A lawyer recently assigned to the Department of Justice’s voting section has twice teamed up with prominent election-conspiracy theorists — including bringing bogus charges that ultimately cost taxpayers millions, we reported this week. Also in this week’s Eye On The Right: Cleta Mitchell is “praying” that DOJ seizes Georgia’s ballots in its probe of the 2020 election, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell is “98 percent sure” he’s running for Minnesota governor, and more.

As always, thanks for reading. 

DOJ’s new voting lawyer brought flawed charges pushed by election deniers

• We’ve been digging into DOJ’s effort to seize state voter records, and we noticed a new name pop up on some of the department's emails and court filings: Eric Neff.

• Turns out Neff has an interesting background: As a prosecutor in Los Angeles, he teamed up with an election conspiracy group, True the Vote, to charge a software exec with giving the Chinese government access to information about U.S. poll workers. The prosecution soon fell apart, and Neff was put on administrative leave. Los Angeles County eventually paid $5 million to settle a lawsuit over the faulty prosecution.
  
  
• That’s not all. Last year, Neff briefly represented former Overstock CEO and election conspiracist Patrick Byrne, a close ally of Mike Lindell, in a defamation lawsuit brought by Hunter Biden. In the role, Neff worked under Stefanie Lambert, a prominent Michigan election denier who will soon face trial in the state for her alleged role in a scheme to access voting tabulators in the 2020 election. 
  
  
• Neff’s ties to the world of far-right election conspiracists may have boosted, rather than hurt, his appeal with the Trump Justice Department. David Becker, a former DOJ voting lawyer and prominent election administration expert, called the department’s willingness to hire anti-voting ideologues like Neff, no matter their record, “DEI for loyalists.”

Cleta Mitchell is “praying” that DOJ seizes Georgia ballots in probe of 2020 election conspiracy

• Anti-voting activist and perennial subject of this newsletter Cleta Mitchell took to social media last week to cheer on the DOJ’s probe of debunked allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 election in Georgia.
  
  
• “[DOJ Civil Rights Division chief Harmeet Dhillon] has served notice she is coming for the Fulton County ballots,” Mitchell posted on X last Thursday. “Praying it happens today. DOJ must act to protect the voters of GA.” Reader: it did not, in fact, happen that day.
  
  
• In October, DOJ demanded Fulton County election officials hand over records related to the 2020 election. The DOJ’s probe came months after Georgia’s GOP-controlled elections board formally urged the state to ask the department for help in probing 2020 voter fraud claims in Fulton County. But county election officials have held firm in not giving DOJ access to the ballots.

Right-wing activists are calling for military intervention and violence to free Tina Peters

• As Tina Peters, the Colorado election-denier-turned-MAGA-folk-hero, continues to serve a nine-year prison sentence for her role in a 2021 voting system data breach, prominent right-wing figures are calling for the military to free her. And in one extreme case, even proposing violent means to get around Colorado officials.
  
  
• During an interview with Steve Bannon, Peters’ attorney Peter Ticktin suggested that the president send in the military to free Peters from state prison in Colorado. “This audience would one million percent back you, back the Justice Department, back the Secretary of War, back the President of the United States if we did this tomorrow morning,” Bannon said.
  
  
• In an anti-semitic screed on social media, far-right podcaster Joe Oltmann called for violence against several Colorado officials, who he claimed are responsible for Peters’ incarceration. Oltmann added that the officials “deserve to be tried for treason in military tribunals and hang.”
  
  
• Meanwhile, a federal magistrate judge this week turned down Peters’ petition to be released, saying her case must work its way through state courts before federal courts can get involved.

Pillow fight: Mike Lindell files paperwork to run for Minnesota governor

• It’s not-quite-official: Everyone’s favorite pillow-magnate-turned-election-conspiracy-theorist is pretty sure he’s running for governor of the great state of Minnesota.
  
  
• Though MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell filed the requisite paperwork last week, he said in an interview that he’s only “98 percent sure I’m going to” actually follow through with a campaign.
  
  
• Lindell is an avowed election denier and close ally of President Donald Trump. He was one of the most prominent voices pushing conspiracy theories involving Dominion voting machines. He was later sued for defamation by Dominion and Smartmatic, another voting machine maker, and, in 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his efforts to dismiss the lawsuits. A court ruled that Lindell defamed Smartmatic, while litigation is ongoing in the Dominion lawsuit.
  
  
• Even though his campaign isn’t 100% locked in, Democrats took the opportunity to slam Lindell: “His entrance into the race is a bitter pill-ow for Minnesota Republicans to swallow,” Democratic Governors Association spokesperson Izzi Levy reportedly said in a statement. Whatever happens, don’t expect the race to be a snooze. (I’m sorry).