The Michigan Attorney General refused to comply with a Department of Justice (DOJ) request to turn over all ballots cast in the 2024 general election in a Detroit-area county on Sunday, rebuffing the Trump administration’s latest move to question the legitimacy of U.S. elections, according to Reuters.
The DOJ issued the request on April 14 to the election clerk in Wayne County, Michigan. The office of Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel publicly released the department’s letter, which requested all ballots, ballot receipts and ballot envelopes from the last presidential election be turned over within two weeks.
The letter, authored by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, also outlined three convictions for election fraud and five election fraud lawsuits against Wayne County, according to NBC.
According to polling conducted by the same outlet, then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris had won the county over Donald Trump by 29% of votes.
Attorney General Nessel bashed the DOJ’s request in a statement posted to X.
“Once again, President Trump is weaponizing the Justice Department in an attempt to sabotage our democratic process and turn it into his own personal agency to interfere in state elections,” she wrote. “This request is as absurd as it is baseless…If this administration wants to bring this circus to our state, my office is prepared to protect the people’s right to vote.”
Also on Sunday, FBI Director Kash Patel announced on “Sunday Morning Futures” that the Justice Department will soon arrest individuals who are alleged to have interfered with the 2020 election.
“We’ve got all the information we need,” Patel said. “We’re working with our prosecutors at the Department of Justice under Attorney General Todd Blanche, and we are going to be making arrests. It’s coming, and I promise you, it’s coming soon.”
During the same TV segment, Assistant Attorney General Dhillon emphasized the administration’s commitment to cracking down on tampering within elections across the country, saying that the DOJ has filed suit against 29 states and the District of Columbia for refusing the Department access to their voter rolls.
According to The New York Times, many Democrats and election officials point to the administration’s persistent efforts to obtain ballot and voter information as part of a larger ploy to spark confusion and distrust towards the election system ahead of the midterm elections this November, a cycle in which some expect Republicans to perform poorly.
The Justice Department’s letter to Wayne County is the latest development in the Trump administration’s attempts to involve itself in the election system.
Earlier this month, the president issued an executive order restricting mail voting by composing lists of eligible voters and instructing the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail ballots only to individuals on such lists, according to PBS. Skeptics of such a system worry about officials’ ability to guarantee that the voter lists are completely accurate, considering the relatively short time before this fall’s midterm elections.
Similar to the pushback in the Michigan case, Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic National Committee and other party organizations filed a lawsuit against the administration to block the EO from coming into effect. They grounded their argument in the U.S. Constitution, which notes that the states and Congress have the power to oversee and regulate federal elections, not the president.
With a critical midterm election season coming up this November, the Trump administration’s involvement, and attempted involvement, in the election system is sure to remain closely watched.
