Kamala Harris is Missing In Action when her country needs her most, as an emboldened Donald Trump is set to become greatest threat the U.S. has ever faced

Kamala Harris: MIA as U.S. burns (NYTimes)

Despite reports that the Kamala Harris campaign team is preparing a financial fund to pay for a hand recount of the 2024 presidential race, voting-integrity expert Stephen Spoonamore says he has received no word, or seen no sign, that Harris intends to join his effort to determine if the election was hacked to benefit Donald Trump and gift-wrap the presidency for a man (unfit for the position in a mountain of ways) who likely did not earn it. If that happens, we all can look forward to tossing aside our democracy and instituting an authoritarian form of government, with Trump as dictator, which likely will feature gross unlawfulness, the trampling of our Constitution and the rule of law, and the kind of chaotic "rule" and  incompetence that led to 2.2 million American deaths from the COVID pandemic -- deaths that could have been prevented if Trump had leveled with the public, instead of calling the threat a "hoax" and bothered to read the playbook that had been prepared for just such a crisis because public-health experts knew a deadly virus was likely to develop in China and could spread around the globe without U.S. leadership.

("Hey, Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!)

So, Kamala Harris is comfortable leaving the United States in the hands of a man who shows signs of both mental and physical illness -- and lies so often, and abuses others to such an extent, that one must wonder if he has any integrity at all. If Harris decides to stay in her cocoon, it likely will mean the end of our country as we know it -- and probably the end of any hope for world stability. Should Harris make that choice, I will not be able to understand how she could live with herself. Her legacy, and that of the Democratic Party, will be in shambles -- going down as utter failures at a time when our nation was most vulnerable. (This isn't much comfort, but the Republican Party will look even worse, for allowing Trump to run roughshod over a party that once stood for something and could actually govern.)

The problem, Spoonamore says, is two-fold: (1) A full-scale election contest generally requires the candidate who suffered damage to be directly involved, because under the law, she is the only one who would have standing to appear in court; (2) Election contests have narrow windows of time when action must be taken. If those time requirements aren't met, the contest is doomed. Spoonamore writes at his Substack page under the headline "PA Citizen Instructions for Hand-Recount Challenges Still. A Hammer" :

PA Citizen Instructions for Hand-Recount Challenges
Still. A Hammer.

Stephen Spoonamore
Nov 27, 2024

In my Duty to Warn letter, I outlined the impossibility of the results coming out, matching human voting. There were many indications a machine was outputting the results. My first-pass calculations were not perfect, but now with time, it turns out they were pretty F-ing close in the swings. Below is a complete spreadsheet of drop-offs in PA by county. Multiple additional states will be coming out shortly. If you voted in a PA County with a drop-off ratio of more than 2%. please, if you can, fill out the form below to demand a hand recount. A recount requires three voters from the same precinct to make the request. Call your neighbors. Get three of you. Do it. My friend Lulu Friestad is making a TiKToK with the steps outlined as I type this. I will add it as soon as she posts.

Sadly, it appears Harris will be doing nothing. Only she can make it happen at scale. But any PA precinct with three voters can get a hand recount. We can see the ballots, and answer what exactly is making these numbers so . . . ahistorical.

PA VOTER RECOUNT REQUESTS

These are the county canvas final dates. Voters have five days after final county numbers to have three voters file a recount request in their election precinct. That means many of the challenge windows will close THIS WEEKEND. Others early next week. (It occurs to me that Harris might have a larger window to act than do voters. The rules also could vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, again [possibly] giving Harris more time to act. It's possible that one, or both of these -- or some other factor -- will allow a larger window for Harris to act. But I think all of that is iffy.)

Spoonamore writes:

Cross reference to this spreadsheet to see drop-off by county. Please post this Google form today to have people sign up in PA to make the recount request.

https://forms.gle/aZhTAtHYEkafAe4n7

Once you have three voters, the TikTok will have a link to  a 24/7 online notary. You will then have to hand-deliver the challenge to your local BOE.

You can save some democracy while you prep your turkey.

Kamala Harris' campaign team is preparing a fund to support a recount in 2024 race, as Spoonamore & Co. unearth more strange data that points to hacking

 

Harris and supporters: Eyeing a Recount (Politico)

Several news outlets -- including Newsweek, The Economic Times, and  the New York Post are reporting that the Kamala Harris campaign team is preparing a fund to pay for a hand recount in the 2024 presidential election. The news indicates Harris is ready to join an effort, led by U.S. election- and computer-security expert Stephen Spoonamore, which is attempting to determine if Harris actually won a contest that was awarded to Donald Trump, even though Spoonamore and his team say the election appears to have been maliciously hacked to benefit Trump.  In short, the Spoonamore group is trying to determine who actually won the election and should be installed as America's next president, given signs the election was "willfully compromised."

What's the latest on the effort to get to the bottom of what happened in Election 2024, which produced all kinds of peculiar data. Spoonamore provides an update at his Substack page, "And When You are a Hammer," Under the headline "My old friends at ES&S rejoin the strange vote-total parade via TN (Tennessee). Still a hammer. Still more nails," he writes:

Stephen Spoonamore
Nov 27, 2024

My dear old friends at ES&S.

For those who are new to the game of electronics counting your vote, ES&S is the largest vendor in the country. Based in Omaha. Secretive. PE and Family-fund backed. Totally unclear exactly who owns them or to whom company executives report.

Even those who don’t follow voting electronics will have heard the GOP’s constant and loud rage at Dominion Voting, and the constant demand they be given copies of their software.

But you will never hear a peep about ES&S. Because Republicans trust them completely? Or they already have all they need to get the results the GOP wants?

 Spoonamore had an online visitor in recent days, and his insights were heartily welcomed:

A data analyst from TN reached out to me personally. He is also up on socials and is running analysis of AZ and other places. He sent a precinct graph of TN that is going to induce PTSD in me. His TikToks are interesting as well. I will try to look at his AZ data he sent later today.

David’s TikToks:

@david.manasco. He writes:

Frankly I am hoping there is a more reasonable explanation for this than where my mind is going.
TikTok failed to load.

Enable third-party cookies or use another browser.

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/somethingiswrong2024/comments/1gxgt4y/a_data_analyst_says_the_data_looks_too_clean/

Two other tips point to the same pattern:

Could ES&S voting systems be suppressing the vote of those in Democratic-leaning precincts? We use ES&S in Shelby County, TN, and our voter turnout was at 55%, which is historically low.

