Democrat Lawfare Shifts Fire From Donald Trump to Elon Musk

A group of eleven former Republican prosecutors and elected officials have asked Attorney General Merrick Garland to open an investigation into Elon Musk for paying registered voters in seven states to sign a petition supporting the First and Second Amendments. See Elon Musk Giving Away Millions to Promote Petition Supporting First and Second Amendments.

Mr Musk’s campaign group America PAC, which was set up to support Donald Trump in the presidential contest, calls on registered voters in seven swing states to sign a petition. Each day until the election, one signatory is selected at random and awarded a million-dollar prize.
But legal experts and several Democrats have suggested the giveaway may break American law by offering money for an act that requires someone to be signed up as a voter.
The US Justice Department has confirmed to BBC's US partner, CBS News, that they have received the request from former Republican officials and officeholders urging an investigation into Mr Musk's financial incentives to voters.

The signatories of the letter are a regular rogues' gallery of non-entities.

Donald Ayer, Deputy Attorney General under President George H.W. Bush (1989-1990)
Phillip Lacovara, Counsel to the Special Prosecutor, Watergate Special Prosecutor’s Office (1973-1974)
John McKay, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington in the George W. Bush Administration (2001-2007)
Richard Painter, Chief Ethics Lawyer to President George W. Bush (2005-2007)
Carter Phillips, Assistant to the Solicitor General under President Ronald Reagan (1981-1984)
Trevor Potter, Republican former Chairman of the Federal Election Commission (1991-1995)
Alan Charles Raul, Associate Counsel to President Ronald Reagan (1986-1988)
Claudine Schnieder, Representative of the 2nd Congressional District of Rhode Island (R) (1981-1991)
Olivia Troye, Special Advisor to Vice President Mike Pence (2018-2020)
William Weld, Assistant United States Attorney General, Criminal Division (1986-1988)
Christine Todd Whitman, Governor of New Jersey (1994-2001

So far, the Department of Justice hasn't commented, but it is hard to believe that someone in Garland's Sicherheitsdienst won't seize the opportunity to launch a pre-dawn raid on one of Musk's homes just for the photo-op.

The whole issue is rather nuts, so it is no great shock that UCLA Law Professor Rick Hasen is up to his unibrow in this lawfare.

Hasen dishonestly tries to bootstrap gifting registered voters of either party, whether or not they have ever voted, for signing a petition into "vote buying" or paying people to register to vote. I suppose if you tie any law to the rack and torture it hard enough that you could claim that Musk is paying people to register to vote, but given the experience of the Department of Justice in wildly overinterpreting laws (see The Supreme Court Firebombs the Administrative State and Tells Congress to Get Off Its Butt and Work and Merrick Garland's Petulant Response to SCOTUS's Fischer Decision Is a Metaphor for Garland Himself), Garland's stooges may be reluctant to go down that path again until they know the outcome of this election.

As Musk has elevated his profile in politics (see 'To Hell With Them': Elon Knocks Those Who Are 'Fundamentally Anti-American' As He Stumps for Trump in PA), he has become a target of the US government. Sunday, the New York Times wrote a gleeful story on all the federal agencies investigating either Musk or his business ventures, complete with a helpful infographic.