For GregPalast.com
August 21st, 2020
(This is a slightly extended version of the piece published at the link above)
Kris Kobach, creator of the Crosscheck voter purge program which has thrown millions off Americans of the voter rolls is once again in the middle of a corruption scandal.
The ‘non-profit’ that he acted as lead counsel for, ‘Build the Wall’ just had several members of its board arrested. President Trump’s former advisor Steve Bannon, an “Advisory Board Chairman” of ‘We Build The Wall,’ was taken into custody by (ironically) the Postal Police on a $35 million yacht. The NY Times reports that Bannon, Trump’s former advisor “conspired to cheat hundreds of thousands of donors by falsely promising that their money had been set aside exclusively toward building a new section of border wall, according to a federal indictment unsealed in Manhattan. Prosecutors said that after siphoning money from the project, Mr. Bannon plowed nearly $1 million into paying off his personal expenses.”
Kris Kobach was not mentioned in the indictment that was released Thursday, August 20th, which claimed that “KOLFAGE (the orgs founder) repeatedly and falsely assured the public that he would “not take a penny in salary or compensation” and that “100% of the funds raised . . . will be used in the execution of our mission and purpose” because, as BANNON publicly stated, “we’re a volunteer organization.”
While Kobach is not among the indicted, Daily Beast journalist Lachlan Markay wrote in August 2019 that Kobach was using the 501c3 We Build The Wall to raise funds for his now failed Senate campaign. Common Cause stated that Kobach’s use of an email list owned by We Build the Wall” to solicit donations ‘likely violated federal campaign finance laws.’
The fact that We Build The Wall actually uses a photo of Kris Kobach meeting with President Trump on their ‘impact’ page on their website is not necessarily a problem until you realize that they are using a photo that got Kobach in a lot of trouble. The documents that he is holding in his hand exposed his proposals for ‘fixing’ voting in this country.
From GregPalast.com: The first document was a memo that Kobach brought to a meeting with President-elect Trump in November 2016, which was partially exposed during a photo op and revealed that Kobach wants to “stop aliens from voting” by drafting amendments to the National Voter Registration Act “to promote proof of citizenship requirements.” The second unsealed document offers more insight into precisely how Kobach intends to do this.
Kobach has a long history of being connected to anti-immigrant groups. He got his start working with FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform) which is a SPLC designated hate group, worked in the Bush Administration creating the original Muslim registry (long before Trump’s), was Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s lawyer, and helped write SB1070. Those are just some of the reasons that well-coiffed racist, Richard Spencer, calls a “draconian illegal immigration enforcer.”
You can read more about Kris Kobach and his plans for your vote, your green card and your citizenship in How Trump Stole 2020 and in the documentary The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.
