Posted on 05/23/2024 8:44:36 AM PDT by Red Badger
FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—After President Joe Biden signed an executive order requiring federal agencies to work with private organizations to mobilize voters, senior White House officials asked agencies for “bold ideas” and explained plans to coordinate with “stakeholders.”
One message from the White House, obtained by The Daily Signal, said: “We look forward to working with you to”—but the rest of the content is blacked out by a redaction.
The specifics of those “bold ideas” and “stakeholders” isn’t knowable right now because “upon the advice of the White House Counsel’s Office, the information is being withheld under the presidential communications privilege,” according to a cover letter to The Daily Signal from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The letter accompanied 99 pages that The Daily Signal obtained from USDA through a request under the Freedom of Information Act.
Since Biden signed his executive order on elections in March 2021, members of Congress, the press, and watchdog groups have struggled to get basic information on how the administration is implementing the order. Some details have trickled out through FOIA law, which requires that basic information from the government be available to the public.
Earlier this month, two House committees intensified their investigations of Biden’s order on turning out voters.
Although records obtained previously by The Daily Signal under FOIA requests contained redactions and cited exemptions, the responses didn’t refer to “presidential communication privilege.”
“The presidential communications privilege protects communications among the president and his advisors,” the cover letter to the released but redacted documents says.
“The records being withheld here consist of email communications concerning President Biden’s Executive Order 14019 and attached records that were solicited and received by the president or his immediate White House advisers who have broad and significant responsibility for investigating and formulating the advice to be given to the president,” says the letter signed by Alexis R. Graves, director of the USDA’s Office of Information Affairs.
Other exemptions to disclosure cited in Graves’ cover letter include the deliberative process privilege and attorney-client privilege.
Critics of Biden’s executive order, some of whom refer to it as “Bidenbucks,” argue that its implementation could cause bureaucrats to violate the Hatch Act, a law that prohibits political activity using resources of the federal government. Critics also say the order may violate the Antideficiency Act, which prohibits agencies from spending taxpayers’ money for reasons not approved by Congress.
Separately, the Justice Department has invoked presidential privilege to shield documents about Biden’s order in a public records lawsuit brought by the Foundation for Government Accountability, a watchdog group.
“In recent years, the presidential communications privilege has become an increasingly common excuse used by federal agencies to sidestep their disclosure obligations under federal law,” Stewart Whitson, senior director of federal affairs at the Foundation for Government Accountability, told The Daily Signal.
“During the current administration, federal agencies have shown an increasing willingness to stretch the presidential communications privilege well beyond what is allowed under current law—documents or other materials that reflect presidential decision making and deliberations that the president believes should remain confidential—to any and all documents received by White House advisers and their staff,” Whitson said.
“If allowed to persist, federal agencies and the politically appointed bureaucrats leading these agencies will gradually render the FOIA law meaningless. Government transparency and our very democracy are under threat,” he said.
USDA-3-EO14019-2022-OSEC-02115-F-final-response_Redacted-1Download Stephonn O. Alcorn, then the associate director of racial justice and equity at the White House, sent an April 1, 2021, email to all federal agencies that is heavily redacted in the released version.
Alcorn’s email was about an interagency meeting to be convened eight days later, on April 9, by the White House Counsel’s Office and the Domestic Policy Counsel. The agenda is completely redacted.
Alcorn notified agencies that taking the White House lead on Biden’s election executive order would be Justin Vail, special assistant to the president for democracy and civic participation with the Domestic Policy Council, and Larry Schwartztol, an associate White House counsel.
In September 2021, Kumar Chandran, senior adviser for nutrition to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, notified Vail of a change of plans for how the USDA wanted to implement Biden’s order. In the released record, however, the change is blacked out from public view.
“After input from Sec. Vilsack this week, we are considering a change to one of our proposed actions, which would result in [redacted],” Chandran wrote.
“We need to do some further diligence to determine if it is viable, but if it is, we think it might be more meaningful,” he added.
A White House press release that month gave a broad overview of how the USDA would implement Biden’s order on mobilizing voters.
“The Department of Agriculture’s Rural Housing Service will encourage the provision of nonpartisan voter information through its borrowers and guaranteed lenders, who interface with thousands of residents in the process of changing their voting address every year,” the White House press release said. “In addition, Rural Development agencies—which are spread throughout field offices across the country where rural Americans can apply for housing, facilities, or business assistance—will take steps to promote access to voter registration forms and other pertinent nonpartisan election information among their patrons.”
