{"id":1669533,"date":"2022-10-03T08:02:50","date_gmt":"2022-10-03T12:02:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1669533"},"modified":"2022-10-03T08:04:29","modified_gmt":"2022-10-03T12:04:29","slug":"emails-biden-backing-billionaire-michael-bloomberg-tried-to-meddle-in-pennsylvanias-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/emails-biden-backing-billionaire-michael-bloomberg-tried-to-meddle-in-pennsylvanias-election\/","title":{"rendered":"Emails: Biden-Backing Billionaire Michael Bloomberg Tried To Meddle In Pennsylvania\u2019s Election"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Femails-biden-backing-billionaire-michael-bloomberg-tried-to-meddle-in-pennsylvanias-election%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1669533&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p>A prominent professor of election law served as an intermediary between Democrat billionaire Michael Bloomberg and the Philadelphia election board, attempting to broker as much as $3 million in private funding for the Democrat stronghold mere months before the 2020 election, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/23070497-september-19-production-pages-20-22-wm?responsive=1&amp;title=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">emails<\/a> obtained by investigative journalist Todd Shepherd reveal.<\/p>\n<p>Reporting for Broad + Liberty on Sunday, Shepherd <a href=\"https:\/\/broadandliberty.com\/2022\/10\/02\/new-york-billionaire-michael-bloomberg-attempted-to-fund-philly-elections-offices-in-2020-emails-show\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">unveiled<\/a> a series of email communications between Stanford Law Professor Nathaniel Persily and Nick Custodio, the latter of whom was the deputy commissioner in the office of Philadelphia City Commissioner Lisa Deeley. At the time Deely was the chair of the three-member board that sets and enforces policies to administer voter registration and conduct elections.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>After noting that the board had just finalized its \u201cCTCL grant\u201d \u2014 a reference to the Mark Zuckerberg-funded Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) election grants \u2014 Custodio asked Persily whether he needed to \u201cget\u201d Persily the \u201cBloomberg thing tonight or can it wait until tomorrow afternoon?\u201d Custodio dispatched that email to the Stanford professor late on Friday, Aug. 7, 2020. After Persily responded that \u201cMonday should be fine,\u201d the Philadelphia election-board deputy followed up, asking, \u201cWho should the Memo be addressed? Bloomberg or someone else?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Persily\u2019s reply indicates he worked directly with Bloomberg to push the funding request, with the Stanford professor telling Custodio to \u201cjust send me some bullet points on how much you would want from him and what it would be spent on.\u201d Custodio replied with a $3,074,900 ask, with a little more than $2 million shown allocated to \u201cstaffing,\u201d about $483,000 to mail-in voting consumables and the cost of initial mailing, and $590,000 for communications.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Whether Bloomberg ever provided the requested funding is unknown from the email threads, with Shepherd reporting that his questions to Persily, Custodio, Bloomberg, and Philadelphia went unanswered. But the mere effort by the Philadelphia board to obtain private funding from Bloomberg proves scandalous and raises questions concerning Bloomberg\u2019s other efforts to commandeer the operations of Democrat districts.<\/p>\n<h2>Bloomberg\u2019s Track Record<\/h2>\n<p>Prior to backing Biden, Bloomberg ran in the Democrat presidential primary. And even before dropping out of the race, Bloomberg vowed that \u201chis massive campaign apparatus and an army of some 500 staffers will march on through the general election in November even if he loses the Democratic nomination.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>\u201cMike Bloomberg is either going to be the nominee or the most important person supporting the Democratic nominee for president,\u201d Bloomberg\u2019s campaign manager Kevin Sheekey <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/2020-election\/bloomberg-fund-sizable-campaign-effort-through-november-even-if-he-n1113421\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">told<\/a> NBC News, stressing Bloomberg \u201cis dedicated to getting Trump out of the White House.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Bloomberg campaign then previewed how the former New York City mayor intended to achieve his goal of keeping Trump out of the White House, noting that \u201cBloomberg\u2019s extensive data and analytics capabilities\u201d through his company Hawkfish could offer the eventual Democrat candidate an edge. While Bloomberg could not coordinate the digital operations of Hawkfish with the Democrat nominee\u2019s campaign, according to Bloomberg officials, the former mayor would establish an independent funding vehicle to pay for the Hawkfish analytics and for staffers to support the eventual Democrat candidate.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn states where the Democratic nominee will be competing in the fall, the Bloomberg staffers could play a critical role driving up Democratic turnout, in line with the former mayor\u2019s pledge to spend more than $15 million this election on get-out-the-vote efforts,\u201d NBC News reported in early 2020. \u201cThey could also organize their own events, ad campaigns and other organizing tactics in support of the nominee\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But the emails exchanged between Professor Persily and the deputy commissioner of the Philadelphia board of elections indicate Bloomberg\u2019s efforts to \u201cget Trump out of the White House\u201d extended beyond privately funding get-out-the-vote efforts and ad campaigns. The emails suggest the Democrat billionaire sought to infiltrate at least one government election office \u2014 the most populous one in the swing state of Pennsylvania and a stronghold for Democrats.