The justice department has sent letters to a top Democratic election lawyer and other Democrats informing them they could be targets in a federal investigation into efforts to get an Alaska man with the same name as Republican senator Daniel Sullivan on to the ballot.
The decision to send the letters is very unusual. The justice department has long avoided taking actions that could affect an election close to election day. It is also not common to send out target letters so early in an investigation; receiving a target letter does not mean that a person will be charged with a crime.
One letter’s existence was confirmed by a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. A federal grand jury in Alaska is investigating potential conspiracy and donor fraud, according to the New York Times and ABC News. It is not clear how many people received the target letters.
The justice department’s Alaska investigation accelerated after a bombshell story in the New York Times revealing that allies of Mary Peltola were behind an effort to get someone with the same name as the incumbent senator from Alaska on the ballot to confuse voters. Eventually they found Daniel J Sullivan, a retired schoolteacher. Peltola and her campaign denied any involvement in the matter, but the Times reported that lawyers for the campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) were involved in the effort.
The Times reported that the law firm of Marc Elias, a well-known Democratic election lawyer who has drawn the ire of Trump, was involved in the effort. Elias, who reportedly received a letter, said the justice department had “zero evidence of wrongdoing”.
“No one should be surprised that President Trump’s Department of Justice is targeting me and my law firm on Election Day. This administration has repeatedly weaponized the DOJ against the President’s political enemies despite zero evidence of wrongdoing, and we are the latest targets,” he said in a statement.
“The Department cannot discuss ongoing investigations,” a justice department spokesperson said in a statement. The DSCC did not return a request for comment.
Trying to get candidates on the ballot in order to siphon votes away from a rival candidate is a known dirty trick in politics and is not necessarily illegal.
The justice department has abandoned longstanding norms this year around actions close to election day by pressuring states to try to not count ballots in the final days of elections and raiding the home of Ilhan Omar, a Democratic representative from Minnesota.
