DHS Sued for Records on Trump-Appointed Election Conspiracy Theorist

A government watchdog group filed a lawsuit Thursday against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) after the department ignored records requests related to Heather Honey, an anti-voting activist who was appointed to a senior position in the department.

According to the lawsuit, American Oversight (AO) filed multiple Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to “shed light” on Honey’s hiring, communications, and activities in her role at DHS. The department confirmed receipt of at least one request, but never provided the information requested.

Honey is a leading election conspiracy theorist who was appointed in August as the deputy assistant secretary for elections integrity — a newly created role — in the department’s Office of Strategy, Policy, and Plans, Democracy Docket exclusively reported.

Before Honey’s appointment at DHS, she reportedly said on a call in March with other right-wing activists that Trump could declare a “national emergency” to take control of future elections — a notion that Mitchell and other election deniers have suggested.

While at DHS, Honey said on a call last month with election leaders from nearly every state that the department is not using voter registration data collected by the U.S. Department of Justice to remove noncitizens from voter rolls. The claim directly contradicted what a DHS spokesperson previously told Democracy Docket — adding further confusion to what’s known about the Trump administration’s sweeping effort to disenfranchise voters.

Prior to her appointment, Honey was best known as the founder of Pennsylvania Fair Elections, an anti-voting group and state partner of the Election Integrity Network — a nationwide anti-voting organization founded by the election-denying lawyer Cleta Mitchell, who played a key role in President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Mitchell has praised Honey as a “wonderful person.” 

Honey herself has been involved in efforts to cast doubt on the 2020 election results. She has a long history of starting and promoting election conspiracies throughout Pennsylvania — including one spread by President Donald Trump on Jan. 6, 2021.

“The public deserves to know how a well-known election conspiracy theorist came to be charged with safeguarding the integrity of our nation’s election systems,” Chioma Chukwu, AO’s executive director, said in a statement. “DHS and its leadership have a duty to ensure public confidence in our elections — not to shield from scrutiny officials who spread the very lies that fueled the January 6 insurrection.”

The lawsuit focuses in particular on any communications Honey may have had with a network of anti-voting activists. It asks for any communications between Honey and various anti-voting groups and figures, including Mitchell and her group, the Election Integrity Network, Arizona GOP chair Gina Swoboda, as well as groups like True the Vote, Unite4Freedom, and their leaders. 

“Transparency about Heather Honey’s appointment and actions is essential to understanding who this administration is placing in positions of power to oversee election infrastructure — because that may reveal how they intend to manage and potentially undermine the security of future elections,” Chukwu said.