When US Attorney General Todd Blanche said last week that the Department of Justice may seek to block states from certifying elections if a “doomsday” scenario occurred, he wasn’t simply speaking hypothetically.
Three administration officials have told investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein that the DOJ has several “contingency plans” that may result in unprecedented efforts at federal interference, many of which President Donald Trump and other administration officials have hinted at in the press.
The plans include extreme scenarios like a foreign cyberattack, according to a report from Klippenstein on Monday. They also include scenarios that the administration has claimed are already underway, such as “questions about qualified voters” and “voter confusion.”
The DOJ has already acted on such claims in three states.
At Trump’s direction, the DOJ has demanded that Alaska suspend the certification of its Senate election if Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan loses, arguing that the presence of another person with the same name on the ballot was part of a ploy to “confuse” voters.
Earlier this month, the department sued California to keep officials from tallying ballots cast by people it flagged as potentially ineligible using an error-prone federal database. Its list contained around 20,000 names.
Two judges expressed concerns that the list could disenfranchise lawful voters. When Los Angeles County officials reviewed a sample of 200 records, they found that the list included US-born people, people with inactive or canceled registrations, and people with no voting history.
On Monday, the DOJ demanded that Washington state set aside ballots from over 400 people on similar grounds.
Officials told Klippenstein that other potential “doomsday” scenarios are being discussed as possible catalysts for federal intervention, including “disruptions at the polls” and “irregularities with the count.”
After suggesting the midterms should be outright “canceled,” Trump has suggested that Republicans should “nationalize” elections despite the plain language of the US Constitution, which makes them the domain of states, subject to congressional regulation.
During a TV interview in February, he suggested that plans were in the works to “put in federal controls as opposed to state controls” if states could not conduct elections “honestly.”
Following that interview, officials said that then-Attorney General Pam Bondi met with Trump and several governors in the White House State Dining Room to discuss potential election doomsday scenarios. Bondi then reportedly spoke with senior department officials about what situations might justify action.
While the president and DOJ cannot unilaterally block states from certifying elections, the department can bring lawsuits and seek emergency court orders under the Voting Rights Act if the attorney general has “reasonable grounds” to conclude that there has been intimidation, threats, or coercion against voters or that someone has knowingly provided false registration information or conspired to encourage false registration.
Trump has still not accepted his 2020 presidential election defeat and continues to sow doubts about it six years later. In 2020, he attempted to overturn the outcome by spreading claims that the election was marred by systemic “irregularities” and fraud, which his own advisers informed him were baseless.
Unlike previous attorneys general who declined to lend legitimacy to Trump’s claims, Blanche has repeatedly said he agrees with Trump’s sentiment that the 2020 election was “rigged.” When asked to provide specific evidence last month that mail-in voting produces large amounts of fraud, he said it was simply “common sense.”
Trump has voted by mail numerous times, and mail-in ballots have been used for elections in several states for years, including the conservative state of Utah.
Asked by CNN anchor Dana Bash on Sunday whether Trump was “laying the groundwork” to try to overturn the election again, as he did in 2020, Blanche was defiant.
“Oh stop it!” he scoffed. “You’ve got to stop it with that! You’re not being a real person… We’re not laying any groundwork for the president to do that. So the premise of your question is not true.”
Breaking with previous norms of DOJ independence from the White House, Blanche declared last week, “I work for President Trump,” suggesting that he will dutifully assist any attempts by the president to undermine the results.
The question is how far he may be willing to go: “Nobody knows what the president might do if the midterms don’t go his way, what Trump might say or what he might provoke,” one senior intelligence official who served in the first Trump White House told Klippenstein.
One government lawyer told Klippenstein that while there is no law allowing the federal government to suspend elections simply by alleging fraud, that doesn’t mean the administration won’t seek to find a legal justification:
“Could Trump sign a classified emergency order raising the specter of national security to justify intervention?” the intelligence official asks. “Could Doomsday involve some continuity of government argument? You just never know with Donald Trump.”
“If all else fails,” he says, the president could put “pressure on officials, undertake unsupported litigation, or even issue unlawful executive orders.” This, he says, could cause enough disruption to provoke a January 6-style riot.
Meanwhile, the government lawyer says the lack of clear legal authority hasn’t stopped the planning.
“Justice Department and White House lawyers are grappling with these very scenarios… [including] what it can do if the law is no guide,” he says.
With the midterms just a week away and Republicans projected to do poorly, Trump has a veritable army of influencers online prepared to sow doubt about the election result.
A Washington Post analysis on Tuesday found nearly 600 high-profile right-wing social media accounts, podcasts, and other media sources that have published content questioning the integrity of the election and telling Trump supporters to expect cheating. Many of their claims echo those made by the administration about the prevalence of noncitizen voting, which is exceedingly rare.
Democrats on the congressional intelligence committees have said they are prepared for Trump to claim that classified intelligence shows that foreign powers tampered with vote totals or otherwise intervened to help his rivals.
“This administration has a record of using weaponized intelligence to make the case for election interference, and now its officials are grasping at straws to satisfy the president’s desire to interfere with the elections,” Alexandra Chandler, the director of impact programs at Free and Fair Elections, told Common Dreams. “None of this is new.”
If Trump makes such a claim, Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said that Trump’s CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton have agreed to review any of the underlying intelligence with him and Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Himes told reporters, "We’re making the presumption that the president will not accept the results,” adding that they expect him to “pull out all the stops.”
Voting rights groups have also said they are ready for whatever Trump throws their way.
“States and local election officials run our elections, not the federal government,” Tianna Mays, legal director at the Democracy Defenders Fund, told Common Dreams. “Trump administration officials cannot claim powers they do not have under the Constitution, and we will fight them in court if they try.”
“The pro-democracy coalition is prepared for whatever scenario comes,” Chandler said. “We will defend the integrity of this election.”
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