Examine turnout by who won the precinct, Democrat (Harris) won precincts that had a turnout of only 49%. But Republican (Trump) precincts had a turnout of 69%. The turnout by precinct-leaning for 2024 is the opposite of what was seen in lines and engagements. It makes no sense.

Spoonamore writes:

Manasco sent a graph of the precincts in Shelby, TN. I spot checked them. Solid. David seems particularly surprised at the lower end of turnout all being in Harris-supporting precincts. I note something else:

Check the very odd step change at the line between Trump Won and Harris Won precincts. That funny step hump leaps from 61% to nearly 70%, and that violates the way human actions appear on graphs. It again shows an output more machine oriented. This also is the pattern, of stacking extra GOP votes into precincts they already would win -- and I have seen this before. This is what the county returns in southern Ohio in the 2004 MIM attack looked like. Extra votes for Bush were stacked on his already winning areas to keep up with Kerry’s late surge in Cleveland and Columbus.

If you click on the Reddit link above, it will take you to a most insightful comment I wanted to share with our Legal Schnauzer readers.  It comes from a commenter with a moniker ("motharfucker") that some might find offensive, but his words are well worth considering. In fact, I think they form the best summary I've seen of where we, as a nation, are at with this election. Here is the comment in its entirety:

Headline -- Everyone saying "Kamala Harris ran a disastrous campaign, Trump did not" are gaslighting you.

I've followed the election very closely the past six months. And when it comes to things like this, I always like being informed on both sides. Yes, I read on sub-Reddits like this which people call leftist echo-chambers, but I also read on right-wing echo-chambers like Twitter in order to gain a better and more informed opinion on both sides.

Other than "echo-chambers" like Reddit and Twitter, I also read news from the left, center, and the right in order to gain a better perspective of everything in this age of massive disinformation.

And let me tell you, Kamala Harris did NOT run a "disastrous campaign." Although, the Democrats did screw up by putting her on the ticket as late as they did, but she did literally everything she could with the limited time she had.

Her campaign inspired a message of hope for all Americans and the world. She beat Trump's ass in the debate. They literally had to criticize her laugh because they didn't have anything on her. The fact that she "put blacks in jail for marijuana" was among the worst "controversies" they pushed, but she was just following the law, what else was she supposed to do? She literally wants to legalize weed, not punish people for it.

So MAGA had to make up shit that was "worse", which was pure lies that were easily debunked, as  always.

 

Here is an excellent response that comes from the same thread. The commenter goes by the name "Xyciasav":

I followed both sides as well and I've felt like I've taken crazy pills. The whole, "She forgot the middle class" argument had me fuming.

Her proposals: Literally 25k for a down payment for first-time buyers, 6k credit for new babies, pushing for caps on all meds, like, what are these people saying?

I totally understand though. Most people get their "news" from Instagram and TikTok. Influenced by misinformation and other garbage. I wish people would actually watch the full speeches, the full rallies, C-SPAN, all of it. Stop letting the media tell YOU how you should think.

I wish we could go back and implement the rule where public broadcasting had to be factual or you could complain to the FCC. Media is not news, it's big corporations looking for any way possible to make money. It's sad. (I think she is referring to "The Fairness Doctrine," which required "holders of broadcast licenses to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that fairly reflected differing viewpoints." Ronald Reagan led the effort to destroy "The Fairness Doctrine," leaving us with a vast wasteland of right-wing bilge on the airwaves, once led by a pill-popping blowhard Missourian, Rush Limbaugh, who brought insult "thinking" to talk radio -- and Donald Trump must have learned from Rush and all the Rush Jrs. who tried to imitate "The Great Tub of Lard." Reagan gave us the virtual right-wing monopoly that we "enjoy" today in broadcasting -- From Fox News to loudmouths like Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, Oliver North, Michael Savage . . . and the list goes on.

"Xyciasav" concludes:

I'm in my 30's. and I've been on Facebook when it started, MySpace, Instagram, all of it. I disconnected from those years ago because I saw where this was going.

Election 2024 was marked by errors across the map, with vote-tabulation snafus being a common problem; no wonder voters have doubts about who won

Programming errors with vote-tabulation machines were present in 2024 (Getty)

 

We have no reports that Kamala Harris has asked for a hand recount in the 2024 presidential race, despite a growing mound of evidence that the election was maliciously hacked in order to favor Donald Trump at most every turn. (Note: Reports are starting to appear that the Harris csmpaign is setting aside funds for a recount.) Will Harris join the fight to show that she was the likely winner in a voting process that has been described as "willfully compromised?" We hope to know shortly, but if she refuses to take part, it will be a terrible "optics" for her and the Democratic Party -- the kind of voter betrayal and lack of fight that might take decades to wash away.

In a spurt of good news, at least one Democrat has decided that recounts matter, especially in a close election that shows smelly signs of being hacked. Election-integrity expert Stephen Spoonamore explains in an update at his Substack page -- ""And When You are a Hammer." Under the headline "A Hand Recount in MI Race, Stats, County Flips, and very disturbing tips about signature gathering/straw voters.
Still a hammer. Still hitting nails,"Spoonamore writes:

Stephen Spoonamore
Nov 26, 2024
Tuesday

I have formally withdrawn a theory of bullet ballots in my Duty to Warn Letter to VP Kamala Harris. I was wrong on my estimate of the likely number of bullet ballots; it was a good-faith attempt to understand the data 48 hours after the election. I missed the mark on that specific theory. I stand by the remainder of the letter, including my certainty that there are tabulation manipulations and access to ePollBook check offs. The statistical improbabilities and use of bomb threats against our election all indicate underlying hacking. The conclusion of my letter stands: Demand Hand Recounts, which finally one candidate in MI is doing.

Unfortunately, as we have reviewed more and more tips, and public reports, my tabulation concerns are appearing in both swing-state and non-swing state counties. More below.

In my view, and in the view of a growing list of IT and statistics professionals, the present results of this election were not produced by voters. It has been manipulated. Hand recounts are absolutely necessary to restore confidence.

Mr. Jim Haadsma is the first candidate as far as I know to demand a hand recount for his race -- a race the tabulators have counted three times, with drastically different results.

