Trump Administration Pushes Limits of Election Investigations
Speaking to a conservative radio host on Monday, the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles made an unusually pointed prediction that cast doubt on the results of California’s primary races, even as votes were still being counted.
“We will be charging some people,” the prosecutor, Bill Essayli, told the host, Glenn Beck, delivering a promise that would most likely have been considered a violation of Justice Department policy under decades of past practice. “It will be election fraud charges in the next — I hate to put timelines on things — one or two months I believe. We need some of these results to be certified so we can prove some of the allegations.”
The declaration, issued by an outspoken loyalist to President Trump, was a vivid example of the Justice Department’s approach to voting under the Trump administration. The agency is seeking to assert more control over elections and challenge how states conduct them, a shift that could have significant consequences in the midterm elections this year, when control of Congress hangs in the balance.
It is part of a broader effort by Mr. Trump to undermine confidence in the elections by repeatedly making baseless claims of voter fraud. The playbook dates to his first run for office in 2016, when he raised the specter of a rigged vote during his campaign and revisited the unfounded assertion even after he was declared the victor because Hillary Clinton had won the popular vote. In 2020, he revived the strategy, going so far as to try to overturn the results in swing states that had been won by Joseph R. Biden Jr.
In the last year alone, the Justice Department has sought voter roll data from most states; sued those that have declined to comply; opened a criminal investigation into 2020 election results in Fulton County, Ga., a state Mr. Trump narrowly lost that year; and demanded ballots from the 2024 race from Wayne County, Mich.
The administration is “throwing everything against the wall that they can find, and nothing is sticking,” said David Becker, a former voting rights lawyer at the Justice Department who is now the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research.