DOJ sends target letters to Marc Elias and other Democrats over decoy Dan Sullivan candidacy

The Justice Department is reportedly sending target letters to Democratic elections lawyer Marc Elias and other Democrats as prosecutors investigate an alleged effort to recruit a second Dan Sullivan to siphon votes from Alaska’s Republican senator.Roughly 20 Democrats were designated to receive the notices, including Elias and at least one Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee official, the New York Times reported Tuesday, citing two people familiar with the matter. Investigators are reportedly examining possible donor fraud and conspiracy charges.The escalation comes on Election Day as Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) faces Democrat Mary Peltola. Elias’s firm, the Elias Law Group, has represented Peltola and other Democratic candidates, with her campaign paying ELG as much as $150,000, per Federal Election Commission records. Elias, a former campaign attorney to Hillary Clinton, responded earlier Tuesday to President Donald Trump’s statement on Fox News that the lawyer was “a very bad guy” who “should go to jail in my opinion.”“It’s Election Day and Donald Trump is calling for the Democratic Party’s leading election lawyer, someone who has humiliated him and his lawyers in scores of cases, to be jailed,” Elias wrote on X. “This is not normal and yet here we are.”Notably, Elias’s post did not address Trump’s allegation that he was involved in the Sullivan recruitment effort. The Washington Examiner contacted his law firm for a response.Attorney General Todd Blanche declined to confirm the target letters when asked Tuesday afternoon by Fox News’s Martha MacCallum, but he defended the investigation. Reports indicate the department has issued 120 subpoenas related to the investigation.“This is a situation where everybody agrees that there is a fraud on the ballot,” Blanche said. “Everybody agrees that there is a man running that doesn’t want to run, that doesn’t expect to be senator, that is only running to confuse Alaskan voters.”The Washington Examiner contacted the DOJ for additional details.The New York Times reported that it remained unclear when the letters were sent or whether all intended recipients received them. Target letters do not establish guilt or guarantee charges.The investigation concerns Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., a retired teacher whose name appears alongside the incumbent’s on Alaska’s ballot. The newspaper first reported on Oct. 28 that Democratic operatives linked to the Peltola campaign helped recruit him to draw support away from the senator by confusing voters.Democrats have defended recruiting additional candidates as a familiar tactic known as ballot stacking and accused the administration of using prosecutors for political purposes. However, Republicans have pointed out that the Democratic operatives involved sought someone with a name identical to the incumbent’s, which goes beyond what is traditionally considered ballot stacking.State ballot eligibility, however, does not resolve whether a recruitment effort alone violates federal law. The federal conspiracy-against-rights statute, 18 U.S.C. § 241, prohibits agreements to interfere with protected rights. If prosecutors pursued that theory, they would need to prove an agreement and specific intent to interfere with voting rights, rather than simply an effort to recruit another candidate.“The right, properly understood, is the right to cast a ballot for the candidate of one’s choice,” conservative lawyer Will Chamberlain wrote in a piece analyzing the DOJ’s options. “The conspiracy here was to put two Dan Sullivans on the ballot and deceive people about whom they were voting for, about the literal identity of the people on the ballot.”The criminal investigation remains separate from the DOJ’s civil lawsuit that was dismissed Sunday. U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, found the department lacked standing because it offered no workable remedy for alleged voter confusion while preserving ballot secrecy.The DOJ sought to delay certification if the incumbent lost and votes for the second Sullivan could have changed the outcome. Gleason dismissed the case without prejudice without deciding whether the alleged recruitment operation was illegal.ALASKA PAC ACCUSED OF SENDING VOTER GUIDE REPLACING SEN. DAN SULLIVAN WITH SPOILER CANDIDATEThe New York Times linked it to the alleged recruitment operation, and it subsequently represented Peltola’s campaign and the DSCC in their effort to defeat the DOJ’s certification lawsuit.Elias personally celebrated that intervention, declaring, “We will win this case, Mary will win this election, she will be certified and seated.” The DOJ has said it intends to appeal.