Summary: In Calhoun County MI, (Traverse City area) a “programming error” was discovered with the high-speed tabulators which excluded 1,000s of votes. Incumbent Jim Haadsma was initially reported losing to a GOP challenger by 1,482 votes. The erroneous tabulation excluded substantial portions of absentee votes. The ballots run twice since then have shifted all the races. The margins shifted to 58 votes in the first run after the error was resolved and 61 votes in a second run. At the link below is a Detroit Free Press report about the latest on the Haadsma race:

https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/11/25/lawmaker-jim-haadsma-requests-recount-battle-creek-state-house-election-steve-frisbie/76569420007/

Spoonamore says programming errors have been reported in other jurisdictions, and statistics increasingly indicate the results were manipulated by a machine, not the result of human actions. He writes:

In multiple counties, including here in Centre County PA, a “programming error” in the tabulation has specifically excluded some ballots. After the vendor reprograms the tabulator and ballots are run, the races have all swung substantially toward Democratic candidates.  How many places have this “programming error”? Were these tabulation errors that swung votes AWAY from Democrats intentionally programmed into the systems? If so, how was that done and who led that effort?

THE GROWING LIST OF STATS INDICATING PROGRAMMED RESULTS

The first thing to understand is that current results claim Harris lost to Trump in a close election 1.5%.   49.9 to 48.4.  If true, it would be the 16th closest election in history and should show all the markings of a close election in the underlying statistics. It does not. As posted today, Trump did not win a majority, yet won 7 out of 7 swing states? And all just beyond mandatory recount levels?  I don’t believe it. Nor do professional stats people.  And as they dig into the numbers they have found a growing list of absurd outcomes, all of which indicate these results were generated by a machine, not humans voting.

Among the  “This is not possible” tips coming in a number of them are pointing to the county-level flips. In 2024 there are 88 counties flipped vs 2020. That is a pretty normal number. What is not normal, every flip went from Biden to Trump. None flipped the other way.  By comparison in 2020 there were 82 counties that flipped.   19 Flipping Red to Blue, 63 from Blue to Red. There are detailed discussions about the subject going on at Reddit. 

https://www.reddit.com/r/somethingiswrong2024/comments/1gzxmmp/comment/lyzsbz9/?context=3&share_id=PH4b5tmZZRuaMUPmAIqVV&utm_content=1&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1

I note that one portion of this thread looks at county-level flips over the past 20 presidential elections.  All of them have flips each way, except this one.  

Hand recounts will resolve this. Ms. Harris. Be like Mr. Haadsma. Demand hand recounts.

We also have multiple quantitative people and voting geeks alerting us to another non-human pattern, which some of them claim is appearing in every county of several swing states. Noted here is Arizona,  where they have sent complete data.

In every county in Arizona 2024, HARRIS' vote share as a percentage never exceeds that of Ruben Gallego, the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate, while TRUMP always exceeds the percentage vote share of Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake. AND the gap between these two differences is nearly identical in every county of every type. It is the sort of output a machine produces, not humans. None of the tipsters nor Snus discussing this on Reddit sites believes this result is human created, and no one appears to have an example of this happening in any prior election. I will post MI and WI bar graphs and comps when they are generated.  

Next to AZ 2024 are the same calculations from AZ 2020, which has nominal human-voter results.

It appears to have the same machine-like output, indicating a force balance appears to be in WI and MI as well. I am waiting for bar graphs of those states.

Again, Hand Recounts will clear up what is really on the ballots.

TIPS UPDATE: ELON MUSK'S TEAMS DID MORE THAN DUPLICATE  ePOLLBOOK REBUILDS?

Three tipsters, who identify themselves as working in the signature-gathering profession, have provided overlapping concerns - here is a composite: 

All three believe the plebiscite petition Elon Musk ran ahead of Nov 5 could be used to hack the vote in swing states. One thinks it’s the only reason it was done.

This year, campaigns paid around $3 per signature for signature gathering. Musk announced his plebiscite (a petition that has no legal effect) would pay $47 each, and offered payments in some places to both the signature gatherers AND to the signers. It was run in all swing states and was unusual, as several swing states do not allow citizens' initiatives and forbid collecting signatures electronically, for the very real concern that collecting people’s complete voting data and signatures could be used for identity theft, straw voting, or other forms of hacking. Musk got around this by claiming he was holding a lottery in some places, or non-binding plebiscite in others. It is unclear what laws govern such a project.

As smart and engaged tipsters keep finding Stephen Spoonamore, the signs of a malicious election hack, which was set up to help Donald Trump, keep growing

(KU News, University of Kansas)

 

One of America's foremost election- and computer-security experts says he is gathering new evidence from a variety of sources that points to the 2024 presidential election being hacked. In an update at his Substack page, "And When You are a Hammer," Stephen Spoonamore says he is heartened by the outpouring of interest from followers who want to assist in the effort to unspool the mystery behind what appears to be an intentionally compromised election, one whose peculiar data wound up favoring Donald Trump at most every turn, making him (at this moment) president-elect. That leaves Spoonamore with this question: Did Trump win a fair and honest election or was Kamala Harris the real winner? Under the headline "Thanks. Apology. Correction. Tips. Update. Old Friends. IT Allies," Spoonamore writes:

Stephen Spoonamore
Nov 25, 2024
Monday.

Thank you. I am overwhelmed by the voluminous and mostly positive, communications coming in from many sources. 

For those in the not positive. Cool.  No matter where you go, there you are. 

I am also humbled, and a bit surprised by dozens of people subscribing to this Substack. When I first posted, I got a few somewhat baffled (and one borderline angry) response from people that I did not have a way to help subscribe. So I spent an hour enabling subscriber functions. 

Honestly, I doubted anyone would actually subscribe, but I am always curious about how financial functionality features online work, and enjoy testing them. 

Boy howdy. I was wrong. Boggled by the response. My humble apologies and I will do my best to return value to those who have subscribed. Thanks. For the duration of ballot-bounty hunting, I will post everything in the open. When we close this effort, I will put some thought into value stacks.

Second. I was also wrong to have used the term "bullet ballots" in my Duty to Warn (DTW) letter to Kamala Harris. I apologize. Again. The urgency to warn in the cyber environment is real. If you wait on an exfiltration, you lose. Unfortunately, the bullet-ballot hypothesis has caused a lot of discord and distraction. Been trying to clean that up in postings and now on multiple radio programs. Bullet ballots  may be a part of the issues to investigate, but it is clear a very large set of irregularities exists in this election. In the light of my past experiences, the use of bomb threats against tabulation centers, and the shocking number of states declaring Trump won outside recount levels, while the down-ballot Democrats won, also outside of recount levels, remains in my view outside the realm of believability. But it appears something other than bullet ballots is at play. For now, I would recommend my audience on Substack drop that line of thinking. The under-votes, tabulator-code access, reasons for bomb threats all remain. And my tips line is showing more lines of concern to be covered below.

