The Trump Justice Department sent target letters to roughly 20 Democratic officials in connection with reported ballot-stacking in Alaska, The New York Times reported on Election Day.
Two of the intended recipients were reportedly election lawyer Marc Elias and a DSCC official.
As former federal prosecutor Harry Litman explained during a Substack Live, that’s a big deal.
“They are saying, ‘Mark Elias, we are going to indict you,’” he said, noting that target letters typically go out at the end of an investigation to give someone an opportunity to reverse a “foregone conclusion.”
As for its scale, he noted that the sheer number of target letters would typically be reserved for a “mob takedown.”
As the Times reported, the alleged ballot stacking that aides for Democratic candidate Mary Peltola and DSCC officials stand accused of is common and legal. The timing of the letters, and the revelations of their existence, fell the same day that Donald Trump openly called for Elias to be prosecuted. It also falls on the heels of a string of dozens of humiliating defeats for the Trump Justice Department from district court judges all the way up to the Supreme Court.
One federal judge said that the Trump DOJ’s pattern of last-ditch election litigation smacked of “attempted election interference.”
During a wide-ranging conversation, we discussed the latest revelations, the legality of ballot-stacking, the Supreme Court’s smackdown of the government’s California litigation, the rise of “Fake-Ass” U.S. Attorneys, and more.
