{"id":53420,"date":"2022-10-23T09:01:15","date_gmt":"2022-10-23T14:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=53420"},"modified":"2022-10-23T09:51:17","modified_gmt":"2022-10-23T14:51:17","slug":"ca9-az-gop-head-denied-injunction-for-jan-6-committee-subpoena-for-call-logs-in-1a-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=53420","title":{"rendered":"CA9: AZ GOP head denied injunction for Jan.6 committee subpoena for call logs in 1A challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The head of the Arizona GOP sued the January 6th Committee to block a subpoena to T-Mobile for her call records, not content, on First Amendment Free Association grounds. On appeal, the injunction is denied. This is similar to Eastman\u2019s case where only call logs, not content, were sought. Ward v. Thompson<\/a>, 22-16473 (9th Cir. Oct. 22, 2022):<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The district court\u2019s finding is amply supported by the record. In their declarations, the Wards say that they use their phones to communicate with patients in their medical practices, to talk to family and friends, and to \u201cmake and receive calls of a political nature\u201d and \u201cto and from people in the political world.\u201d Those vague statements do not show that disclosing the phone numbers involved would reveal anyone\u2019s private organizational membership, much less that the people involved in the calls would be reluctant to associate with any organization or political party if their identities were revealed. If declarations like these were sufficient, it would mean that anyone could raise a First Amendment objection to any subpoena for records of calls that included discussions of politics\u2014or, presumably, of \u201csocial, economic, religious, [or] cultural\u201d matters. Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U.S. 609, 622 (1984). (Narcotics traffickers, or anyone else who might face such subpoenas, would be well advised to make at least a few calls to their preferred political party.) But that is not the law. And although the declarations also state that the Wards have received threatening and harassing messages because of their political activities, it does not follow that anyone known to have called them would face similar harassment. <\/p>

Because there is no indication that the compelled disclosure in this case would deter protected associational activity, the exacting scrutiny standard does not apply. But even if that standard did apply, this subpoena would satisfy it. The subpoena is substantially related to the important government interest in investigating the causes of the January 6 attack and protecting future elections from similar threats. Cf. Trump v. Thompson, 20 F.4th 10, 41 (D.C. Cir. 2021) (noting that \u201cthe January 6th Committee plainly has a \u2018valid legislative purpose\u2019\u201d (quoting Trump v. Mazars USA, LLP, 140 S. Ct. 2019, 2031\u201332 (2020))), cert. denied, 142 S. Ct. 1350 (2022). Ward participated in a scheme to send spurious electoral votes to Congress, a scheme that the Committee describes as \u201ca key part\u201d of the \u201ceffort to overturn the election\u201d that culminated on January 6. Although Ward asserts that \u201c[c]ongressional investigators already know what [she] did,\u201d Committee explains that that is untrue: When the Committee sought to question her about those activities, she invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to answer. In this civil proceeding, it is appropriate to draw adverse inferences from her assertion of the Fifth Amendment privilege\u2014namely, that Ward\u2019s conduct during the period in question went beyond simple discussions with her political associates, and that those with whom she communicated might have the information about her activities that she refused to provide. See Baxter v. Palmigiano, 425 U.S. 308, 318 (1976).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The head of the Arizona GOP sued the January 6th Committee to block a subpoena to T-Mobile for her call records, not content, on First Amendment Free Association grounds. On appeal, the injunction is denied. This is similar to Eastman\u2019s … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[114],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-privileges"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=53420"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53427,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53420\/revisions\/53427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=53420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=53420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}