Getting to the point of how the USDA would push Americans to vote appears to be a tedious process, based on what’s discernible from the released records.
Some messages were more heavily redacted than others. For example, a September 2021 message from USDA Deputy Undersecretary for Rural Development Farah Ahmad says only “This is” before the text is blacked out.
A June 2021 email from Vail to Chandran was about the “interim report template.”
“At this point,” Vail’s message began, followed by several lines of redacted information. He continued: “We just want to ensure that all agencies are taking steps to generate bold ideas and begin to flesh out those ideas; it will also allow the opportunity for us to provide feedback.”
This statement is followed by more heavy redactions.
White House official Devontae Freeland, special assistant to the racial justice and equity team, notified agencies on July 2, 2021, about an upcoming conference with “stakeholders” on Biden’s executive order.
Separate document releases show that a Zoom conference the following July 12 involved Biden administration officials and numerous far-left political organizations, among them unions. The groups included the Southern Poverty Law Center, Demos, the American Civil Liberties Union, the George Soros-funded Open Society Foundations, the Stacey Abrams-founded Fair Fight Action, and the Al Sharpton-founded National Action Network.
“As you know, we’re coordinating some input from stakeholders, including what we hope you found to be an informative session yesterday afternoon with state and local election officials,” Freeland wrote.
“We’ve also planned a session for nonpartisan nonprofit organizations engaged in voting rights advocacy to provide their recommendations and thoughts on best practices; we will follow up shortly with an additional session from nonprofit organizations with substantial expertise in reaching out to and engaging particular populations of voters who may be more difficult to reach. We hope that each of these sessions will provide helpful feedback,” he wrote, before more redactions blacked out the text.
In another heavily redacted message, Vail wrote USDA officials in late September 2021 with the subject line “Voting EO/Follow up items.”
On Oct. 6, 2021, Vail wrote to agencies about meeting on Biden’s executive order in coming days.
“We look forward to working with you to [redacted],” he wrote.
The next interagency meeting would be Oct. 20, Vail wrote.
Spokespersons for the White House and the Agriculture Department didn’t respond to The Daily Signal’s inquiries about this report before publication.
USDA-3-PresidentialPrivilege-1Download
In summary: “We are going to give Joe Biden a second term by [REDACTED for next 5 pages]”
We are going to use Federal Money to give.....?
Democrap corruption in progress…A heavily redacted document about the upcoming election. How exactly is Biden organizing these Leftist organizations, what is the big secret.
Biden has been a professional liar and grifter his whole adult life. Toss in a questionable 2020 and now this…. Banana Republic.
Mr. Watson took issue with one provision that directed the DOJ to ensure that the U.S. Marshals Service change jail and “intergovernmental agreements” to mandate that the facilities “provide educational materials related to voter registration and voting,” and “facilitate voting by mail, to the extent practicable and appropriate.”
The problem, according to Mr. Watson, is that those materials may be given to people who can’t vote such as felons and illegal aliens. State officials are also essentially being forced to comply with the rules, he said. “Our understanding is that everyone in the Marshals’ custody is given a form advising them of their right to register and vote,” his letter said, according to Fox News. “Providing ineligible non-citizens with information on how to register to vote undoubtedly encourages them to illegally register to vote, exposing them to legal jeopardy beyond their immigration status.”
The letter said that the secretary of state’s office believes that providing a form to illegal immigrants who are jailed to advise them of their right to vote “undoubtedly encourages them to illegally” do so and exposes them to “legal jeopardy.”
The DOJ has regularly stonewalled requests for documents related to the order’s implementation, even going as far as to heavily redact any records ordered for release by a federal court.
In his letter, obtained by The Federalist after Fox News first reported it, Watson expressed concern that the DOJ’s efforts to comply with Biden’s order “have led to agencies under [Garland’s] charge attempting to register people to vote, including potentially ineligible felons and to coopt state and local officials into accomplishing this goal.”
Watson said the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) — which falls under the DOJ — is altering existing agreements with jails to comply with Biden’s directive, now requiring these facilities “to provide voter registration materials and facilitate voting by mail.” In December 2021, the USMS modified “936 contracts or intergovernmental agreements and the agency’s information technology,” mandating that USMS officials “notify prisoners upon...”
So, I’m guessing that this boils down to the federal government funding the Democrat party’s get-out-the-vote operation.