With the near completion of ballot counting, I find the results being certified more absurd, not less.  When I wrote my DTW letter, Trump had 52% of the popular vote, and a 3.5% lead, yet was being declared the winner in 7 out of 7 states, all outside the margin for recount, even in the states where he trailed in the exit polling. As of this writing, he has 49.8% to Harris’ 48.4%. And while his margin of victory in all 7 swing states has narrowed, it remains outside the margin for recount in all 7. A perfect and bespoke outcome, perfectly tailored to shut down any substantive legal challenge, which would access the paper ballots underneath.

This laughably unlikely outcome, and the numerous other peculiarities that are present have brought a growing number of IT leaders out to call “Uhm. Nope.” Several dozen additional names demanding hand recounts,  IT audits, and security breaches in tabulation machines. Notable among them is Jackie Singh (@hackingbutlegal.bsky.social). She worked for Biden and Harris. And yes, I have now been sent the sections of Ms. Harris 2019 book in which Singh herself expresses concern about our election security. Perhaps send her concerns to her, not me.

BALLOT BOUNTY TIPS

As of this morning, no one has come forward with a tip, or turn-in in the following four areas of most interest to me: 

1 - Who managed the data from the millions of names and street addresses submitted to Elon Musk's  $1M lottery, and did - as I am nearly certain - build a parallel private poll book of pledged Trump supporters organized by local precinct? Did the list have real-time update functionality against ePollBooks, either pull or push?

2 - Who did analysis of ESS and Dominion Tabulation software (at any level of the stack) and made vulnerability lists and/or wrote exploits against those lists?

3 - Who built the real-time turnout estimation app attributed to Musk, and what was it’s functionality, what real-time voter turnout access did it have, in what states, and which voter profiling system was it connected with? I am pretty sure it’s an extension of the lottery-built system detailed in target #1.

4 - If you were in a tabulation center during a bomb threat, who stayed behind and who left? And was there a functionality change in the system before and after?

I have reviewed a number of detailed submissions from VICTIMS that fit into the following categories of concern:

1 - People who were purged, and in some cases, have long lists of purged names which includes them.  I don’t know who is compiling the scope and scale of this issue, but there are some very angry people who were prevented from voting for this reason.

2 - People who voted by mail, got confirmation their ballot was received, but their ballot is not marked as counted OR in some cases, their registration is now missing. They appear to have been registered and issued a ballot, then purged after they voted. Again, I don’t know the scale of this, but some people have submitted very detailed screenshots.

3 - “3% shave” using ESS Tabulation Machines. We have a lot of “Math can’t be right tips,” including one tip with a strangely specific vote-swap formula that has been claimed to affect three different places. 

The claim is: The 2024 totals for Trump are inflated by adding 3% of Biden's 2020 number plus another 3% of 2020's total vote, and then reducing Harris by that same total. Here is reader "Math from the Tip," making this claim regarding Webb County Texas. (Note: Webb County has only voted Democratic since 1912).

The numbers

2020: Trump: 25,898 (38.24%)

 Biden: 41,820 (61.76%)

Total: 67,718

Claimed shaved-number calculation:   

3% of Biden's Vote: 1254.6 +  3% of 2020 Total Vote: 2031.54 = Shaved Number.

2024: Trump: 33,374 (51.10%)   (Shave added)

Harris: 31934  (48.90%)   (Shave reduced)

Total: 65,308

Take the claimed shave off and the result in Webb County would have been:

Harris: 35,220 (53.93%)

Trump: 30,088 (46.07%)

Turnout is the same either way:  65,308.  

In Webb County, TX, local Democratic leaders do seem to have precinct-level understanding of their county and voter knowledge of the local community in minute detail. The tipster reports their internal numbers expected a Harris +8 result. Totals more than 10% off from detailed local knowledge is pretty odd.

If you know a particular county in detail, and have equally head-scratching results, could you determine if the same swap formula matches your published results vs. expected. This is a weirdly specific tip, claimed to have had an impact in three different places.

4th and Last -- iPAD doorbell-knocking groups who claimed you could either register, or if a person was already registered, claimed they could CAST their vote on the door knocker’s iPAD. We don’t need any tips of people who heard about this or something similar. We got enough to tell us it was real, BUT if you or someone you know participated in building or running the back end of this, that would be a tip I would very much like to see.

Donald Trump is treating his Cabinet choices as a joke, and that is the kind of "leadership" the American people will be getting -- after all, they voted for it

Cabinet Chaos: Waiting on Hannibal (BuzzFeed)

Donald Trump's attempt at a power grab by circumventing the U.S. Senate might already be doomed, according to legal experts who commented for a report at Salon. Given that Trump tends to forget there are two other branches of government (Legislative and Judiciary), along with Executive (the only branch Trump seems to know or care about) his power grab is not surprising. It also is not a surprise that it is likely to fail.

Under the headline "You can't just get rid of them": Experts say Trump's "power grab" may already be doomed; It's "very, very, very, very, very unlikely" Trump could unilaterally bypass Senate to install Cabinet picks," Salon's Tatyana Tandanpolie writes:

As President-elect Donald Trump rolls out his controversial Cabinet picks, he has demanded the Republican-led Senate take extended breaks to allow him to make recess appointments rather than subject his nominees to an extensive public vetting process and upper-chamber approval. 

Trump's demand not only tests congressional Republicans' willingness to uphold checks and balances over bending to the president-elect's wishes but, if met, would be an affront to the Constitution, which empowers the Senate to provide "advice and consent" over the president's key executive branch nominees, experts told Salon. 

"It's certainly one of the biggest attempts at a power grab that we've seen. He wants not to just make recess appointments, he wants to basically do an end-around the Senate's role in advice and consent," said Josh Huder, a senior fellow of the Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University.

Such an action would "undermine" Congress' power of personnel and its ability to shape the federal government and the Judiciary, he said in a phone interview. "It would be something that would be unprecedented in American history — there's no question."

So, why does Trump seem to think he can get away with it? Our guess is that it's a sign of his lack of respect for, and knowledge of, the branches of government that do not interest him. After all, why would a wannabe dictator be interested in the checks and balances that have kept our government dictator-free for all of these years? For some good news, Trump is likely to find that our "radical democracy" will make it very difficult for him to establish a dictatorship. Washington Post opinion writer Robert Kagan, in so many words, has stated "If Trump wants to be a dictator, he picked the wrong country in which to try it." Salon's Tandanpolie writes:

Since winning the presidency earlier this month, Trump has picked potential Cabinet members at a lightning quick pace, raising the question of whether he could bypass Congress to install his selections. His nominees, a swath of loyalists with contentious positions, have drawn widespread pushback — even from Republican elected officials. 

