After legal losses, Trump admin forges ahead with bogus election fraud probes

As courts continue to block his attempt to take control of elections through presidential decree, President Donald Trump is doubling down on turning the country’s most prominent law enforcement and intelligence agencies against U.S. elections.

Now, several recent media reports indicate the Trump administration is seeking to target local election workers while gearing up to release claims of foreign interference to bolster Trump’s effort to “nationalize” U.S. elections. And it’s using a group of loyalists and conspiracy peddlers from both inside and outside the government.

Internal documents obtained by MS NOW show that FBI Director Kash Patel is surging resources to support the bureau’s 2020 election investigation in Georgia’s Fulton County, which has long been a leading target for Trump and his allies in the election denial movement.

Months after the FBI seized 2020 election records — including ballots — through a raid on the county’s elections hub, Patel has ordered personnel from across the bureau to assist the FBI Atlanta Field Office’s election probe, which is internally being described as a “priority investigation” and “priority effort.”

Field offices from across the country are expected to assign a total of 260 FBI intelligence analysts to the Atlanta probe, according to the internal memo. The documents did not state how many FBI agents could be reassigned to the probe, but dozens are already involved. Each intelligence analyst will be expected to conduct at least 708 “records checks” by July 17, the memo states.

The affidavit that backed the FBI’s January raid — which largely relied on debunked claims from notorious conspiracy theorists and election deniers — indicated that the office is investigating potential violations of election record retention rules and voter fraud laws committed by “unknown persons.”

However, an anonymous source familiar with Patel’s surge told MS NOW that the analysts newly assigned to the probe will be looking into people in the county — potentially those who helped facilitate the election, like election workers.

“Looking for derogatory information is the short answer,” the source said. “The idea is to build a case. Look at associations between people, look into their social media, their business activity, travel, contact with other investigative subjects.”

Patel’s surge comes after the Department of Justice (DOJ) attempted to subpoena the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections for the identities and personal information — including the home addresses — of thousands of people who helped run the vote in the county in 2020. 

County officials denounced the subpoena as a blatant attempt to intimidate poll workers and asked a federal judge to quash it. The judge held a hearing on the request in May but has yet to make a ruling.

Separately, a White House task force may be gearing up to declassify documents from U.S. intelligence agencies to give Trump fodder to amplify his false claims about past elections, NBC News reported, citing three officials familiar with the effort.

Such documents would likely serve as evidence that foreign governments had interfered in and undermined U.S. elections, an unproven claim the Trump administration has already pursued.  

The task force was charged with collecting documents from the CIA, the National Security Agency, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI and the Justice Department. It is seeking information related to the 2020 presidential election, signs of ballot irregularities and potential voting machine issues, according to NBC News.

The declassifying effort comes after Trump named Bill Pulte, one of his longtime supporters, as acting director of national intelligence (DNI), a cabinet position tasked with overseeing the U.S. intelligence community.

Pulte, who doubles as a top federal housing official, has no known intelligence experience. What he does offer is loyalty. Using his minor federal post, Pulte has helped spawn criminal mortgage fraud investigations into several of the president’s enemies, though none of those probes have resulted in convictions.

Shortly after tapping Pulte, Trump publicly directed him to look into “rigged elections.” This week, the president urged Pulte to “declassify whatever you want,” including records related to the 2020 election.

Pulte’s predecessor, former DNI Tulsi Gabbard, was heavily involved in election-related investigations, including taking part in the FBI’s Fulton County raid. 

During her time in office, Tulsi reportedly pursued claims that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump due to foreign government interference. Her office also obtained voting machines from Puerto Rico and probed them for security vulnerabilities. That probe was based on claims that Venezuela had hacked the machines, an assertion long pushed by election deniers and far-right influencers.

John Solomon, a conservative columnist known for promoting conspiracy theories, recently announced he had taken up a temporary post in the White House related to “identifying classified or withheld documents concerning weaponization and election integrity.”

While Solomon’s exact role is unclear, the New York Times reported he would be leading a task force on “transparency” — potentially the same task force described by NBC News. 

Solomon will be involved in the White House’s declassifying effort while simultaneously owning and running Just The News, a website frequently cited by Trump that routinely amplifies misleading information or conspiracy theories.

Solomon also has a history of pushing false conspiracy theories. In 2019, he published a series of articles that then-Vice President Joe Biden had meddled in Ukraine’s internal affairs to protect his son from prosecution for corruption. The allegations were widely debunked.

But Trump then attempted to pressure his Ukrainian counterpart, President Volodymyr Zelensky, to open an investigation into the younger Biden based on those claims. This ultimately led to Trump’s first impeachment.