The Justice Department told federal prosecutors in an email early on Wednesday that the law allowed them to send armed federal officers to ballot-counting locations around the country to investigate potential voter fraud, according to three people who described the message, reported the New York Times
The email created the specter of the federal
government intimidating local election officials or otherwise intervening in
vote tallying amid calls by President Trump to end the tabulating in states
where he was trailing in the presidential race, former officials said.
A law
prohibits the stationing of armed federal officers at polls on
Election Day. But a top official told prosecutors that the department
interpreted the statute to mean that they could send armed federal officers to
polling stations and locations where ballots were being counted anytime after
that.
The statute “does not prevent armed federal law
enforcement persons from responding to, investigate, or prevent federal crimes
at closed polling places or at other locations where votes are being counted,”
the official, Richard P. Donoghue, told prosecutors in an email
that he sent around 1:30 a.m. on Wednesday.
A Justice Department spokeswoman did not respond to
a request for comment.
Mr. Donoghue, the No. 2 official in the office of
the deputy attorney general, Jeffrey A. Rosen, sent his email about half an
hour before Mr. Trump made reckless claims including falsely declaring
himself the winner of the election and began calling for election officials to
stop counting ballots.
“We want all voting to stop,” Mr. Trump said at the
White House. He said, without offering details, that his campaign would “be going
to the U.S. Supreme Court” over the election count. The Trump campaign said
later in the day that it was filing lawsuits in multiple states, including Michigan, to
halt or protest vote counts.
One state election official vowed to resist any
interference or intimidation efforts by federal officials.
“Elections are a state matter, and we have authority
as state officials over anyone trying to enter locations where ballots are
being counted,” said Attorney General Maura Healey of Massachusetts. “Anything
else is a radical reinterpretation of the law. States can handle elections, and
we will ensure the people decide the outcome.”
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