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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   37814 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 8, 2024

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referred to money spent on this scheme as an "input" to writing a blog in some way that is not an accurate representation of the DC Circuit's interpretation of the law

This is kind of acausal right? The created a record that, in 2016, did not reflect the Circuit's interpretation in 2024.

Good question! What the court is doing is saying what the law is, was, and essentially always has been. This is just what the statute has meant since it was passed. Even in qualified immunity cases, they still say that they are determining what the law has been all along, just that it had not yet been "clearly established". Of course, there is no such thing as qualified immunity for PACs.

In any event, this complaint would also hit Trump's case. We didn't have any Circuit interpretation in 2016 that what Trump did actually violated the law and lacked a First Amendment defense. In fact, they also share a similarity in that the FEC's interpretation at the time was that the behavior was okay. The only real difference is that we haven't yet had a single court of law rule that the elements of what Trump did actually violate the federal statute, whereas we do have that here.

There’s no QI but mens rea is relevant.

See @Rov_Scam's comments on intent. This is another point of symmetry between the two cases. Again, the only difference is that we still lack any court of law addressing the legal/constitutional question for Trump; we just have the FEC saying that it's not a crime.

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