Troops at the polls: Judge orders Trump admin to hand over any planning docs 

A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to move faster to fulfill an information request from Democrats seeking documents detailing possible plans to deploy immigration agents or military personnel to the polls this fall.

Writing in a docket entry Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Beryl Alaine Howell said several federal agencies have yet to provide substantive responses to the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for documents on the “potential employment of federal agents and troops to polling places, drop boxes, and election offices.”

After filing almost a dozen requests since last October, the DNC sued the Department of Justice (DOJ), Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Department of Defense (DOD) in March to force the agencies to comply.

In granting the DNC’s request to expedite, Howell, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, wrote that with the midterms only months away, the time-sensitive documents — should any exist — are needed to “inform an imminent public debate.”

The DNC made the requests, and eventually sued, over fears that President Donald Trump may heed the calls of prominent MAGA figures and station U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents or National Guard personnel at voting sites — a tactic clearly meant to intimidate voters and poll workers and influence election outcomes.

The White House and senior Trump officials have refused to rule out that possibility, and Trump has repeatedly threatened to “take over” the midterm elections this year. 

 Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche even endorsed the idea earlier this year, even though federal law bars the deployment of federal troops or armed federal law enforcement to any polling place unless “such force be necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States.”

Earlier this year, Trump also said he “should have” ordered the National Guard to seize ballot boxes during the 2020 election, which he has repeatedly falsely claimed was stolen from him.

In the docket entry, Howell noted that federal agencies are at various stages of searching for responsive documents, though several have not started searching. Many of the agencies that have begun their searches have already found potentially relevant documents, she added.

DHS headquarters has “collected approximately 2,000 pages of potentially responsive records, with one search still pending,” the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division “collected approximately 55 gigabytes of data,” and at the DOD, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office has collected “approximately 3,000 potentially responsive records,” the docket entry states.

The existence of potential documents does not imply that the DNC’s request can be fulfilled. But under FOIA, government agencies are required to inform the requester if no responsive files exist or if the documents are exempted under the law from being revealed, such as those related to ongoing criminal investigations.

To ensure that any documents are produced before the upcoming midterms, Howell ordered the Trump administration to start processing 500 pages per month for each of the DNC’s 11 outstanding requests and begin sending documents to the committee each month.