Trump Gave Election Deniers a Direct Line to ICE and the Commerce Department, New Records Show

WASHINGTON, DC – New records show how much power Trump has given the circus of election deniers inside his administration. ICE’s investigative arm has started looking into the clothing brand Zumiez for partnering with Rock the Vote, and it teamed up with the FBI to investigate Black Fork Strategies, an Ohio voter-engagement firm. ICE even considered feeding state voter data into Palantir’s ELITE system, a tool used to find people for deportation. By late May, it had already opened 418 bogus voter-fraud cases.

At the same time, emails obtained by American Oversight show Chief of Staff Susie Wiles’ office introduced two election-denying podcasters to Ed Martin. That introduction launched a campaign for Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to seize voting equipment and gut mail and early voting. The activists say Lutnick gave them two and a half hours and promised to get on it, and Martin says Trump is taking the plan seriously.

“Election deniers who never proved a single one of their 2020 lies now have direct access to ICE, the Justice Department, and the Commerce Secretary. ICE is going after civil rights groups and clothing brands looking for fraud that doesn’t exist, while Susie Wiles’ office set up meetings for the people trying to get Howard Lutnick to seize voting machines. Republicans know they can’t win in November, so they’re using federal agencies to scare off the people who register voters. Every one of these schemes will end up in court, and the volunteers and election officials standing in their way aren’t backing down,” said Mally Smith, Try And Stop Us Senior Adviser.