A small group of U.S. national security officials has been discreetly advising state governments and congressional lawmakers on how to prepare for the possibility that the Trump administration will attempt to interfere in November’s midterm elections, according to people involved in the effort.
The group includes about 10 current and former officials with experience in the Defense Department, some of whom have previously focused on countering authoritarianism abroad.
Their efforts are motivated not by political bias, they say, but a growing sense of alarm that President Donald Trump will harm American democracy by undermining the integrity of the vote to keep the Republican Party in power.
Over the past several months, the group has consulted with officials from 10 states, including governors, election officials and members of the House and Senate from both political parties who share a fear of federal intervention, two people involved in the effort said.
The effort, which has not been previously reported, focuses on states and jurisdictions where tightly contested races will determine control of Congress for the remainder of Trump’s presidency. Members of the group remain in contact with congressional staffs, and least one state has continued to meet with them as it works to address potential vulnerabilities.
“All of them have said we’re concerned but we don’t know what to do,” one member of the group said of its meetings with lawmakers.
“The outcome that we hope for is that states would be prepared for any contingencies should they arise,” the person continued.
This report is based on interviews, conducted over several months, with two officials involved in the effort. They spoke on the condition of anonymity and that the lawmakers and state leaders with whom the group has met not be identified either, for fear of retaliation. The Washington Post also reviewed some of the documents the group prepared for its meetings.
Trump has long claimed that a “deep state” of government officials is working to undermine his presidency. Since returning to office, he has undertaken an expansive effort to fire career civil servants and solicit political loyalty from the bureaucracy.
Lauren Bis, a White House spokesperson, dismissed the group’s concerns and blamed Democrats for not supporting stricter election laws.
The Trump administration, she said in a statement, “is taking decisive action to protect our elections including prosecuting election crimes, strengthening election infrastructure security, and protecting vulnerable voters from fraud and coercion.”
The president, Bis added, “is making clear that anyone who illegally votes in our elections will be held accountable.”
In their discussions ahead of the midterms, the national security officials have detailed ways the Trump administration could use its federal powers to sway the upcoming vote, covering categories that include legal and illegal activity. Among their concerns are that the administration could deploy troops or immigration agents to polling stations or seek to nullify results based on claims of voter fraud.
Their meetings with lawmakers have mainly focused on raising awareness, especially among Republicans, of the potential for interference and on counseling them to be prepared to publicly oppose any such efforts. With state governments, they’ve focused more on how to harden election protocols that could be exploited by the federal government, the two members of the group said.
Their warnings are based on personal analysis of the administration’s activities and public statements made by the president and his allies — not access to specific government intelligence or information to which they have access because of their positions within federal agencies, members of the group said. They described the meetings as a way to help state and federal officials secure the election and emphasized that their work has occurred outside of their official capacity as government employees.
Still, their efforts indicate an extraordinary level of concern that Trump may use his authority to influence the election or challenge the results, similar to his extended campaign to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election that culminated with a raid on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Trump’s approval rating is at record lows only weeks ahead of the Nov. 3 midterms, with voters frustrated about the cost of living and the war in Iran. Democrats appear likely to flip the House and possibly the Senate, and have vowed to intensify oversight of the administration if they regain power.
Election officials, including some Republicans, have decried efforts by the Trump administration to assert federal control over a process that the Constitution entrusts to the states. Some GOP-led states, such as Utah, have refused to comply with the administration’s efforts to access their voter rolls.
“The threats that we’re getting now are mostly from our own government,” Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson told The Post earlier this month.
In January, the FBI raided an election office in Fulton County, Georgia, and seized voting materials in an investigation tied to Trump’s debunked claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election. Trump told the New York Times in an interview earlier this year that he regretted not having the National Guard seize voting machines during that race.
As he has campaigned on behalf of Republicans, Trump has repeated his claims about the 2020 election and that Democrats are attempting mass voter fraud ahead of the midterms. In October, a group of nongovernmental organizations sued the administration, alleging that it unlawfully collected voting data from 47 states.
Throughout the year, he has unsuccessfully urged Congress to pass an election security bill — the SAVE America Act — that would give the federal government more authority over the voting process. The GOP-controlled Senate has not done so, as passing the bill would require ending the chamber’s 60-vote threshold known as the filibuster.
Trump and some of his top Cabinet officials also have declined to rule out the possibility that they will send members of the military or immigration agents to polling stations, alarming Democrats.
During a combative Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in late April, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was asked whether he would refuse a presidential order to deploy troops to the polls or to collect voting machines. He dismissed the question, posed by Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Michigan), as a “hypothetical.”
When the committee’s Republican chairman, Sen. Roger Wicker (Mississippi), urged Hegseth to provide a response, the secretary said, “I’ve never been ordered to do anything illegal, and I won’t.”
In August, Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote to Slotkin and said that there were no plans to deploy troops to the polls or seize voting records.
The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment.
In September, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin declined to rule out the possibility of deploying immigration agents to the polls. Speaking to reporters, Mullin said that they would appear only if there were “specific threats” and that such agents wouldn’t “patrol” voting sites.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said that Immigration and Customs Enforcement “is not planning operations targeting polling locations” and would only do so if an “active public safety threat endangered a polling location.”
At other times, Trump and other senior officials have attempted to use the powers of their office to sway voters to support Republicans. The president has promised voters a $5,000 reward if the GOP maintains its majority in Congress, and he has used taxpayer money to air campaign-style ads ahead of the midterms.
The precautions some states are taking against potential federal interference in the midterms signal a radical departure from the threats that state governments normally focus on in an election year. Foreign actors such as China and Russia have long sought to influence or disrupt U.S. elections, and continue to do so ahead of the November midterms, the U.S. intelligence community has assessed.
Tammy Patrick, the chief program officer at the National Association of Election Officials, said that over the past year the possibility of federal interference has become the dominant concern of election officials she has spoken to around the country.
State and local officials, for example, have been rehearsing how to respond if a federal agent appears at a polling place to compel access to ballots or voting machines, she said.
Other officials, Patrick said, have been concerned about moves the Trump administration has already taken.
Since returning to office, Trump has pressured states, such as Indiana and Texas, to redraw their congressional maps to favor Republicans. His administration has also asked the Supreme Court to limit the availability of mail-in voting, a request the court has rejected.
“All of these things,” Patrick said, “are being done in the open.”
Patrick Marley contributed to this report.
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