September 5, 2025

In early January 2021, when Donald Trump tried to persuade Georgia election officials to “find 11,780 votes,” he was joined by his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and three lawyers. Two of the attorneys, Kurt Hilbert and Alex Kaufman, were formally representing Trump in his failed lawsuit to block certification. 

The third, Cleta Mitchell, was a prominent Republican lawyer from a large national firm. Meadows explained that she was “not the attorney of record but has been involved.” The transcript showed that Mitchell was an active participant on the call — often demonstrating a sharper grasp of the factual and legal claims than anyone else on Trump’s team.

Since then, Mitchell has become the most prominent and influential lawyer in Trump’s so-called “election integrity” movement. She has advocated for eliminating all early voting and same-day voter registration, as well as requiring proof of U.S. citizenship to vote. In June 2025, a Department of Homeland Security official briefed Mitchell’s “Election Integrity Network” on using a database to verify the citizenship status of registered voters.

To be blunt: when Mitchell speaks, the pro-democracy movement should pay attention.

That’s why her latest comments about Trump’s plans for the 2026 elections are so alarming:

“The president’s authority is limited in his role with regard to elections except where there is a threat to the national sovereignty of the United States—as I think that we can establish with the porous system that we have. Then, I think maybe the president is thinking that he will exercise some emergency powers to protect the federal elections going forward.”

The Constitution, of course, contains no allowance for presidents to exercise emergency powers over federal elections. Nor is there any “national sovereignty” exception.

But rather than dismissing these remarks, we must prepare for Trump to ignore the Constitution and federal law, and to attempt a direct seizure of election administration — including ballot counting and certification.

So why hasn’t the legacy media sounded this alarm? Why is Democracy Docket the only outlet reporting on these and other troubling comments from Trump and his allies about an unconstitutional power grab? Where are the business leaders and law firms recommitting themselves to protecting free and fair elections?

Trump shows us every day that he wants to be an authoritarian. He mocks the rule of law. He drips with disdain for democracy itself.

It is time to form a coalition of the willing to confront these threats head-on — and leave behind the institutions that are failing us.

The Weekly Top Line

This week reminded us that Donald Trump cares about only three things: deploying the military to intimidate blue cities, undermining free and fair elections and hiding the Epstein files. It also reminded us that he is losing ground on all three fronts.

Not only did his administration lose a critical court case involving military deployments in Los Angeles, but Trump also suffered a very public sparring defeat against Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker over his threat to send Texas guardsmen into Chicago. Suddenly, Trump looks vulnerable to public opinion, and he has hinted he may instead pivot toward deployments in states governed by Republicans.

On the election front, his Department of Justice continues to struggle in its bid to obtain sweeping voter data from every state. This week, a South Carolina judge delivered a surprising setback by temporarily blocking the effort. 

Meanwhile, in redistricting battles, California’s ballot measure campaign is gaining momentum and looking like a winner, even as litigation piles up against Republican gerrymanders elsewhere.

Perhaps most concerning for Trump is his failure to suppress the focus on the Epstein files. With each passing day, he appears more desperate to keep the information secret, even as new pathways for disclosure emerge.

The press conference held by Epstein’s victims was both emotionally powerful and politically dangerous for Trump and his allies in Congress.

Looking ahead, I expect September to be dominated by these storylines as we approach a potential government shutdown on Sept. 30. The way they unfold may determine who holds leverage in that larger fight.

Fools and Cowards of the Week

California Republicans have now filed their third lawsuit to block the state ballot measure aimed at redrawing congressional districts. The first two cases were so weak that the California Supreme Court rejected them outright, without even requiring a state response. The latest suit is even more frivolous and almost certain to meet the same fate.

California Republicans had a real chance to avoid this mess by pressuring their leadership to block Texas’s gerrymandering special session. Had they succeeded, California would not have responded with its own redistricting push.

For refusing to confront Trump and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, the California GOP are cowards. For thinking no one would notice their spinelessness, they are fools.

The Week’s Siren 🚨

The weaponization of the Department of Justice remains one of the least covered stories in the country. This week, we learned that the DOJ has formally opened a criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. The pretext is transparent: they want to remove her from office. Yet too much of the legacy media has behaved like stenographers for the administration.

I’ve said it before: democracy will not survive this era if our institutions lack moral clarity and courage. The media’s handling of the Cook case so far is failing that test.

Overlooked This Week 👀

Trump is trying to control the weather. The National Weather Service is scrambling to hire over 400 employees after the Department of Government Efficiency made deep cuts to the organization. One of the questions on the application? How they would advance Donald Trump’s agenda. For a job based in science, it’s alarming that applicants are being asked about political ideology. That being said, since when has the Republican Party trusted science? As storms rapidly intensify as a result of climate change, it’s important to have people working in the National Weather Service who will accurately predict and report the weather — not Donald Trump’s weather agenda.