Chief among the president-elect's controversial picks is former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who was nominated for attorney general despite being investigated by the Justice Department and the House Ethics Committee over allegations that he paid to have sex with a 17-year-old girl, which he denies.

Trump also chose former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head the Department of Health and Human Services, and ex-Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, to oversee the nation's intelligence services. Many in the medical community have harangued Kennedy Jr.'s appointment over his outspoken criticism and skepticism of vaccines, while national-security experts have sounded alarms over Gabbard's ties to Russia and Syria.

In short, Trump has picked a leader of Health and Human Services who does not believe in long-established principles of science and health, plus a leader of the Intelligence community, who seemingly can't be trusted with our national secrets. On top of that, it's not clear that either of his Attorney General picks holds a firm belief in the rule of law. Any Trump supporters having "buyer's remorse yet? If not, you should be.

Though they could receive Senate backing from a traditional confirmation process, the GOP's narrow 53-seat majority does not guarantee it, especially as some senators question the choices. 

David Alvis, a professor of political science at Wofford College in South Carolina, told Salon that making recess appointments offers the incoming Trump administration a "stronger hand" over the appointees than the confirmation process typically affords.

By circumventing Senate confirmation, "you're not having to negotiate the terms of the appointee. You don't have to come up with deals or bargaining with members of the Senate — especially Senate holdouts — so that gives you greater strength over it," he said in a phone interview. The recess appointment concluding at the end of the legislative session creates a "threat of non-renewal of that appointment" that "allows the executive a little bit more control over the recess appointee." 

Trump's push for recess appointments ahead of his second term could "easily" be anticipated based on "maneuverings toward" this action in the later years of his first term, Alvis argued.

Trump made a quick appointment of then-Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, who the Senate had already confirmed for that role, to acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in late 2017 to avoid a confirmation process for a different nominee. He also threatened to invoke his constitutional power to adjourn Congress to push through nominees while lawmakers were out of Washington, D.C., during the early months of the pandemic.

Is this serious business, the kind a president-elect should handle with a strong dose of professionalism, rather than making picks that many observers at first seem to think are jokes. Tandanpoli spells out just how seriously it should be taken:

More than 1,000 executive-branch roles are subject to Senate approval in addition to the Cabinet positions, according to The Washington Post. The Constitution authorizes the president to fill vacancies if Congress is in recess, and presidents of both major parties have done so. Strict rules and procedures over both recessing and making recess appointments have made outfitting a Cabinet with such picks a challenge.

In 2014, the Supreme Court held that the upper chamber had to be adjourned for at least 10 days before a president could make an appointment following former President Barack Obama's use of a short recess to fill three empty positions on the National Labor Relations Board.

Either chamber of Congress requires approval from the other to recess for more than three days, and with the Republican majority in the House narrow at just 218 seats, calling a recess could be difficult.

Both chambers usually convene pro forma sessions, brief procedural meetings in which no formal business is conducted, during recesses specifically to block the president from making recess appointments and sidestepping congressional approval. 

Senate Democrats could also slow down a vote to adjourn by objecting to ending the session and upending the typical unanimous vote sought for such decisions. While this would require overcoming a 60-vote threshold, Huder says stalling the process could run the risk of "[slowing] the institution to a crawl" and giving the majority greater incentive to "go nuclear" on majority votes. 

"It's one of those situations where, if the minority goes too far in gumming up the works, the majority will have incentives to press their prerogatives and do things by majority vote," he said. "That hasn't been done in history yet, but obviously we're getting to some territory in the not too distant past where majorities have been considering these types of things." 

The other avenue left open to Trump — though historically unprecedented — would be to attempt to instruct Congress to recess in order to install his nominees without their approval. The Constitution empowers the president to adjourn Congress if the chambers can't agree on the timing of a recess.

Huder said that whether Trump is able to accomplish either means of bypassing the Senate comes down to the votes — and the president-elect is unlikely to have the broad support from lawmakers needed to push Congress to adjourn for more than 10 days or create the circumstances that would compel that unilateral, presidential action.

"That is possible, but I don't think it's very likely at all," Huder said. "In fact, I think it's very, very, very, very, very unlikely that Congress actually allows this to happen."

Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., told The Post that Republicans allowing Trump to circumvent the Senate's advice and consent role would be "frustrating."

“I think people on both sides of the aisle would express that and from what I’m hearing from senators on both sides of the aisle, is that folks are not going to let that happen,” he said.

Senate Republicans have also had mixed responses to the suggestion that Trump's nominees should subvert the confirmation process.

“I’m hesitant to give up any aspect of our role when it comes to advice and consent. That’s what we do,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, who has signaled her opposition to Gaetz’s nomination, told The Post.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., told the outlet that he believed Trump is within his constitutional authority to make recess appointments, adding that it could push Republican leadership to confirm nominees quickly and send a message to Democrats should they seek to interfere with Trump's nominees. 

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Sunday also left open the possibility of adjourning Congress to allow Trump to appoint his Cabinet nominees outside of the confirmation process, depending on how the Senate moves. 

In the grand scheme, Huder said, Congress will have to play a role in whether Trump can circumvent the Senate. The upper chamber's advice and consent role extends back to the framing of the Constitution and is "at the core of the constitutional construct."

"When you look at the Constitution, it's really Congress's Constitution," he said, noting the legislative body is empowered with "the most power and the most authority."

"You can't just prorogue Congress like the king could prorogue Parliament back in the day," he added. "You can't just get rid of them. It requires their consent at some level."

A voting-security expert seeks a recount to show Kamala Harris won the 2024 election. But he needs Harris' help because she suffered damages that give her standing in court. But Harris isn't helping. Why?

Stephen Spoonamore (TikTok)

One of the nation's foremost voting-security experts says a hand recount "would most likely show" Kamala Harris won the 2024 election over "president-elect" Donald Trump. In essence, Stephen Spoonamore is well on his way to solving perhaps the most grave crime in American history -- a malicious hacking job that ensured the 2024 race would be "willfully compromised," giving Trump a "victory" he did not win and depriving Harris of her rightful place as America's next president .

Spoonamore, however, has a problem: Most state's require that the candidate, the one who directly suffered damages, giving him or her legal standing, must fully participate in the election-challenge process. And so far, Harris, inexplicably, is not participating. 

