Republican judge won't let public see video of deposition where Kris Kobach explains his efforts to thwart voting

A Republican federal judge has ruled that a video in which Secretary of State Kris Kobach gives a deposition in which he explains efforts to suppress the vote cannot be released. The Kansas City Star reports that Judge Julie Robinson, who was appointed by George W. Bush, ruled that the tape is not part of the “judicial record” and so the American Civil Liberties Union cannot release it in the run-up to the election, where Kobach is running for governor.

The tape would reveal Kobach's private conversations with President Donald Trump and other members of Congress. The tape was played at a "federal trial earlier this year over Kansas’s proof of citizenship voting law."

A transcript of the video is public and Robinson ruled that “the public’s interest in viewing the deposition was satisfied by its publication at trial and by unsealing the transcript.”

Sue Becker, the secretary of state’s senior counsel said, "The release of the videotape has nothing to do with this litigation; rather it is a transparent effort by a nakedly partisan and liberal organization to inject this lawsuit and the State’s loss into the gubernatorial campaign.”

R. Orion Danjuma, a staff attorney with the ACLU said Kobach was hiding the tape because “It is likely because his testimony was self-contradictory and because it lays bare Mr. Kobach’s concerted schemes to make it much more difficult for ordinary citizens to votes."