LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Is the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, breaking the law by offering cash to registered voters who sign a petition from his super political action committee, America PAC? The tech mogul is a powerful supporter of Donald Trump. And in the swing state of Pennsylvania, not only is Musk's political organization paying every registered voter who signs its petition $100, plus another $100 for every person they refer who sign. It's now offering a daily cash prize of $1 million to some lucky signer until Election Day. Two people have already collected. To discuss this, I'm joined by Paul Schiff Berman, a law professor at George Washington University here in D.C. Good morning.
PAUL SCHIFF BERMAN: Good morning, Leila.
FADEL: So the big question - are these payments from Musk's PAC legal?
BERMAN: I think they're almost certainly illegal. Federal law is pretty clear that if you pay someone, or even if you accept payment from someone, in return for registering to vote or for actually voting, that's a violation of federal law. And he says it's for signing the petition. And if it were only for signing the petition, that would be fine under federal law. But he's limiting the petition to...
FADEL: Registered voters.
BERMAN: ...The people he's going to give money to, to people who've actually registered to vote. And the whole point of this, obviously, is to get more Trump supporters to register to vote, and that's precisely what the federal law doesn't allow.
FADEL: So it sounds like you don't buy the argument. I mean, he's saying he's just giving an incentive for people to sign his PAC's petition, not to actually register to vote. It just happens that it has to have only registered voters sign. So you don't - you're not buying that defense?
BERMAN: No, I don't buy that defense, because again, if he wants to just say, sign the petition and I'll give you money, and it's open to anyone, then that would be fine under federal law. But if - by limiting it only to people who've already registered to vote, then he's providing an incentive to people to register to vote. And that's right in the wheelhouse of what this statute is trying to criminalize.
FADEL: So both people accepting the money and giving the money could face penalties. What type of penalties, under federal law, if it was found to be a violation of election laws?
BERMAN: Well, the law says a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment of not more than five years, or both. In this case, because these would be first offenses for Musk and/or the people who accepted the money, I suspect that it would really only be a fine. And a fine of not more than $10,000 for Elon Musk is essentially nothing.
FADEL: Now, a group of Republican lawyers and officials sent a letter to the Justice Department and Pennsylvania's attorney general, urging them to investigate. Do you think they'll take this up?
BERMAN: Well, they might, but, you know, it will take a while, right? So if the U.S. attorney's office in Pennsylvania wants to try to bring an indictment, they could impanel a grand jury. They could do a process. It clearly won't happen before the election, however.
FADEL: Now - so then even if Musk were breaking the law - and it sounds like it may just be a fine that wouldn't mean much to a man who has so much money - what difference does that make now? I mean, like you point out, there are less than two weeks to the election, and these cash giveaways are being handed out right now.
BERMAN: Well, I think, you know, it's hard to say whether Musk's scheme is going to have an impact. Obviously, it could have an impact on a close election, you know, that could be decided by a few thousand votes. And the punishment and the fact that it's illegal probably doesn't matter that much. We've learned in the Trump era that just because something's illegal doesn't necessarily mean that there are consequences for it. And for some of Trump's supporters, I think the very nature of the sort of bad boy attitude of people like Musk, and Trump himself, is part of the appeal - that they don't really care about legal niceties. They don't care about democratic norms. They don't care whether it's technically illegal or not. And it's really part of the erosion of the rule of law in this country over the last decade.
FADEL: And just in the few seconds we have left, have we ever seen anything like this before from rich supporters of one candidate or the other?
BERMAN: Well, maybe we'd have to go back to, you know, William Randolph Hearst, who owned a huge media empire long ago. But, you know, to have someone like Musk, who controls a huge international social media entity, putting his thumb on the scale for one candidate and then offering direct payments like this is pretty unprecedented.
FADEL: That's Paul Schiff Berman, professor of law at George Washington University. Thank you so much for your time.
BERMAN: Thank you for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
