The Trump administration’s push to back up its unproven voter fraud claims in California has now followed one election worker home.
The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into alleged noncitizen voting in the state and issued federal grand jury subpoenas to local election officials, The New York Times reported Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter and subpoena copies the paper obtained. Federal marshals served one Los Angeles County election employee at home even though that employee had already been served at the registrar’s office, according to officials familiar with the incident.
At least two workers in the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder’s office received subpoenas last week summoning them to a grand jury proceeding set for Nov. 4, the morning after Election Day, according to records The Times obtained through California’s public records law.
The subpoenas seek all internal communications about the Justice Department’s demands on county officials and California’s secretary of state. They also call for records on the agency’s “methods for screening for unlawful voting by aliens” and its “efforts to prevent noncitizen votes from being counted in any election.” Those followed earlier subpoenas seeking records on specific voters prosecutors appeared to suspect were not citizens.
Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan blasted the subpoenas as “intimidation.”
“At every step, the U.S. Department of Justice has taken a confrontational, adversarial approach,” Logan said in a statement. “Election officials are acting in accordance with state and federal law.”
The subpoenas mark an escalation in the Trump administration’s bid to paint elections in Democratic-run states as rigged against Republicans, coming after Justice Department officials repeatedly hinted they would investigate and prosecute local election officials who refused federal demands. A letter sent to election officials across the state last week warned they would “risk significant federal scrutiny” by not complying. Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, went further.
“Any election official who knowingly processes the ballot of a noncitizen is opening themselves to legal jeopardy,” he said.
The Times noted that receiving a grand jury subpoena does not mean a person is under investigation, and the DOJ rarely subpoenas people it plans to charge.
A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment on the subpoenas. California Secretary of State Shirley Weber also declined to comment for The Times.
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