Response to My Motion to Unseal Material in Pennsylvania Sen. Douglas Mastriano's Lawsuit Related to His Ph.D. Thesis

I wrote last month about my motion to intervene and unseal in this case, and Sen. Mastriano’s lawyer (former Maryland House of Delegates member and former gubernatorial candidate Daniel Cox) just filed the response to my motion to intervene and unseal. Some excerpts:

Memorandum of Law …

Volokh, whose half-million annual salary is funded by a California University caught receiving dark money,¹ seeks intervention apparently with such funded support and for their behalf in order to supply his benefactors with an expected written product for financial return. Volokh has no Article III or Rule 24(b) standing to intervene. Instead, he seeks to apparently advance a scheme to support Defendants herein with his own third-party financial support and has no valid “limited” third-party interest….

¹ “Stanford’s Settlement with the Justice Department Shows Just How Deep China Has Its Claws in Our Universities.” Moore, Paul. The Hill news online, October 11, 2023. “Fudan University is a prominent Chinese research institution, and Stanford’s ties with it are extensive. Stanford codirects the Fudan-Stanford Institute for China Financial Technology and Risk Analytics, and its Graduate School of Business partners with the Fudan School of Management. In 2019, Fudan University altered its charter by promising its adherence “to the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)” and “the party’s educational policy.” The CCP’s dominance of Fudan University assures that research developed there may be fully utilized in the CCP’s military-civil fusion efforts that compose a critical part of China’s efforts to eclipse the military and economic capabilities of the U.S. and its allies by 2025. Despite this, Stanford’s ties with Fudan remain undiminished. Stanford failed to report more than $64 million in Chinese donor identities — disclosure failures that coincided with Stanford’s unprecedented expansion of its Chinese operations.” https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/4246080-stanfords-settlement-with-dojshows-how-deep-china-has-its-claws-in-our-universities/ (accessed August 6, 2024 at 5:50 p.m.)….

Memorandum of Law

I. Volokh has no Article III standing to intervene.

While Volokh avers his own interest in intervention pro se, he does so speciously on behalf of the State of California-funded Stanford University (a University in partnership with the People’s Republic of China, CCP²), and Reason Magazine. Volokh Mot. Interv. Pg. 1, ¶ 2. He does so using his Stanford University e-mail, funded in part by the taxpayers who pay his half-million annual salary. He seeks to intervene in order to not only advance his stated entities’ economic interests, but his own economic interests.

² Colonel Mastriano is a former USA officer supporting NATO’s mission. NATO recently issued a stern warning to the PRC, stating: “26. The PRC has become a decisive enabler of Russia’s war against Ukraine through its so-called “no limits” partnership…27. The PRC continues to pose systemic challenges to Euro-Atlantic security. We have seen sustained malicious cyber and hybrid activities, including disinformation, stemming from the PRC.” https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_227678.htm (accessed August 7, 2024)….

V. Plaintiff’s Public Official Status Is Irrelevant to Volokh and his Public Interest Argument.

Volokh, a resident of California, turns finally to Plaintiff’s status as an elected official in Pennsylvania to claim a lessened standard for him to seal a record, allowing unsealing of records under the district case in Parson v. Farley, 352 F. Supp. 3d 1141 (N.D. Okla. 2018). Volokh Mot. Unseal at 9. Yet this is a Volokh red herring on at least two grounds. First, government officials are not protected less under law than others and do not give up their rights to question malicious libel, otherwise society could merely make up outrageous false accusations or use such as extortion against every person running for office they dislike without repercussion, or to obtain their votes or obedience to another official, or even a to foreign power such as the one sponsoring Volokh’s university that pays his salary. More less considering the fact that Volokh has no relation to, or possible stake in, a Pennsylvania election, nor does his California and federally funded employer….

The response also makes various substantive arguments, though I don’t think they’re particularly strong. In the Western District of Oklahoma, “Reply briefs are optional and not encouraged,” and I’m not sure whether there’s anything in the response that really requires a reply. But I’d love to hear what our readers think.

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