caused, and will likely continue to cause, to lawful voters.”
Kate Riga writes at Talking Points Memo that the way this is supposed to work is that
“If the modified SAVE program is unable to confirm that an individual is a citizen, the agency is required to contact the individual and request that he provide proof of citizenship to register or remain registered to vote,” wrote the majority.
So close to the midterms, this is going to be a bleeping mess, I suspect. And as soon as lawfully registered citizens start getting notified they have to trot into some office someplace with proof of citizenship in order to be able to vote, I suspect they will make some noise about it.
On to other news. You remember Judge Aileen “Loose” Cannon, I’m sure. There’s currently some investigation going on in South Florida involving the alleged “grand conspiracy” against Trump. As part of this, DOJ has subpoenaed some of current and former FBI agents who worked on the Mar-a-Lago documents investigation to provide grand jury testimony.
Here’s the problem for Loose. She has been sitting on Volume II of Jack Smith’s report, which covers the Mar-a-Lago investigation. And she has enjoined anyone in the DoJ from discussing what’s in Volume II with anyone outside of the DoJ. Jack Smith himself isn’t supposed to talk about it, and I understand he hasn’t. But now DoJ has taken the position that it’s okay for agents to discuss the documents investigation to a Grand Jury. And while Grand Jury testimony is not generally made public,
Kate Riga writes,
The filing revealed new information about the status of the “grand conspiracy” probe; it gave the agents a public forum to assert their innocence and the righteousness of the Mar-a-Lago investigation; it lays some groundwork for a future claim of vindictive prosecution if the agents were to ever get charged; and it begins to unspool a counter-narrative for other judges, including the 11th Circuit, where this is all going to land eventually.
The FBI agents’ lawyers are basically using the filing to expose the funhouse mirror of misconduct here at every level.
Loose may be in a pickle now. See also Marcy Wheeler.