Justice Department to seek information from Peltola campaign, filings show
President Donald Trump called on Wednesday for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Mary Peltola to be criminally prosecuted and removed from the ballot in Alaska, marking the latest turn in a federal dispute over the state’s Senate ballot days before the midterms. Trump directed his remarks at Peltola and at Dan J. Sullivan Jr., a candidate on the midterm ballot whose first and last name match those of the Republican incumbent, Sen. Dan S. Sullivan.
“I think they should be prosecuted. To me, that’s voter fraud at the highest level,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday. He also said both Peltola and Dan J. Sullivan Jr. “should be taken off the ballot.”
The call followed a New York Times report that Peltola campaign staffers were part of an effort to try to recruit an independent challenger with the same name as Republican Sen. Dan S. Sullivan, a move critics allege was intended to confuse voters.
In a statement following the Times report, Peltola’s campaign said it had “no involvement with either Sullivan campaign.” The Justice Department declined to comment.
Attorney General Todd Blanche made the allegation directly earlier Wednesday in an interview with Fox News. “They are cheating. Let’s just call it what it is. They are trying to take votes away from the incumbent, not by running an election and not by running on issues, but by putting up a person with the same name so that they confuse Alaskans,” Blanche said.
Trump’s remarks come as the Justice Department presses a lawsuit he says he ordered. Trump said last week that he had directed the Justice Department to file a lawsuit over the Alaska ballot. The suit cites claims of potential voter confusion over the two Sullivans and asks the court to delay certifying the election result if the incumbent Republican senator seems likely to lose and the number of votes cast for the other Sullivan might change the outcome. Alaska uses a ranked-choice system, in which voters rank candidates in order of preference.
On Wednesday afternoon, the Justice Department said in court filings that it plans to seek information from the Peltola campaign on the allegations in the New York Times report as part of the lawsuit.
The dispute over the two names predates the campaign’s final weeks. The Alaska Republican Party previously tried to get Dan J. Sullivan Jr. off the ballot, arguing he was a Democratic plant. He denied that in an interview with The Wall Street Journal last month, and the Alaska Supreme Court ruled both Sullivans could appear on the ballot. Both candidates are listed with middle initials, and the current senator’s party affiliation and incumbent status appear next to his name.
The Justice Department issued grand jury subpoenas in August as part of an investigation into whether Dan J. Sullivan Jr. entered the race to confuse voters and steal votes from Sen. Dan S. Sullivan, according to an official familiar with the matter.
Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Alaska’s other senator, criticized the Peltola campaign after the Times report. “Alaskans deserve the honest truth from Mary and her campaign—what has been revealed is a pattern of lies and coverups and a culture of deception that belongs nowhere in our elections or among our elected officials,” she said in a statement.
The Alaska Senate race is one of the most closely watched contests in the country, with polls showing a tight race as Democrats try to wrest back control of the chamber from Republicans.
The certification request remains pending before the court, and the Justice Department’s plan to seek information from the Peltola campaign adds a federal investigative step to a dispute that has already drawn the Alaska Supreme Court’s ruling on ballot access. The midterms arrive with that certification request unresolved and the information request announced on Wednesday.