3. Department of Health and Human Services
In June 2023, The Daily Signal’s Fred Lucas reported that the Indian Health Service (IHS), which falls under the Department of Health and Human Services, is collaborating with the ACLU, Demos, and several other left-wing organizations to register new voters. In order to expand the reach of these efforts, the Biden administration designated an Arizona-based Indian Health Service (IHS) facility as an official voter registration hub in October.
According to Arizona Democrat Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, Native Health of Phoenix, which caters to “urban Native Americans, Alaska Natives, and all other individuals,” will “assist individuals in the voter registration process.” The administration confirmed that the IHS facility would be one of five designated as voter registration sites by the end of 2023.
Much like young voters, Native Americans heavily favor Democrats.
This is for post 8
https://thefederalist.com/2024/02/29/9-ways-the-feds-are-using-bidenbucks-to-rig-the-2024-election/
Yep.
Voter Fraud Convictions Challenge Narrative Of Secure Elections
Epoch Times ^ | 01/13/2024 | Steven Kovac
https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/voter-fraud-convictions-challenge-narrative-of-secure-elections-5556968?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=ZeroHedge
Superior Court Judge William Clark nullified the results of a Democrat mayoral primary in November 2023 and ordered a new election. The ruling was based on hours of video evidence showing hundreds of illegally harvested absentee ballots being stuffed into drop boxes in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
“The videos are shocking to the court and should be shocking to all the parties,” Judge Clark wrote in his ruling.
A California judge overturned the result in a 2021 Compton City Council run-off race that was initially decided by one vote.
The judge tossed four fraudulent ballots cast by people not legally registered in the jurisdiction. Five people pleaded either guilty or no contest to conspiring to commit election fraud.
After discovering that 66 of the 84 absentee ballots cast in a 2021 Democrat primary for alderman in Aberdeen, Mississippi, were invalid and shouldn’t have been counted, a judge ordered a new runoff election.
Police arrested a notary for notarizing ballots without watching voters sign them or checking their identification.
The court also found evidence of intimidation at the polls involving candidate Nicholas Holliday, Mayor Maurice Howard, and Henry Randal, the town’s police chief.
The above examples of election fraud have occurred since the contentious 2020 presidential election that President Donald Trump alleged was marred with fraud.
Democrats, meanwhile, have cast the former president’s assertions about the 2020 election as the “big lie” and generally contend that election fraud is extremely rare and inconsequential.
In a June 2023 Congressional hearing, Rep. Joe Morelli (D-N.Y.) called Republican members’ attitudes about widespread voter fraud “cynical” and the series of election integrity hearings they were conducting in the House “tedious” and “redundant.”
Mr. Morelli said Republicans are fixated on an “unproven lack of integrity” that they claim exists.
However, an ongoing study by the Heritage Foundation details widespread instances of election fraud across the United States and shows that the illicit activity has resulted in election results being overturned in at least a dozen races.
In a number of cases, the abuse of the system is well-calculated and organized, but in most instances violations appear to have been committed by individuals acting independently.
Case studies show that some perpetrators exploit the aged, mentally infirm, and homeless in order to garner a few more votes for their preferred candidate.
Heritage’s findings were bolstered by a Rasmussen Reports and Heartland Institute poll of 1,085 likely voters published in December 2023.
The poll found that 21 percent of those who voted by absentee or mail-in ballot in 2020 admitted to filling out a ballot “in part or in full” for someone else, which is illegal.
Of the 30 percent who said they voted by mail or absentee ballot in 2020, 19 percent said a friend or family member filled out their ballot, in part or in full, on their behalf. One-fifth said they signed a ballot or ballot envelope “on behalf of a friend or family member, with or without their permission,” the poll results state.
Seventeen percent of those who voted by mail in 2020 said they cast a ballot in a state where they’re no longer a permanent resident, which is illegal.
Election interference???…buying votes, totally fraudulent…
“Stakeholders” is a buzzword for people who have given a lot of money and expect something huge in return.
Who’s going to stop him. He’s already defying a Supreme Court decision and Mike Johnson just sits around with his thumb up his ass because he already caved and gave up any leverage the right had.
I'll bet that if an illegal was prosecuted for voting after being given the form, they could claim entrapment by the Biden administration.
“Stakeholders” is a buzzword for people who have given a lot of money and expect something huge in return.
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It can also mean people who WILL be given a lot of money if they simply vote Democrat.
West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner (R) said Wednesday [April 10, 2024] that the state will not accept applications “illegally gathered by Federal agents.”
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