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Attorney General Todd Blanche on Thursday declined to rule out a scenario in which the Justice Department could move to block states from certifying votes in the upcoming midterm elections.
He added, in remarks to reporters in Norfolk, Virginia, that it wasn’t his intention to do so.
Asked directly whether there were any situations in which the Justice Department would try to block states from certifying election results, Blanche responded, ‘Yes, of course there are scenarios we could all come up with hypothetically — some doomsday scenario, for example.’
‘I don’t think it’s proper to to make any kind of conclusory statements about what’s going to happen in the future, because I have no idea what’s going to happen in the future,’ Blanche said.
Blanche’s remarks come as the Trump administration has moved to crack down on illegal noncitizen voting in the US, despite evidence that such incidents are incredibly rare.
Trump, for his part, signed an executive order aimed at cracking down on mail-in voting earlier this year, though the effort was blocked in September by the Supreme Court.
More recently, the Justice Department sued California and Los Angeles for refusing to set aside ballots of 20,000 registered voters the administration flagged as being sent by suspected noncitizens – though how it made those determinations is unclear.
Then-Attorney General Pam Bondi and then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche are seen at a press briefing. Blanche’s remarks on election certification sparked concern Thursday, even as he told reporters these actions would be in response to a ‘doomsday’ scenario
President Donald Trump waves to a crowd in this 2023 photo. Trump signed an executive order in March seeking to crack down on mail-in voting
Election workers process ballots after polls closed for the midterm election at the tabulation center at Cobb County Elections and Registration Center in Marietta, Georgia
A federal judge on Wednesday blocked the Department of Homeland Security from conducting election-related investigations into alleged noncitizen voting in nine states where the agency has focused its operations.
Those include California, Connecticut, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington, and Wisconsin.
Blanche stressed Thursday that the DOJ was ‘not trying to create chaos,’ and reiterated at the press conference that the departments goal was alerting officials to potential issues.
‘It’s never our intention, to improperly interfere with elections or the state confirmation process or certification process,’ Blanche said Thursday.
‘But to say that there’s no circumstances that we would ever do that – of course I’m not going to say that,’ he continued.
‘Am I planning my days around the election to be somewhere to not certify? Of course not, no,’ Blanche said, shortly before boarding a plane.
His remarks sparked immediate backlash from some Democrats, including the office of California Governor Gavin Newsom, who described the answer as a ‘code red’ situation.
‘Trump’s politicized DOJ is now saying out loud that they may interfere in the election in a desperate, unprecedented, and completely unAmerican and anti-democratic attempt to keep Trump and MAGA in power,’ Newsom’s press office said on social media.
There are a battery of states holding high-profile races for US Senate, US House and governor that could be determined by just a handful of votes.
