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There is a reason that it has been longstanding Justice Department practice to avoid major investigative steps regarding elected officials right around an election.
That’s because doing something like arresting someone who is running for office just before an election would be perceived by most people as interfering in that election — even if that person was obviously guilty of a crime. But this Justice Department is unlike any other since at least the time of Nixon, and so it’s no surprise that it is placing itself directly in the November midterms by issuing subpoenas for Rep. Ilhan Omar and members of her family.
Investigations of public officials are tricky, especially if the people running those investigations are from a rival political party. That’s why the DOJ has long sought to avoid any perception of political motivation behind its investigations. Not so with this DOJ.
Right-wing media is noting that the investigation into Omar — which deals with immigration paperwork her father filled out when she was a child — began during the Biden administration. It’s only natural, then, that it’s coming to fruition now! That’s the apparent argument — that mere weeks before an election, Donald Trump’s DOJ has made a break in the case.
Even many Republicans surely won’t buy this. When you see something this obvious it is, well, obvious.
All of this bodes darkly for November. That the DOJ is willing to interfere this overtly in an election that is 19 days from now means the agency is probably willing to do it in November. That agency, by the way, is increasingly run by people who are inexperienced, Trump sycophants, or both.
What will the DOJ and other federal agencies like the Department of Homeland Security do to further interfere with the midterms? We’re not sure, but we do have some ideas. The ACLU and other organizations are preparing robustly for possible seizure of ballots and other records by the Trump administration.
Voting machines are also a target, as we saw with recent demands from the Georgia State Election Board to have the DOJ and DHS step in to effectively prohibit the use of the state’s voting machines in November.
So far, it doesn’t appear that either agency has responded to the request. But the prospect of federal interference in Georgia and elsewhere looms just as — if not more — important than the results of the election itself.
Today we’re talking about all of this with Sara Tindall-Ghazal, the lone Democratic member of the Georgia state election board.
Listen to our conversation above, on Apple and Spotify podcasts, or at Doom’s home on YouTube.
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