In a letter released yesterday, Spoonamore expressed his dismay, disgust, worry, even sadness (with a touch of bitterness), that Harris (at this moment) does not appear willing to fight for democracy, that neither she nor a surrogate has contacted him so that he and his sizable team can get started on the serious work that must be done to ensure an imposter president (Trump) does not wrongfully take office, toss democracy aside like a bag of trash, and institute an authoritarian government, with him fulfilling his stated goal to act outside our constitution and the rule of law to establish a dictatorship that likely will be based on his whims and personal grievances -- even though we have yet to see him produce a shred of evidence that any of his perceived enemies have actually wronged him. Here is Spoonamore's letter, and one can only wonder what Harris and her advisers are thinking by not engaging with Spoonamore and his team. She had the talent and will to run a gaffe-free campaign, raising record-breaking sums of money, but now she doesn't have the courage to fight for the presidency she likely won? Was she a phony all along. I hate to think that might be the case, but I can't discount it at the moment.

Spoonamore's letter starts immediately below, and you can hear the grief for his country wash over him as you read the words. My prayer is that he will have reason to take on a joyous tone in the very near future -- and we will have reason to know that Kamala Harris really is the kind of person many of us thought she was -- the kind who offered up a "joyous" form of government, filled with hope for America's future. If Donald Trump, and his dark vision for the future, take over . . . I'm not sure America has a future. Here is how the situation stands now, in Stephen Spoonamore's own words:

An Update on getting a Recount for 2024.

No Kamala. No recount at scale. She is the harmed party in the court's eyes.

Stephen Spoonamore

Nov 20, 2024

 

In short, if Kamala Harris does not engage in demanding a recount in the next 48 hours, it will not happen at scale. On a deep and fundamental level, I don’t think she nor the people around her fully understand the scale of abandonment, and permanent loss of trust that will result. Shame. Shame on anyone in power who claims to love democracy. Shame will surround you like the stench of a rotting limb. I hope it wakes you in your sleep from time to time.

From our citizens, we have 100s of individuals now organized and finding dozens of places we could direct her team to demand recounts. But again, in most states ONLY the candidate can demand large recounts. We are dogs who have followed the bones, but they are buried on the other side of a fence. Being dogs, we lack thumbs to open the gate. Kamala can open it. The whole team of smart dogs working over at SmartElections.us deserve a nod of thanks.

 

There is also more and more evidence which gobsmacks me:

* Russian Hacker groups infighting over who should get more credit for unmaking our Democracy. And Putin’s team calling publicly for Trump to pay up for the help.

* Photos of fundamentalist Christian Activists posing at election offices wearing T-Shirts emblazoned with firmware passwords to access the tabulation software.

* Cleta Mitchell saying the entire voting rights division of DOJ will be “fired” under Trump.

* Despite 60+ Russian bomb threats to our polling places and tabulation centers, none of our team members have been harmed.

* Confirmation that six of the seven swing states used tabulators with firmware access codes built in -- and unchanged since the last election or longer. In one case 14 years.

* Multiple people sending me chapters of Kamala’s 2019 book, in which she details how vulnerable voting machines are, and even worries Russia will change an outcome.

* There is enough laughing chatter at having pulled off the hacking of American democracy that folks over at ballotbounty.org have posted a reward for information on the hack. Good on them.

* Your book was dead-on correct, Kamala. You nailed it. The chapter lines up with reports and videos the whole security community has been involved in. Imagine my face while reading your discussion of a hacking demo, that … I helped develop. It’s great stuff, 100% correct in everything discussed, but, you don’t want to engage? Kamala, you literally wrote about this specific attack by Russia on an American Democratic election. Gobsmacked might not be a strong enough word for how I feel.

But here we are. If the candidate won’t act, we dogs must now find individual voters and file litigation down at the precinct level in the states which allow this. Some do, but not all. We will get some hand recounts in a few voter’s precincts. We will likely file in AZ, PA,  and MI. By law, we likely cannot file in WI, FL, NC, and NV. Only Kamala can. What we will get from our filings is a snapshot of what happened in a few precincts. We can’t file for a whole state. Nor even a whole county. We can file only in the specific voters' precincts. Even if we find in that precinct the race has the wrong totals, and that finding might indicate the state was wrongly called, we will not be able to expand our activity without Kamala.

If anyone knows how to get Kamala involved, please try. As far as any of us working on it know, she is not. And the rot of shame for some, I fear, will never go away.

 

On a personal note. My son is distressed by all this. He is 11 and afraid for some of his friends of what Trump’s lawless regime will do. He is also sad and upset we might move rather than stay where we are. We will watch the horror from afar, I have lived through several such episodes already. But he is upset because he loves his school. His neighborhood. His friends and his 11-year-old challenges and life. I have told him it will be OK. We had this conversation over dinner last night. More or less verbatim.

“…Sometimes you have to be brave and you can only be brave when the chance of losing is real. In my mind, being brave is trying to keep doing the right thing even as hope of it working out fades away. Fades to zero. If you don’t try, you are not brave.”

 

“Why won’t anyone else help?”

“Hundreds of people are helping.”

“But not Kamala Harris?”

“No. Or if she is, I have no idea how.”

“So, you're saying she is not brave.”

“Yes. I am. Which sucks. I guess at least this time she’s not. Which is a hard thing to say about someone.”

“That really sucks, Dad."

“Yup. And it makes me really sad. But no one can make decisions for anyone else, little man. We can make them only for ourselves. And then live with them.”

We talked about how it will be over in a few days either way. Either she shows up, and the big fight happens. Or she does not, and we do our tiny recounts. Either way it ends.

But if she doesn’t show up, the stench will be forever. It appears we all will live having seen what I believe is the greatest crime in all our lifetimes, bar none. We saw the crime, and almost no one above me cared enough to act. Damn. I will keep trying to do something as long and as far as I can, for I can live with losing. Facing off against Putin, Musk, Trump, and the Christain Right might be more stupid than brave. So be it. Either one of those is better than the stench of not engaging. I’m just wired that way.

If you live in PA, AZ or MI, know your precinct and county - later tonight I will post on all socials and here in comments where we are looking for plaintiffs. Step up if you are willing.

Onward.

Closing thoughts from Legal Schnauzer . . .   

