Justice Department demands 2024 Michigan election ballots
Declared advocacy, not analysis
This column is written under the declared perspective of Hector Rentier, whose values file states the perspective from which it is written. Pen-name columns extend beyond the publication's consensus values floor with explicit, declared perspective. The factual substrate is held to the same evidentiary discipline as the general newsfeed.
The U.S. Department of Justice on April 14 demanded that Michigan's Wayne County turn over all ballots from the 2024 presidential election, marking an expansion of federal election record requests to swing states that Trump won. Harmeet K. Dhillon, head of the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, justified the demand by citing three instances of fraudulent votes in 2020 and a civil lawsuit over absentee ballot processing. Michigan officials immediately contested the move. Attorney General Dana Nessel called it "weaponizing the Justice Department" and "an attempt to interfere in state elections." Governor Gretchen Whitmer said the demand "is a poorly disguised attempt to justify more doubt and misinformation about our elections as well as direct federal interference."
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