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Vox: Nobody knows who was behind half of the divisive ads on Facebook ahead of the 2016 election
Apr 19, 2018Young Mie Kim, a professor of journalism at the University of Wisconsin Madison and the study’s lead author, and a team of researchers analyzed 5 million paid ads shown to a group of 9,519 individuals who model the US voting-age population in the weeks leading up to the 2016 election, from September 28 to November 8, 2016.
Taking Legal Action to Protect the Public Interest (The Great Battlefield Podcast)
Apr 18, 2018Larry Noble, Senior Director and General Counsel of the Campaign Legal Center, joins The Great Battlefield in regards to how campaign finance laws in America changed during his 13 years as the General Counsel to the FEC. He discusses how CLC is now taking legal action in that area, and many others, to protect the public interest.
Associated Press: EPA chief sat in coach when not flying on taxpayer’s dime
Apr 18, 2018Former Office of Government Ethics director Walter Shaub said Wednesday the companion tickets provided to Pruitt likely violated a federal prohibition that bars officials from accepting gifts from their subordinates exceeding $10. Shaub said the value of the gift is determined not by what Wagner actually paid for the ticket, but what the full market value would have been had the ticket been purchased with cash.
Talking Points Memo: Firm Defending Cohen In Financial Probe Has Been Paid By Trump Campaign
Apr 18, 2018“Anything about Cohen’s business dealings would have nothing to do with the campaign and can’t be covered by the campaign,” said Larry Noble, general counsel at the Campaign Legal Center.
New FEC Report Confirms for Voters What Chris McDaniel Knew Months Ago: The Full Extent of His Super PAC’s Fundraising
Apr 17, 2018Voters were not aware of U.S. Senate candidate Chris McDaniel's contributions from prolific megadonor Richard Uihlein, which was disclosed in a recent filing with the Federal Election Commission.
The Boston Globe: Trump promised to ‘drain the swamp.’ So what’s happening with his Cabinet?
Apr 17, 2018“There’s a disregard for ethics rules,” said Larry Noble, senior director and general counsel of the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit focused on good governance. “And when you have this amount of problems, where you have to look at is the top — the president and the standards set. And what’s been clear from the beginning — and nothing has really changed there — is that Trump is very little concerned about ethics issues.”
The Hill: Study details 'suspicious' Facebook ads in 2016 cycle
Apr 17, 2018A new study detailing foreign influence on Facebook ahead of the 2016 election found that one-sixth of 122 “suspicious” advertisers who purchased issue and political ads on the platform were Russian trolls. The 122 were culled from a group of 228 advertisers analyzed in the study by University of Wisconsin Professor Young Mie Kim, who works with the Campaign Legal Center (CLC).
Bloomberg: NRA Proves the Need for Campaign-Finance Reform
Apr 17, 2018At least $800 million in dark money has been spent on U.S. elections since 2010. Exploiting lax campaign-finance law, and a Federal Election Commission that has all but abandoned its enforcement duties, anonymous donors have poured money into 501(c)(4) organizations that channel the funds not to "social welfare" but to partisan election activities. How much of that money is from foreign sources advancing the agendas of foreign businesses or rival nations? No one knows.
PC Mag: 'Suspicious' Groups Were Big Buyers of Facebook Political Ads
Apr 17, 2018"As this peer-reviewed study demonstrates, secretive groups were able to run tens of thousands of digital political ads without detection because of massive loopholes in our campaign finance laws," said Brendan Fischer, a director at CLC, in a statement.
Wired: How Russian Facebook ads divided and targeted US voters before the 2016 election
Apr 16, 2018Now, Kim is detailing those findings in a peer-reviewed paper published in the journal Political Communication. The researchers couldn't find any trace, in federal records or online, of half of the 228 groups it tracked that purchased Facebook ads about controversial political issues in that six-week stretch. Of those so-called "suspicious" advertisers, one in six turned out to be associated with the Internet Research Agency, according to the list of accounts Facebook eventually provided to Congress. What's more, it shows these suspicious advertisers predominantly targeted voters in swing states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.