‘Stop threatening your friends’: Idaho fires back against Trump DOJ’s threats over noncitizen voting

Idaho’s Republican attorney general’s office accused President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice of potentially violating state ethics rules by threatening the state’s top election official with a criminal prosecution while suing him for the state’s voter rolls.

In a sharply worded letter sent Friday, the office of Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador told DOJ Civil Rights Division chief Harmeet Dhillon to stop contacting Secretary of State Phil McGrane (R) directly and urged the department to dismiss its lawsuit seeking Idaho’s unredacted statewide voter registration list.

“First, you can stop threatening your friends in Idaho,” James Craig, a division chief in Labrador’s office, wrote. “Second, you can voluntarily dismiss your lawsuit against Secretary McGrane. As Secretary McGrane repeatedly made clear, he has taken significant steps to ensure that Idaho’s voter registration list only includes eligible U.S. citizens, and he has previously provided you with a copy of the public version of the voter registration list.”

The extraordinary rebuke comes from a Republican-led state that says it supports Trump’s stated goal of preventing noncitizens from voting but argues DOJ’s tactics are improper, unnecessary and possibly unethical.

DOJ sued McGrane in April after he refused to provide a complete, unredacted copy of Idaho’s voter rolls, including sensitive personal information. Then, on July 7, the department sent McGrane one of the letters it delivered to election officials nationwide warning that they could face criminal liability if they knowingly leave noncitizens on voter rolls or facilitate noncitizen voting.

Idaho says DOJ should not have sent that letter directly to McGrane because the department knew he was represented by the state attorney general’s office in the pending lawsuit. Craig wrote that Idaho had previously told DOJ that all communications about its attempts to enforce federal election laws against McGrane must go through his attorneys.

“The delivery of your July 7th letter directly to Secretary McGrane is nevertheless a violation of Idaho Rule of Professional Conduct 4.2,” Craig wrote. That rule generally prohibits lawyers from communicating about a case with a represented party without the consent of that person’s attorney.

The letter also raises a more serious possible ethics problem according to Idaho officials. Idaho’s professional conduct rules prohibit lawyers from threatening criminal charges to gain leverage in a civil dispute.

“If the letter was sent, and the threat of criminal prosecution made, in an effort to obtain an advantage in the April 1st civil case, then the letter may also be a violation of IRPC 4.4(a),” Craig wrote. “Your insinuations of criminal violations of the federal election laws are not well taken.”

Idaho maintains that it has already conducted extensive citizenship checks. According to the letter, McGrane worked with state agencies and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to review roughly 1.1 million voter records in 2024 and again ran more than 1 million names through DHS’ SAVE system in 2026.

The state says those efforts led to about 15 referrals for possible criminal prosecution to the U.S. attorney’s office in Idaho. But McGrane has received no updates and is unaware of DOJ taking action on those referrals.

Idaho suggested DOJ focus on those cases instead of pressuring state officials.

“Unlike your unwarranted efforts against Secretary McGrane, criminal prosecutions of the noncitizens actually responsible for breaking the law will do much to deter future noncitizens from illegally registering to vote,” Craig wrote.

The letter marks more of an unusually blunt Republican resistance to DOJ’s nationwide voter roll crusade. While Idaho says it agrees with Trump’s stated policy goal, its attorney general’s office is now accusing the administration of crossing ethical lines to pursue it.