Congressional Democratic leaders filed a lawsuit Thursday aiming to prevent the Trump administration from following through on statements that they are considering sending armed federal agents to polling places in November.
The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., the national Democratic Party and Democratic campaign groups, alleges the Trump administration plans to send agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to the polls this fall.
The complaint said doing so could intimidate countless voters into not showing up at the polls in violation of federal law and their constitutional rights.
“Notwithstanding federal law, and the traditional sanctity afforded to polling places, the Trump Administration has made clear by word and deed over the past year that it asserts the authority to dispatch armed officers to active polling locations,” the complaint said.
The complaint came after President Donald Trump said in an interview that Republicans should “take over the voting” and that voting should be nationalized.
Under the Constitution, states and Congress hold authority over federal elections, and the complaint alleges that Trump has taken numerous efforts to assert authority over federal elections he does not have.
Federal law prohibits federal or other officials from intimidating voters at the polls, but the complaint alleges the Trump administration has suggested that it intends to do just that.
“For many lawful American voters, the sight of masked, armed federal agents in a polling-place parking lot is enough to send them home or make them think twice about casting a ballot at all,” the complaint said.
The complaint said that over the past several months, both Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and White House “border czar” Tom Homan have said the Department of Homeland Security has the authority to send agents to polling places. Homan earlier this month dismissed the idea that there are plans to “sweep” polling locations.
At the Conservative Political Action Conference in March, Attorney General Todd Blanche, who was the No. 2 at DOJ at the time, said there should not be a problem with sending federal agents to the polls.
“Why is there objection to sending ICE officers to polling places?” he asked then. “Illegals can’t vote.”
Other officials, including FBI Director Kash Patel earlier this month, refused to rule out sending agents to polling places, the complaint said.
During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Patel said concerns about FBI agents at polls were a “charade of lies” and said that agents had the authority to protect elections.
“Election integrity is of paramount importance. This FBI will not shy away from that effort,” Patel said.
Separately, the Justice Department has reportedly removed a manual from its website that included prohibitions on interfering with elections, the complaint said, and not established a center that it normally does to protect elections.
The complaint also accused DHS of slow-walking the release of documents about the policy in a separate Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. Although the agency identified more than 10,000 records related to the policy, the complaint said, it has tried to delay release of those documents until after the elections.
Thursday’s suit called the policy “part and parcel with various executive initiatives announced by President Trump that have sought to usurp authority for the Executive Branch to influence and ultimately control the nation’s elections.”
The suit argued the Trump administration’s actions violate the federal Voting Rights Act as well as federal administrative law. The complaint asked the judge to declare the policy unlawful and order the administration not to send any agents to polling places.
The complaint joins lawsuits brought by civil rights groups in the last several weeks seeking to block the administration from sending armed federal agents to the polls. Those suits are currently pending in D.C. federal court, but the administration has not yet filed a response to any of those complaints.
Thursday’s suit by Democrats, as well as the other two pending suits, did not ask for immediate action by the courts.
The White House did not directly respond to questions about the lawsuit, but in February, then-White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt denied that the president was considering allowing ICE to monitor the polls.
“That’s frankly a very silly hypothetical question,” she said then, adding, “I haven’t heard the president discuss any formal plans to put ICE outside of polling locations.”
John T. Bennett contributed to this report.
.png?w=600)