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2>\u2018Arbitrary and Disparate Treatment\u2019<\/h2>\n<p>In 2020, of the more than 1,700 voting divisions in <a href=\"https:\/\/vote.phila.gov\/files\/raw-data\/2020_general.xlsx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Philadelphia<\/a>, only about 30 went for Trump, and 604,175 Philadelphians voted for Biden compared to 132,870 for Trump, resulting in a 471,305 net advantage for the Democrat candidate in that one city. Biden eventually won Pennsylvania\u2019s 20 electors by just slightly more than 80,000 votes.<\/p>\n<p>Private funding of get-out-the-vote efforts is one thing, but when individuals coordinate with government actors, that triggers constitutional concerns under the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. In <em>Bush v. Gore, <\/em>the United States Supreme Court made <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/supct\/html\/00-949.ZPC.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">clear<\/a> that \u201cthe right to vote is protected in more than the initial allocation of the franchise.\u201d The Equal Protection clause requires both that the right to vote be granted on equal terms, but also that the state \u201cnot, by later arbitrary and disparate treatment, value one person\u2019s vote over that of any.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Shepherd\u2019s investigative journalism previously <a href=\"https:\/\/broadandliberty.com\/2022\/04\/08\/broad-liberty-investigative-reporter-todd-shepherd-testifies-in-harrisburg-on-ctcl-zuckbucks\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">revealed<\/a> extensive <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/04\/08\/explosive-pennsylvania-testimony-explains-how-leftist-money-infiltrated-election-offices-in-2020\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">evidence<\/a> that such \u201carbitrary and disparate treatment\u201d occurred in 2020 in Pennsylvania when \u201cbeginning in July 2020, consultants working for leftist organizations coordinated with local election officials and Democrat Gov. Tom Wolf\u2019s office to lobby five blue counties to apply for private grants.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>As I previously <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/04\/08\/explosive-pennsylvania-testimony-explains-how-leftist-money-infiltrated-election-offices-in-2020\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">reported<\/a> following Shepherd\u2019s testimony before Pennsylvania\u2019s State Government Affairs Committee, \u201cWhile the grants originated with the nominally non-partisan Center for Tech and Civic Life \u2014 an organization that Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan\u2019s private foundation later infused with some $350 million in cash \u2014 emails reveal that a main consultant involved in targeting select counties, Marc Solomon, worked for the Center for Secure and Modern Elections, or the CSME.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In his testimony before the Pennsylvania General Assembly, Shepherd stressed that what\u2019s \u201cimportant to know about CSME is that it is not a 501(c)3, but rather it is a fiscally sponsored project of the New Venture Fund,\u201d which is \u201cmanaged by Arabella Advisors.\u201d Shepherd added that \u201cthe \u2018parent\u2019 group of Arabella, New Venture Fund\u201d is \u201cpart of what the Atlantic Magazine identified as \u2018The Massive Progressive Dark-Money Group You\u2019ve Never Heard Of.\u2019\u201d The New York Times would in fact spotlight the New Venture Fund in its article \u201cDemocrats Decried Dark Money,\u201d Shepherd told the Pennsylvania lawmakers earlier this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The emails uncovered by Shepherd further expose the incestuous relationship between the leftist CSME project and the nominally nonpartisan CTCL. \u201cIn Persily\u2019s mind, the two were closely related enough that he conflated them as the same project,\u201d Shepherd wrote, highlighting the email exchange in which Philadelphia\u2019s Deputy Commissioner Custodio noted they had \u201cjust finalized our CTCL grant,\u201d prompting Persily to respond, \u201cI understand that the requests for CSME will be fully granted.\u201d But \u201cwhen Custodio informed Persily that Philadelphia hadn\u2019t been in contact with the CSME, Persily said, \u2018Yes \u2014 CTCL is working with CSME.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Notwithstanding Persily\u2019s apparent role as an intermediary for Bloomberg and his knowledge of the CSME\u2019s collaboration with CTCL, there is no indication that the Stanford professor\u2019s involvement stemmed from a partisan desire to benefit Biden and oust Trump. Instead, Persily, who co-led the Stanford-MIT Health Elections Project, viewed his work and the efforts of other \u201cpolicy makers,\u201d \u201cthe courts,\u201d and \u201ccivil society groups\u201d as making \u201can unprecedented effort to help local election administrators deal with the pandemic.