Trump DOJ sends target letters to Democrats in Alaska Senate probe

The Department of Justice fired off target letters to about 20 Democrats, election lawyer Marc Elias among them, warning they could be targets in a criminal investigation into how a candidate sharing incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan's name ended up on Alaska's Senate ballot, according to The New York Times. NBC News reported the batch also included preservation requests ordering third parties to hold onto records. At least one official at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee got one too.

The Times, citing a person familiar with the matter, said prosecutors are weighing possible donor fraud and conspiracy charges. A target letter is not an accusation — it doesn't mean someone has been charged, and it doesn't guarantee they will be. Elias, who represents Alaska Democratic nominee Mary Peltola, didn't sound rattled. "No one should be surprised that President Trump's Department of Justice is targeting me and my law firm on Election Day," he said in a statement.

Trump got out ahead of the news, telling Fox News' "Fox and Friends" earlier Tuesday that Elias is a "bad guy" who "should go to jail, in my opinion." He also described Democrats hunting across Alaska for someone named Sullivan.

The letters land after a federal judge on Sunday threw out the DOJ's lawsuit, which had sought to delay certification of Alaska's Senate race if Sullivan lost by a margin that could be blamed on voter confusion over the duplicate name. Judge Sharon Gleason said the request touched on "the time, place, and manner of Alaska's election, which are the responsibilities of the State, not the executive branch of the federal government." The DOJ is appealing. Hours after the department asked the Supreme Court on Monday to stop California from counting about 20,000 mail-in ballots, the justices turned it down without a noted dissent.

The monitor footprint ballooned alongside the legal push. DOJ lawyer Kathryn Barragan told U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton on Monday that the department expected to send 900 people to polling places in all 50 states — up from roughly 100 in 2024 — and the DOJ said Tuesday the number would be about 1,000, concentrated in urban, Democratic-leaning areas. Walton was weighing an emergency request from the NAACP to bar federal law enforcement personnel from serving as monitors.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer convened the full Senate Democratic Caucus on Sunday night, with Elias joining for a briefing on what an aide described as the current landscape of election threats from Trump and his allies. John Cusick of the Legal Defense Fund said the administration's aim is threefold: intimidate voters and election officials, sow confusion about the rules, and lay groundwork to challenge post-election counting and certification. California Attorney General Rob Bonta said his office and 23 other Democratic AGs had war-gamed the scenarios, adding that each of Trump's attempts has failed so far.