Trump administration accelerates criminal probe into Alaska Senate race

By Andrew Goudsward and Nathan Frandino

WASHINGTON/ANCHORAGE, Oct 30 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's ‌administration stepped up criminal and civil ​investigations into allegations ​that Democrats conspired to recruit a spoiler candidate in a critical Senate race in Alaska, officials said on Friday, injecting fresh uncertainty into Tuesday's midterm elections.

The top federal prosecutor in Alaska, US Attorney Michael Heyman, said at a press conference that a Wednesday New York Times article about the effort had driven a "surge" of FBI resources, adding ‌that he had assigned several prosecutors to the case and that investigative steps were taking place "intensely and swiftly."

"Every Alaskan deserves a fair election, and ⁠they're going to get one," he said. "Anyone who tries to illegally deceive voters and interfere with the election, they'll answer for it."

The Alaska contest is widely seen as one of the US Senate races that could sway control of the chamber, now ‌narrowly held by Trump's Republicans.

TRUMP ORDERED SUIT, CLAIMS 'FRAUD AT ‌HIGHEST LEVEL'

The Justice Department's legal actions in Alaska and California, where the Trump administration is trying to prevent some ballots from being counted, represent an extraordinary federal intervention in state-run elections, which are administered locally under the US Constitution.

When the DOJ filed the civil suit against Alaska a week ago, Trump told reporters, "I'm the one that said do it."

Heyman declined to offer specifics when ​asked what possible crimes were being examined, saying he would let the Alaska investigation proceed, although Trump has called for a prosecution of Senate candidate Mary Peltola, a Democrat.

"This is voter fraud at the highest level," Trump told a Florida rally on Friday.

The Department of Justice asked a federal judge on Friday to ensure the preservation of ballots that "may be impacted by voter confusion." The ⁠court filing requested the judge's help obtaining documents from the Democratic campaign and others to determine "whether Daniel J. Sullivan’s candidacy is frivolous or fraudulent."

The DOJ also has sued Alaska to preemptively block the state from certifying the results of the Senate race if ​the Republican incumbent, Dan S. Sullivan, loses due to the presence of a third candidate, named Daniel J. Sullivan Jr.

It is not clear what, if any, laws may have been broken. Both parties have engaged in "ballot stacking" by propping up lesser-known candidates to siphon votes from their opponents.

If Democrats take one or ​both chambers of Congress, they intend to launch investigations of the Trump administration and increase pressure on the ‌president to end the war against Iran.

The New York Times reported this week that staffers from the Peltola campaign and the Democratic Party's Senate campaign arm helped recruit Daniel J. Sullivan Jr, a retired teacher living in a remote fishing village, to appear on the ballot. Reuters has not independently confirmed the ⁠Times' reporting.

Peltola has denied knowing about any effort to recruit the second Sullivan, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has also denied involvement. The retired teacher has denied coordinating with Peltola's campaign.

SURGE OF VOTING NATIONWIDE DESPITE UNCERTAINTY

Election officials around the country have told Reuters they are bracing for further disruptions from the Trump administration, which has sued about 30 states seeking unredacted voter rolls.

“The new tactic is just to create enough confusion and enough uncertainty and enough ⁠doubt through the filing of all these lawsuits to lay the groundwork to ultimately, I think, challenge the results once the dust settles after Tuesday," said Jonathan Diaz of the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center.

Trump has long sought to ​sow distrust of election results, falsely claiming for years that his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden was the result of widespread fraud. Voter fraud in the US is extremely rare, studies and investigations have found.

Despite any uncertainty, a record 49 million people have cast early ballots, more than any other midterm election in US history, according to the University of Florida's Election Lab, with even the American-born Pope Leo casting a ballot by mail.

The ‌DOJ has also pushed forward a legal case in California, issuing subpoenas to election officials as part of a criminal probe into alleged voting by noncitizens, according to copies of documents seen by Reuters.

A US appeals court on Friday rejected the department's request to temporarily block California from counting any ‌mail ballots from more than 20,000 registered voters who the Trump administration alleges are likely noncitizens, the second time the court has done so this week.

A lower court judge had denied the administration's request, finding it would potentially ⁠disenfranchise thousands of legal voters.

Trump said on Friday he would attend weekend rallies ‌in Iowa and Kansas, a day after canceling them, telling ​reporters at the White House that Republicans in those states had called him and asked him to reconsider.

(Additional reporting by Jarrett Renshaw, Nathan Layne, Jana Winter, Max Schwarz, Kia Johnson, Maria Tsvetkova, Doina Chiacu, Jan Wolfe and David Morgan; Writing by Joseph Ax and Daniel Trotta; Editing by Jesse Mesner-Hage, Scott Malone, Alistair ‌Bell and Rosalba O'Brien)

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