Wednesday, May 28

Ed Martin, Jr. — President Donald Trump’s original nominee for U.S. Attorney for D.C., was too extreme to get through the GOP-controlled Senate. So now, Martin is at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), where former DOJ attorneys are concerned he will use his new power to target Trump’s political enemies and spread disinformation. Also in this week’s newsletter: The DOJ is working with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to target alleged voter fraud; and two prominent election deniers were blocked from serving on the Fulton County, Georgia elections board.

As always, thanks for reading. 

— Matt Cohen, Senior Reporter

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Ed Martin was too extreme for GOP senators. Now he’s at DOJ, targeting Trump’s enemies

When Trump withdrew Ed Martin Jr. ‘s nomination for U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, it came after a growing chorus of Republican senators who found him to be too extreme for the role. His work defending Jan. 6 rioters was a bridge too far for Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who said he wouldn’t be voting to confirm Martin.

But Martin didn’t fall out of favor with Trump. The president replaced Martin’s nomination as top D.C. prosecutor with Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, and appointed Martin to multiple roles in the DOJ — including the head of a new unit that aims to probe what Trump calls the political “weaponization” of the department under then-President Joe Biden.

Trump also appointed Martin as the pardon attorney at DOJ, meaning he’ll advise Trump on who he should pardon. His first pardon on the job? A former Virginia sheriff who was convicted of federal bribery charges. “No MAGA left behind,” Martin wrote of the pardon.

That post, which blatantly undermines the department’s longstanding commitment to apolitical law enforcement, will only add to the worries of some former DOJ attorneys. They say they’re concerned that Martin will use his new posts to spread disinformation, delegitimize future elections, and target leading Democrats and prosecutors who have pursued Trump. Indeed, it may already be happening.

As the head of DOJ’s nascent and vague “weaponization working group,” Martin is tasked with leading the department’s investigations into potential abuses of the criminal justice process by current and former officials. 

In a February memo announcing the new group, Attorney General Pam Bondi named former Special Counsel Jack Smith and his staff as a primary subject of investigation, along with New York Attorney General Letitia James (D), Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D), and other New York-based officials.

The department recently launched an inquiry into Andrew Cuomo, the Democratic former New York governor, according to The New York Times. The inquiry comes a month after Martin, as interim U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., opened an investigation into Cuomo for allegedly making false statements to Congress.

The flurry of probes “should alarm anybody concerned about the rule of law,” Stacey Young, the founder of Justice Connection and a former longtime attorney in the DOJ’s civil rights division, told me. “They seem to be targeting the President’s political enemies, which is antithetical to how the rule of law must work.”

I also spoke with David Becker, the founder and executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research and a former trial attorney in the DOJ’s voting section, about Martin’s new roles at the DOJ. He told me it’s the latest example of the Trump administration’s assault on democracy.

“There is an effort to use the institutions that have previously been used to support our democracy to delegitimize some aspects of it now,” Becker said. “And the credibility that institutions like the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security have understandably built up over time is now being weaponized against some basic foundations of our democracy.”

DOGE is helping the DOJ investigate alleged voter fraud

Elsewhere in the DOJ, the civil rights division’s voting section is accelerating its focus on identifying and prosecuting alleged noncitizen voters in every state — with the help of Elon Musk’s DOGE. 

In a recent appearance on the right-wing podcast All-In, Antonio Gracias — a billionaire investor who is also working alongside Elon Musk in DOGE — said the DOJ asked DOGE to find “10-20 cases” of alleged noncitizen voting in every state. Gracias added that DOGE is working with both the DOJ and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to prosecute alleged noncitizen voters.

“We’ve sampled a handful of states. And in those handful of states, we found people registered to vote. And we have found people who actually voted,” Gracias said. “And this is all being done by sampling… We are sampling DHS data and then have to go to the voter rolls, check the voter rolls, and then give that to HSI, Homeland Security Investigations, who goes and checks the voter record by subpoena and the voter and the cards you sign when you vote. We already had three arrests here in Florida, actually, and one indictment in New York.”

A DOJ spokesperson confirmed to me that DOGE is assisting the department in its efforts to investigate voter fraud, but the spokesperson could not confirm any arrests.

“DOGE has assisted agencies and departments in identifying potential cases of fraud which have been referred to the Department of Justice,” the spokesperson said. “DOGE is working closely with DOJ to identify potential fraud.”

The DOJ has seen drastic, unprecedented changes under Bondi, particularly in its voting section. The section, which is part of the civil rights division, had an estimated 30 attorneys when Trump took office. It’s now down to just three attorneys, according to an estimate shared with me by a watchdog group, with its senior managers assigned to other divisions. The section also got a new mission statement, which shifts its focus from enforcing voting rights laws to targeting voter fraud.

The latest example of the DOJ’s new crusade to find alleged voter fraud came Tuesday, when the department filed a lawsuit accusing  North Carolina of failing to maintain an accurate voter list in violation of the Help America Vote Act.

Instances of voter fraud are exceedingly rare — especially incidents of noncitizens voting in federal elections. But the issue emerged as a central talking point for Republicans in the 2024 general election — with Trump leading the charge to spread disinformation about noncitizen voting. Shortly after Trump’s return to the office, the right-wing “election integrity” group True The Vote pressured DOGE to shift its efforts to auditing voter rolls across the country. 

It’s unclear what criteria DOGE is using to uncover alleged voter fraud and instances of noncitizen voting, but Gracias told Fox News in April that his team found thousands of potential noncitizens on voter rolls in several states. In his recent podcast appearance, he said that what DOGE found is just the “tip of the iceberg.”

“How big the iceberg is, I don’t know,” Gracias said. “And I don’t want to speculate, because I think it would not be the right thing to do at this moment. I think we’ll have more data over time.”

Two prominent Georgia election deniers blocked from serving on county elections board

The Fulton County (Georgia) Board of Commissioners voted 5-2 Wednesday to reject the GOP’s nominations of two prominent election deniers — Julie Adams and Jason Frazier — to the county board of elections.

Regular Democracy Docket readers might recall Adams, a prominent election denier with ties to the far-right Election Integrity Network (EIN), who currently serves on the board. Last May, she refused to certify the county’s primary election results, claiming she didn’t have access to all information about the voting process. 

Adams filed three unsuccessful lawsuits to get sensitive election data — including a list of all registered voters, voter check-in lists from each precinct and a list of all voters who requested, received and/or returned absentee ballots — in order to certify the election. 

In rejecting Adams’ reappointment to the board, several members of the board of commissioners cited her refusal to certify the election, subsequent frivolous lawsuits and her ties to EIN and the Tea Party Patriots as reasons they didn’t vote for her. 

“It’s not possible to work with folks trying to sow discord and chaos,” board member Mo Ivory said during the board’s meeting, before voting to reject Adams’ reappointment.

Frazier, another prominent election denier and right-wing activist, also had his nomination  rejected. Last August, Frazier filed a lawsuit against the board falsely claiming that they failed to properly maintain the county’s voter rolls and respond to voter challenges.

The lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed last September. 

In rejecting Frazier’s nomination, Fulton commissioner Dana Barrett cited Frazier’s “egregious record of voter suppression.” 

Frazier didn’t take his rejection by the board of commissioners lightly, indicating on X that he will pursue legal action. 

“Dems on the Fulton Board of Commissioners voted No to both Republican Board of Elections nominations today,” he wrote. “Both Julie and I were nominated unanimously by the Fulton GOP… We ‘Shall’ not give up!”

We’ll keep watching this.