LET’S PROSECUTE GOOGLE FOR ILLEGAL CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS

BY JOHN HINDERAKER IN CAMPAIGN FINANCE REGULATION, GOOGLE

If we are going to start prosecuting illegal campaign contributions–sadly, too late to go after Barack Obama’s two scofflaw campaigns–maybe we should begin by charging Google and its executives with federal crimes. Earlier today, Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, testified before the House Judiciary Committee on, among other things, Google’s apparent attempt to help Hillary Clinton win the 2016 presidential election. Tyler O’Neil at PJ Media reports:

On Tuesday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai struggled to respond to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio)’s persistent questions about an email from Google’s former head of multicultural marketing, Eliana Murillo, reporting that the company attempted to push out the Latino vote “in key states” during the 2016 election. Murillo’s email, reported by Fox News’s Tucker Carlson, essentially admitted that Google had given Hillary Clinton an in-kind donation during that key election.

That is a considerably more serious crime than President Trump’s perfectly legal payment to Stormy Daniels, which I don’t think violated campaign finance laws at all.

The congressman went on to quote the email further. “She said this, ‘We pushed to get out the Latino vote with our features.’ A few lines down in her email she qualified that sentence, and she said: ‘We pushed to get out the Latino vote with our features in key states.’ And she specifically cites the states Florida and Nevada.”

“Near the end of her email, in a similar sentence, she says ‘we supported partners like Voto Latino to pay for rides to the polls in key states.'” Jordan quoted. Then he turned to the CEO, “Is it fair to say the ‘we’ in both sentences, Mr. Pichai, refers to Google?”

The CEO dodged the question. “Congressman, we are very concerned over allegations like that. Our team looked into it…”

Heh. CEOs who testify before Congressional committees are routinely blasted for this sort of transparent evasion.

“So I’ve got really just one question for you. Why? Why did Google configure its features and pay for rides to the polls to get out the Latino vote only in key states?” the congressman asked.

“Congressman, necessarily we found no evidence to substantiate those claims,” the CEO repeated.

Jordan directly asked whether Murillo was lying. …
***
Jordan again turned to the email. “Your head of multi-cultural marketing said you were pushing to get out the Latino vote, paying for rides to the polls for the Latino vote, only in key states, and you’re saying that’s not accurate?”

Pichai agreed, “Yes, that’s right.”

“So she just made it up out of thin air, … wrote this email to your top executives, and it’s not true?” the congressman pressed. The CEO again dodged.

“I would say the two most populous states for Latinos would be California and Texas. Did you push to get out the Latino vote and pay for people to go to the polls in California and Texas?” Jordan asked.

“The company did not have any effort to push out votes for any particular demographic. That would be against our principles. We participate in the civic process in a non-partisan way,” Pichai again insisted.

“I think it’s interesting that their head of multi-cultural marketing writes an email the day after the election where she talks about 71 percent of the Latino votes voted for Hillary but that wasn’t enough and she talks about paying for rides to the polls in key states for Latino votes to get out the Latino vote in key states and the head of the company says that’s not accurate,” Jordan concluded.

As his time expired, the congressman asked if Murillo still works at the company, and Pichai responded, “It’s my understanding she does.”

Either Murillo was lying through her teeth, in which case she likely would have been fired, or Pichai himself is lying, failing to cover up clear political activity on Google’s part favoring Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.

Conduct of the sort described by Ms. Murillo would be an unreported, illegal contribution by Google to the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. The Department of Justice, nominally under control of the president elected by the American people, should prepare criminal charges against Google and relevant Google executives. If we are going to start prosecuting campaign finance violations against someone other than Dinesh D’Souza, let’s go all the way. Too bad the statute of limitations has expired on the Obama campaigns’ grossly illegal conduct.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/12/lets-prosecute-google-for-illegal-campaign-contributions.php