If Kamala Harris was not brave enough to fully challenge a hacked election. she never should have assumed the top spot on the Democratic Party ticket when Joe Biden stepped aside. For now, it appears her campaign was an exercise in deceit, that she never had the backbone to be president in the first place. Will we soon learn differently? We can always hope, but we won't get far if that's all we have. I hate to say it, but I'm not holding my breath. Does Kamala think she isn't entitled to challenge a hacked election because Trump has made made so many baseless accusations of being "cheated"? Is her thinking that it's OK for a Republican to whine about cheat jobs that never really happened, but a Democrat can't challenge a cheat job that did happen -- via a malicious and intentional hack, perhaps by foreign actors? Is she afraid MAGAs might accuse her of hypocrisy? MAGAs are always stirred up and ranting about something -- and they aren't very smart or they would not be supporting Trump -- so you can't worry about people who, as a group, likely are infested with personality disorders, making them vulnerable to joining a cult. They clearly have terrible judgment, so forget about 'em. You have  way more important items on your to-do list. And the clock is ticking.

 

On a personal level from my end, it gnaws at me when I think of the hours I have spent writing blog posts about Harris clearly being the candidate we needed. And that was true. I still think she would make an excellent president. I also think of how many fundraising emails I received from Democrats -- Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, Tammy Baldwin (Wisconsin), Adam Schiff  (California) Gretchen Whitmer (Michigan) Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Bob Casey (Pennsylvania) Josh Shapiro (Pennsylvania) Jon Tester (Montana), Ron Wyden (Oregon), Kamala Harris herself, and many more I'm forgetting. I read each email in full; I have no problem with the people who asked for money, and I tried to help as best I could -- considering legal travails (caused mostly by Republican judges and a conservative Democrat lawyer or two) have put a dent in our finances. Chuck Schumer and I were almost pen pals for a time, and Hakeem Jeffries wanted to talk to me by phone. I'm so disgusted at the moment, I'm tempted to call both of them and demand a refund. And I don't know that I ever will give to a Democrat again. Since I wrote off Republicans long ago, I guess my days of political giving are over. That makes me sad, but some things are important enough to fight for, and this election is one of those things. That person who must fight, right now, is Kamala Harris. No one else can do it for her. If she won't do it, it doesn't speak well for her or those around her. 

Matt Gaetz steps down as former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi (who has her own set of baggage) steps up to replace him in Trump's race to fill a cabinet

Pam Bondi and Matt Gaetz (AP)

Matt Gaetz hasn't accomplished much in his scandal-plagued time as a U.S. senator, but for one day at least, he seemed to have made just about everybody in Congress happy. He did that, according to a report at Axios, by stepping away from his nomination as Donald Trump's attorney general. Late yesterday afternoon, Trump named former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi to replace Gaetz.

As for Gaetz' ability to seemingly make everyone around him happy, Axios' Erin Doherty writes:

Matt Gaetz said Thursday that he is withdrawing his name from consideration for attorney general in President-elect Trump's second term.

Why it matters: The right-wing firebrand, who resigned from Congress after Trump nominated him, was one of the president-elect's most controversial Cabinet picks and his pathway to the confirmation appeared tenuous.

• It's the first setback for Trump in placing his allies in key Cabinet positions. The attorney general candidate is especially important for Trump — and he has signaled plans to overhaul the Justice Department in his second term.

Driving the news: Gaetz in a post on the social media platform X on Thursday said that, "while the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition." 

The big picture: Gaetz's announcement comes one day after the House Ethics Committee — which had been investigating him over allegations of sex trafficking, corruption and drug use — voted against releasing a report of its findings.

• Gaetz resigned after Trump announced that he would nominate him for AG, raising questions about whether the House Ethics Committee report would ever be made public.

Between the lines: Trump this week had been lobbying for the embattled lawmaker, personally calling senators to urge them to confirm Gaetz, Axios' Juliegrace Brufke and Hans Nichols scooped.

• But the math for Gaetz was tight, with him able to lose just three votes to be confirmed.
• Gaetz and Vice President-elect JD Vance met with Senate Republicans on Capitol Hill earlier this week to try to gin up support for the controversial nominee.

What they're saying: Trump in a post on Truth Social after the announcement said that Gaetz "was doing very well but, at the same time, did not want to be a distraction for the administration, for which he has much respect."

•  Zoom in: Gaetz, who was also investigated by the Justice Department over sex trafficking allegations, has denied wrongdoing. The Justice Department did not bring charges against Gaetz last year. 
• As for Bondi, her background is squeaky clean by Gaetzian standards, but she still brings baggage to the table. Axios reports:

• President-elect Trump said Thursday he will nominate Pam Bondi for attorney general, after his previous pick, former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), withdrew his name from consideration.

  The big picture: The attorney general could be one of the most important roles in the second Trump White House. The president-elect has made clear his desire to have a loyalist in the nation's highest law-enforcement role to carry out his agenda, which could include investigating adversaries.

• Republican lawmakers expressed aversion and disdain for Trump's initial choice of the scandal-prone Gaetz for the nation's highest law enforcement role.

Zoom in: Bondi is a former Florida attorney general and a longtime Trump ally who led the America First Policy Institute.

• "Pam was a prosecutor for nearly 20 years, where she was very tough on Violent Criminals, and made the streets safe for Florida Families," Trump said on his Truth Social platform.
• "Then, as Florida's first female Attorney General, she worked to stop the trafficking of deadly drugs, and reduce the tragedy of Fentanyl Overdose Deaths, which have destroyed many families across our Country. She did such an incredible job, that I asked her to serve on our Opioid and Drug Abuse Commission during my first Term — We saved many lives!" he added.
• "For too long, the partisan Department of Justice has been weaponized against me and other Republicans - Not anymore. Pam will refocus the DOJ to its intended purpose of fighting Crime, and Making America Safe Again. I have known Pam for many years — She is smart and tough, and is an AMERICA FIRST Fighter, who will do a terrific job as Attorney General!"

What's next: Bondi will need at least 50 senators to get confirmed when the new administration takes office. The candidate can only afford to lose three Senate Republicans' votes.