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>In fact, in his post-election write-up, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.journalofdemocracy.org\/articles\/the-miracle-and-tragedy-of-the-2020-u-s-election\/\">The Miracle and Tragedy of the 2020 U.S. Election<\/a>,\u201d Persily even spotlighted the CSME and other left-leaning or leftist organizations, such as the Center for Inclusive Democracy, the National Vote at Home Institute, the Center for Election Innovation and Research, and Democracy Works, framing their donations as \u201cphilanthropic contributions\u201d to provide election officials with \u201cresources and technical assistance in support of mail voting and safe polling places.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>There was nothing altruistic about these gifts, however, with evidence establishing that leftist groups <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2021\/10\/12\/the-2020-election-wasnt-stolen-it-was-bought-by-mark-zuckerberg\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">financed<\/a> \u201cthe infiltration of election offices at the city and county level by left-wing activists, and using those offices as a platform to implement preferred administrative practices, voting methods, and data-sharing agreements, as well as to launch intensive outreach campaigns in areas heavy with Democratic voters.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>And with analyses by election data experts <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2021\/10\/12\/the-2020-election-wasnt-stolen-it-was-bought-by-mark-zuckerberg\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">confirming<\/a> the highly partisan basis on which that money was distributed, the conservative think tank Center for Renewing America is pushing the <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/09\/22\/irs-must-look-into-tax-breaks-zuckerberg-received-for-2020-election-meddling-complaint-says\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">IRS<\/a> to investigate the Center for Tech and Civic Life, the Center for Election Innovation and Research, and the National Vote at Home Institute, alleging in a recently filed complaint that those nonprofits \u201cwere engaged in a \u2018partisan electioneering\u2019 scheme led by Barack Obama\u2019s former campaign manager David Plouffe by pumping nearly half a billion dollars into the 2020 election to swing the contest to Biden.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>The Extent of Bloomberg\u2019s Meddling<\/h2>\n<p>While these organizations\u2019 partisan targeting of election offices played a more significant role in interfering in the 2020 election, in some ways, the revelation of Bloomberg\u2019s attempt to also fund specific election activities in heavily Democratic areas of the swing state of Pennsylvania represents a more serious affront to the integrity of the 2020 vote. At least with the millions donated by the Facebook founder, the funds were laundered through nonprofits with grant procedures in place, creating plausible deniability for government employees interested in obtaining additional cash to run their election efforts.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Conversely, with Bloomberg, the emails suggest there was no formal grant process and that he used liaisons to coordinate the funding. Further, with the \u201cextensive data and analytic capabilities\u201d of Bloomberg\u2019s Hawkfish enterprise, Bloomberg could easily target the specific locales in swing states to accomplish his goal of evicting Trump from the White House. And given Bloomberg\u2019s open support for Biden, his past candidacy for the Democratic presidential nominee, and his candid public vow to keep Trump out of the White House, election officers knew precisely who held the purse strings and why.<\/p>\n<p>Whether Americans will ever learn the extent of Bloomberg\u2019s involvement in the last presidential election, however, is another question. Shepherd hopes so, telling The Federalist that his wish \u201cis that reporters in other jurisdictions will be able to use this bit of information to do new digging to see how widespread these offers from the mayor were \u2014 given that he wouldn\u2019t answer that question to me directly.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>While Bloomberg and his collaborators may successfully avoid questioning from journalists, right-to-know and Freedom of Information Act requests to election officials provide a backdoor to that information. And swing states controlled by Republicans also hold the power to get some answers. So, stay tuned.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<p>\n  Margot Cleveland is The Federalist&#8217;s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. <\/p>\n<p>Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize\u2014the law school\u2019s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. <\/p>\n<p>As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A prominent professor of election law served as an intermediary between Democrat billionaire Michael Bloomberg and the Philadelphia election board, attempting to broker as much as $3 million in private<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":499,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1669533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1669533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/499"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1669533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1669533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1669533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1669533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1669533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}