The White House offered no rejoinder to an inquiry for remarks about the gatherings, yet an official, unauthorized to speak publicly, informed WIRED at the time: “The White House does not comment on mysterious meetings with unnamed staffers.”
Concurrently, Trump has also endeavored to exonerate functionaries of any culpability subsequent to the 2020 election. Last year, Trump bestowed “full, complete and unconditional” clemencies upon a group of individuals who had unsuccessfully attempted to aid him in reversing the 2022 election results. In recent months, Trump has strongly urged Colorado governor Jared Polis to free Tina Peters, the erstwhile county administrator in Mesa County, Colorado, who was lauded by those on the right who dispute election outcomes when she enabled a security compromise during a software update of her county’s electoral administration platform.
Peters was convicted of four serious crimes, but Trump has been initiating an effort in recent months to secure her liberation, even extending to the claim that he “pardoned” her, despite lacking the authority to do so since her conviction stemmed from state-level accusations.
Meddling on Voting Day
While Trump has not revealed concrete strategies to dispatch military personnel to voting centers or confiscate ballot devices, he and his administration have certainly implied that such action remains a viable option.
In January, Trump expressed regret over failing to have the National Guard seize particular ballot equipment after the 2020 election. Early in February, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt informed reporters that while she hadn’t explicitly overheard Trump considering such a prospect, she was unable to assure that an ICE agent would not be present at a polling location in November. (This query was prompted by former White House adviser Steve Bannon declaring: “We’re going to have ICE surround the polls come November. We’re not going to sit here and allow you to steal the country again … We will never again allow an election to be stolen.”)
At the start of this month, Senator Markwayne Mullin indicated an inclination to send ICE to polling locations to counter “a specific threat” during his confirmation hearing to lead the Department of Homeland Security.
The consequence stemming from the Trump administration’s steady stream of intimidations and veiled allusions is that those overseeing polling processes in states across the country are already scenario planning what happens if ICE or the National Guard appear at their voting locations.
Michael McNulty, the strategic planning chief at Issue One, a non-profit organization monitoring political financial influence, furthermore highlights the circumstance that the Department of Justice dispatched observers to supervise polls in November in New Jersey and California, even though no national elections occurred. “The concern is that this could become a massive deployment of, quote unquote, observers by the DOJ in 2026 who might do something more, whether it’s intimidation, whether it’s interfering with local election officials, to get data to confirm conspiracy theories,” McNulty communicates to WIRED.
Federal Bureau of Investigation Operations
On January 28, the FBI conducted an operation at the electoral administrative building in Fulton County, Georgia, executing a judicial order which authorized the confiscation of voting slips, voting record depictions, counting machine printouts, and the electorate lists pertaining to the 2020 election. The sworn statement for the search order, made public several weeks prior, reveals that the FBI depended on the efforts of Kurt Olsen, a lawyer designated by the government to examine electoral integrity in October, and who has an extensive background collaborating with some of the country’s most prominent challengers of election results, including Patrick Byrne, Mike Lindell, and Kari Lake. Olsen’s assertions stem from disproven and formerly examined speculative narratives about the 2020 election.
The operation was furthermore significant due to the attendance by Tulsi Gabbard, the head of national intelligence, who is, according to The Guardian, pursuing a separate probe into the 2020 election with the apparent tacit approval of Trump.
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