Why it matters: The person confirmed by the Senate to be attorney general will help lead the implementation of Trump's agenda and steer any efforts to investigate — and prosecute — the president-elect's perceived enemies,

What about Bondi's baggage?  Well, she has ties to Alabama, and we have written a number of posts about her activities over the years. Here are a few examples:

(1) There were reports that Bondi might face federal bribery charges over a $25,000 donation Trump made to Bondi's campaign, bringing her investigation of Trump University to a close;

(2) Trump's reluctance to release his tax returns reportedly was due to possible tax fraud related to the Bondi donation; 

(3) Trump's contribution of more than $40,000 in "in-kind services" to Bondi's campaign might have violated Florida elections laws; 

(4) A complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Treasury claimed Trump should be prosecuted for tax evasion and political corruption because of the donations to Bondi and former Texas AG Gregory Abbott, now the state's governor;

(5) Bondi was named chairwoman of the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) as the organization was under scrutiny because of news reports detailing how Washington lobbyists have sought to influence state attorneys general across the country. Among Bondi's chief defenders was longtime Alabama resident (and close ally of former state AG Luther Strange -- see here, here, here, and here.) Jessica Medeiros Garrison, who was the organization's executive director at the time. "Like all national political organizations, RAGA pays for expenses for its member attorneys general that attend meetings to help with national fundraising," Garrison told CBS News. "RAGA does this in full compliance with federal and state laws that regulate fundraising and political activity for RAGA and its member attorneys general."We've seen no reports of Garrison providing CBS with documentation to support her claims.

 (6) A New York Times article dated Oct. 31, 2014, reported that both candidates for New York AG thought the flow of money to the AG associations of  both parties needed to be curtailed: From that article: 

The political associations run by Democratic and Republican attorneys general must discontinue taking money from corporations that are targets of investigations, the two candidates for the job in New York State said at a debate Thursday night. The incumbent attorney general said he might step down from his party’s group if it did not curtail the practice.

“It is an issue that is going to come up in both of the associations,” the New York attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, a Democrat, said at the debate. “I think it should be cleaned up.”

John Cahill, the Republican candidate, said he agreed that law enforcement officials, or a political association that represents them, should not be taking money from targeted companies.

“I think it is a huge problem,” said Mr. Cahill, once a top aide to former Gov. George E. Pataki. “It goes to the whole issue of how I started about the politicization of the office of the attorney general.”

The question came up in response to an article in The New York Times on Wednesday that examined the surge in lobbying and campaign contributions coming from corporations that are trying to gain access to and influence these top state law enforcement officials.

Much of this money is donated — and special access provided — to get tickets to attend retreats organized at resort hotels in spots around the United States by the Republican Attorneys General Association or the Democratic Attorneys General Association. The list of sponsors for these events routinely includes companies that are targets of continuing investigations.

For example, executives at the Michigan-based company that sells 5-Hour Energy, the highly caffeinated drink, suddenly started to donate a total of more than $245,000 to both groups in early 2013, after 33 states opened an investigation into accusations that the company was making false claims in its advertising.

Jessica Medeiros Garrison had an opportunity to comment on such issues related to her profeessional field, but she was not anxious to do so. From the story:

Jessica Medeiros Garrison, executive director of the Republican group, declined to comment Thursday about the notion of placing limits on who can donate to her organization, which has collected $11.7 million just in the first nine months of this year. The Democrats have collected $7.6 million since January 2013. A spokesman for the Democratic group could not be reached for comment.

(7) A New York Times article dated Dec. 26, 2014, reported:

In state legislatures and major professional associations, a bipartisan effort is emerging to change the way state attorneys general interact with lobbyists, campaign donors and other corporate representatives.

This month, during a closed-door meeting of the National Association of Attorneys General, officials voted to stop accepting corporate sponsorships. In Missouri, a bill has been introduced that would require the attorney general, as well as certain other state officials, to disclose within 48 hours any political contribution worth more than $500. And in Washington State, legislation is being drafted to bar attorneys general who leave office from lobbying their former colleagues for a year.

Perhaps most significant, a White House ethics lawyer in the administration of George W. Bush has asked the American Bar Association to change its national code of conduct to prohibit attorneys general from discussing continuing investigations or other official matters while participating in fund-raising events at resort destinations, as they often now do. Those measures could be adopted in individual states.

The actions follow a series of articles in The New York Times that examined how lawyers and lobbyists — from major corporations, energy companies and even plaintiffs’ law firms — have increasingly tried to influence state attorneys general.

These outside players have tried to shut down investigations, enlist the attorneys general as partners in litigation, or use their clout to try to block or strengthen regulations emerging from Washington, the investigation by The Times found.

A debate has started among state attorneys general — even those who believe that the problem is more about the perception of a possible conflict of interest than about any real conflicts — over steps that could be taken to insulate them from outside influence.

“There is a heightened awareness that people need to be very careful how and where they are raising money,” said Attorney General George Jepsen of Connecticut, who is a co-chairman of the Democratic Attorneys General Association. “There is an important dialogue that has gotten started.”

The most definitive action so far was the unanimous vote by the bipartisan executive committee of the National Association of Attorneys General to stop accepting corporate donations to cover the cost of its Presidential Initiative Summit, an event, typically held annually, that focuses on emerging legal issues, such as Internet privacy. Last year, the meeting was sponsored in part by Google and Facebook — corporations that have been targeted recently in privacy investigations.

“I felt like we need to be free of the perception that was created by companies’ and corporation groups’ funding that meeting,” said Jim McPherson, the executive director of the association.

But that group is far less reliant on donations from corporations and other outside groups than the other three main associations of attorneys general: the Republican and Democratic Attorneys General Associations and the Conference of Western Attorneys General. Those groups regularly convene attorneys general at resort hotels for closed-door events with lobbyists, who make donations in exchange for greater access.

A $125,000 donation to the Republican Attorneys General Association, for example, gives a corporate representative the right to participate in a weekend retreat with the nation’s Republican attorneys general, as well as an opportunity to make special, private presentations to them. Democrats have a similar, although somewhat lower-priced, arrangement that grants big donors “a unique opportunity for focused conversation with specific A.G.s in a small setting.”

The list of companies that participated this year in closed-door events sponsored by the Republican and Democratic Attorneys General Associations, according to documents obtained by The Times, includes some that are targets of investigations or regulatory reviews. Among them are Trinity Industries, the manufacturer of guardrails that have been blamed in a series of fatal car accidents, and Comcast, which is seeking the consent of state attorneys general for a merger with Time Warner Cable.

Richard W. Painter, a University of Minnesota law professor who served as the chief White House ethics lawyer during the Bush administration, said that these events should be considered fund-raisers, and that official business should not be discussed.

Both Bondi and Garrison were among interested parties who had opportunities to comment on these issues. But both kept their lips sealed. From The Times report:

Attorney General Pam Bondi of Florida, the newly elected president of the Republican Attorneys General Association; Attorney General Scott Pruitt of Oklahoma, its most recent president; and Jessica Medeiros Garrison, the organization’s executive director, each declined to comment.