Leading election denier claimed DHS ‘wants to partner with us’ on voter roll checks. Now he’s a top official there

As the Trump administration moved to transform a federal immigration database into a tool to scrutinize voter rolls last spring, newly unearthed comments show that a prominent election denial activist was already claiming inside access to the effort — and publicly touting a potential partnership with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the federal agency overseeing it.

The activist, True the Vote co-founder Gregg Phillips, now works as a top DHS official, at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). 

The comments raise new questions about how closely DHS worked with right-wing groups seeking to challenge state election systems, and underscore concerns about some of those same groups now having access to government databases.

In March 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing states to require documentary proof of citizenship for voter registration and instructing DHS to repurpose its citizenship verification program to audit voter rolls.

With support from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), that program — U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ Systemic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE — began incorporating data from the Social Security Administration (SSA) and from Republican-led states that complied with Justice Department demands for voter registration records.

Recent legal filings revealed that, last March, DOGE employees at SSA signed an agreement to share voter data with an outside group working to overturn election results.

Democracy Docket reporting has suggested that the group may be True the Vote. The group later responded to us to deny that they were involved.

But comments from Phillips at the time suggest True the Vote, which has repeatedly pushed for access to federal data, also was working with DHS officials. 

On a March 30, 2025 podcast, Phillips — a key figure in the group, and now working for DHS as head of FEMA’s Office of Response and Recovery — said he had already been in contact with DHS officials following Trump’s executive order.

“Since that executive order came out, I’ve been in contact with people at DHS,” Phillips said. “The Department of Homeland Security now wants to partner with us to help uncover all of this stuff.”

At the time, Phillips was not a federal employee and remained highly active with True the Vote, appearing frequently on the group’s podcasts and discussing federal partnerships related to election data. He assumed his DHS role in December 2025.

DHS officials publicly promoted their collaboration with DOGE as SAVE was retooled. In April 2025, a DHS spokesperson told Fox News Digital that DOGE-backed changes were needed to combat alleged election fraud.

“Illegal aliens have exploited outdated systems to defraud Americans and taint our elections,” the spokesperson said. “This revamped SAVE system ensures government officials can swiftly verify statuses, halting entitlement and voter fraud.”

DHS has repeatedly confirmed that the Trump administration is sharing data across federal agencies to bolster SAVE — a practice critics say may violate the Privacy Act of 1974, which restricts how personal information can be disclosed and reused.

True the Vote was not the only election denial organization DHS engaged with as SAVE expanded. Last June, Democracy Docket reported that DHS officials briefed the Election Integrity Network, led by election denier Cleta Mitchell, on how SAVE could be used to verify voters’ citizenship status.

The coordination described in public statements and court filings has raised serious ethical and legal questions, including whether federal officials improperly engaged in partisan political activity. The Hatch Act generally bars executive branch employees from using their official authority to influence elections or assist partisan organizations.

If DHS, DOGE or SSA personnel used government resources or access to sensitive data to assist election-denying groups in efforts to undermine confidence in state election systems, legal experts say such conduct could trigger Hatch Act scrutiny, Privacy Act violations or both. 

SSA has already referred the two DOGE employees implicated in recent court filings for potential Hatch Act violations.

Those concerns are echoed in the underlying litigation challenging the federal government’s voter roll demands. In lawsuits against dozens of states, Justice Department lawyers have argued they need unfettered access to voter registration records — including Social Security numbers and dates of birth — to assess compliance with federal list-maintenance laws. 

But in two cases decided so far, courts rejected that justification, citing administration statements and reporting indicating the data would instead be funneled into SAVE to flag potential noncitizens.

Communications between DHS and TTV — presumably subject to FOIA requests and litigation discovery — could further undermine the DOJ’s assertions in those lawsuits. 

Attorney General Pam Bondi sent a letter this week to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) linking the DOJ’s voter roll demands to the administration’s bloody immigration raids in the state had already been cited in one active DOJ voter roll lawsuit. 

Taken together, the filings and newly surfaced comment by True the Vote suggest a federal apparatus increasingly entangled with activists seeking to discredit and challenge U.S. elections.

This story has been updated.