Acting on President Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, his administration is targeting law firms, organizations, officials, and individuals who maintain the fairness of the 2020 elections. The administration has established agencies within the Department of Justice (DOJ) charged with searching out supposedly widespread voter fraud, a problem that does not exist. Attorney General, Pam Bondi, Assistant Attorney General, Harmeet Dhillon, and FBI Director, Kash Patel, are using their agencies to target people in the media, law firms, and individuals that Trump perceives as his enemies, such as Special Prosecutor, Jack Smith, who investigated the events of January 6, 2021. In his first term, federal agencies occasionally restrained the president from his unlawful actions. Today, these agencies so far are following Trump’s orders and seem to allow election interference.
Trump issued an executive order revoking the security clearances of six law firms and prohibiting the federal government from contracting with them. In every case, these firms were involved in one way or another with litigation surrounding election interference in the 2020 election — from pursuing a lawsuit against a January 6 participant, to representing a political opponent of Trump, to challenging restrictive voting laws, and filing lawsuits against the Trump campaign for election interference. One firm was targeted for providing free legal advice to Jack Smith. Four firms challenged the executive orders and won based on the first amendment. However, nine other law firms entered into agreements with the administration despite the clear illegality of the orders.
President Trump and his appointees repeatedly threaten to prosecute election officials who administered the 2020 elections. He also continues to threaten nonprofit advocacy groups that help voters register, monitor elections, and file law suits against those that try to deny the right to vote to individuals and groups. These threats can be found in the infamous Project 2025 which proposes charging election officials with criminal conspiracy for helping citizens vote. Trump has already ordered the DOJ to investigate Chris Krebs, the former head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)whom he appointed, because Krebs stated the election of 2020 was fair, not stolen.
The DOJ under Attorney General Pam Bondi, has established several task forces to target election officials and others. The Weaponization Working Group, one of the task forces, is looking for ways to charge election officials with crimes. Because of these threats, many election officials are leaving their jobs. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, twenty-one percent of election officials said they were unlikely to remain on the job for the 2026 midterm elections. In 2025, fifty-nine percent of officials said they were afraid political interference would impact their ability to do their jobs, and forty-six percent were very worried about political investigations of themselves or their coworkers. This fear could encourage them to more aggressively purge voters from their rolls, turn over information to the Department of Justice they are not required to provide, or take other actions out of fear. This same fear could cause civil society organizations to stop assisting voters to register, get to the polls, and more. Officials and organizations must remember that both federal and state laws prohibit anyone, including government officials, from intimidating voters, election officials, and organizations who assist or encourage voters to vote.
Even the threat of criminal investigations and prosecutions has a large impact on election officials and nonprofit workers causing serious personal and financial issues for simply doing their jobs to help keep elections free and fair.
In our third post, we will discuss this administration’s support of people who attempt to subvert our free and fair elections.