DoJ is investigating Elon Musk
Just four days ago, Elon Musk announced a lottery for voters in Pennsylvania. The DoJ is stepping in questioning the legality.
Greetings, all!
There was a lot of talk this weekend about the “do nothing DoJ” after Elon announced on Saturday that he’d be running a voter lottery in Pennsylvania, awarding $1M to randomly selected people who registered and signed his petition.
Today we learned that the PIN - The Public Corruption Unit at DoJ - has sent a letter to Elon warning him that what he’s doing might violate federal law. I’ve seen a lot of folks complain that “strongly worded letters” simply aren’t enough.
In the past four days, including over the weekend, this letter means that Merrick Garland likely met with his Public Corruptions Unit, launched an investigation into Elon Musk’s lottery (because you can’t say you think something is illegal without having had opened an investigation), and then drafted and sent a letter to Musk’s PAC warning him to stop because it’s probably against the law.
Further, we don’t know when the letter was sent or received. It could have come Monday after the DoJ confirmed it had received a complaint. It could have come before. That means the timeline is even tighter.
We also don’t know whether the letter threatened legal or civil action. But in order to get a federal indictment, DoJ would have to interview multiple people, gather documentary evidence, and present it to a grand jury. So they likely said - well that’s going to take time, but we need him to stop this now. Hence the letter WARNING him.
All in fewer than four days.
We can’t simply arrest someone without investigating and presenting evidence to a grand jury. That’s dictator shit right there. So the letter acts as a “we see you - knock it off” warning shot. Plus, this letter allows them to take action without any potential violation of the 60 day election rule. Even though Elon is not a candidate, he does run a PAC for Trump.
As we know, sometimes DoJ foregoes indictments if they can sue to get what they want, or get someone to stop the behavior. For example - when Manafort failed to file as a foreign agent for Russia, DoJ gave him a choice to cure the problem before using the resources and time necessary to indict him.
Anyhow. Four days. To me, that’s pretty impressive.
~AG
Civil attorney here. I totally agree that you cannot arrest or indict Musk without convening a grand jury and without due process (because that's dictator shit), but there is such thing as INJUNCTIVE RELIEF, which is what civil division can do to make him IMMEDIATELY STOP paying people to register and/or vote. Injunctive relief is what you do when there is IRREPARABLE HARM and when there is no adequate remedy at law. To me, this seems like the appropriate course of action. If his actions change the outcome of the election, it will be too late. That is quite literally the definition of IRREPARABLE HARM.
Musk talks a big game, thinks "world's richest man" gives him "immunity", but watch him pull the lottery gimmick off the table quick-smart.