National Republicans try to boost Sullivan by claiming Petersburg Dan 'may' be criminal
A former lawyer for Mitch McConnell and J.D. Vance’s former lawyer are trying to boost fellow Federal Society member Sen. Dan Sullivan by insinuating that Petersburg Dan Sullivan “may” have broken federal civil rights laws and that he “pulled one over” on the Alaska Supreme Court.
It is the sleaziest of political tactics to say that someone “may” be a criminal, but that’s what Michael Fragoso and Sean Cooksey did in this Wall Street Journal column.
“Federal prosecutors have reason to suspect that this is a deceptive attempt to draw votes from the incumbent, in violation of civil-rights laws,” they charge.
“While they might have pulled one over on the Alaska judiciary, the instigators of this scheme may still have federal civil-rights laws to contend with.”
These two young politicians would never have done this without the blessing, winking acknowledgment or outright approval of Sen. Dan Sullivan.
There is no evidence here of a federal or state crime or that the Alaska Supreme Court was fooled.
The fact remains that no one has done more to help elevate the candidacy of Petersburg Dan Sullivan, creating continuing international news coverage, than the man who hails originally from the banks of the Cuyahoga in Cleveland.
Sen. Sullivan has claimed that Petersburg Dan was put up to this by Chuck Schumer and this is a grand Democratic plot, not the work of an Alaskan who happens to share the same name and doesn’t like the incumbent’s performance.
The scant evidence revealed to date does not support Dan S. Sullivan’s conspiracy theory that there is an organized scheme to promote Dan J. Sullivan.
In a Wall Street Journal column, Fragoso and Cooksey claim that federal prosecutors really ought to think about filing federal charges against Dan J.
They “may” conclude a crime has occurred, the two of them claim.
And the government “may” be able to prove that a conspiracy exists if two or more voters chose Dan J. when they thought they were voting for Dan. S. But now knowing the right middle initial is not going to lead to a civil rights conviction, regardless of what Faragoso and Cooksey claim.
There will be people who vote for Dan J. and think they are voting for Dan S.
It’s up to Dan S. Sullivan to inform voters of his middle initial, which shouldn’t be hard.
The more he plays the part of the irritated bully, however, the more attention and sympathy he will create for Dan. J.
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Here is the column Fragoso and Cooksey wrote:
The Alaska Supreme Court ruled Monday that the state’s Division of Elections can’t keep Daniel J. Sullivan from appearing on the same ballot as Republican Sen. Daniel S. Sullivan. Federal prosecutors have reason to suspect that this is a deceptive attempt to draw votes from the incumbent, in violation of civil-rights laws.
The challenger, whom we’ll call “Decoy Dan,” sought to be listed on the ballot as a Republican, even though he had no prior ties to the GOP and has given money to Democratic candidates. He initially requested to be listed as “Dan S. Sullivan,” even though that isn’t his middle initial. His campaign website and materials mimic those of the incumbent. According to the Board of Elections, he acknowledges working with a political consultant who is a “known longtime supporter of Democratic candidates,” including the main Democrat running for the seat. Alaska uses ranked-choice voting, so that all candidates appear on the same ballot.
The Biden Justice Department prosecuted a young self-described internet “troll,” Douglass Mackey, over anti-Hillary Clinton memes in 2016. Mr. Mackey had posted official-looking campaign notifications urging voters to “avoid the line” and vote by text. He had supposedly done this in conspiracy with alt-right Twitter denizens to deprive minority voters of their chance to vote for Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Mackey was convicted of a conspiracy against rights under 18 U.S.C. 241.
The Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rightly threw out Mr. Mackey’s conviction, because liability requires an actual conspiracy between two or more parties, and the evidence didn’t show that he had even viewed the Twitter conversations about deceiving voters. The court also concluded that there was “no evidence at trial” that Mr. Mackey’s tweets actually tricked anyone.
In the Sullivan case, the U.S. government may conclude that they have the facts they lacked in Mackey. The Democratic consultant’s involvement in Decoy Dan’s gambit suggests two or more people acting in concert to put a candidate on the ballot with the same name as the incumbent. If an investigation can show that they did so to deceive voters who favor Sen. Sullivan into wasting their votes, that will be exactly the kind of conspiracy the government couldn’t prove in Mr. Mackey’s case.
As to the trickery itself, the proof is in the pudding. Unlike proving the negative, as in Mackey, here the desired deceptive outcome will be actual votes for Decoy Dan. The existence of such votes will be evidence of the conspiracy’s success.
Elections are messy, and the First Amendment protects many dirty tricks. It doesn’t protect efforts to deceive voters into casting ballots for the wrong candidate. That’s exactly what Decoy Dan and his Democratic confederate seem to be doing. While they might have pulled one over on the Alaska judiciary, the instigators of this scheme may still have federal civil-rights laws to contend with.