'Dunno what he's doing!' Republicans terrified Trump ally's 'crisis' cry just backfired

When a prominent election denier with close ties to the Trump administration took to X last week to call for “all hands on deck” in response to a midterm election “crisis,” even many of Donald Trump’s most ardent supporters questioned the timing.

Sudden calls for mobilization by Trump allies based on claims that the midterm election is about to be stolen appear to be wearing thin for many hardcore supporters who have marinated in conspiracy theories for the past six years, with mounting frustration at the lack of arrests or official reports validating their belief that the 2020 presidential election was rigged.

Several election deniers responded to the recent X post by Ed Martin, a former Department of Justice attorney — in which he claimed that “we are in a crisis stage of the midterm elections” because of supposed “foreign interference” and machine vulnerabilities — by pointing out that, by the same logic, the primary election results should also be called into question.

Worse, some followers expressed wariness that Martin’s call to action might lead to a repeat of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, which ultimately resulted in the arrests of about 1,500 Trump supporters — in some cases for violent offenses such as assault on law enforcement, along with seditious conspiracy and other serious charges.

Jeff Buongiorno, a former Republican candidate for elections supervisor in Palm Beach, Florida, who lost his race to a Democratic incumbent in 2024, told Raw Story that Martin ignored his requests for assistance when Martin was serving as pardon attorney and director of the Weaponization Working Group at the U.S. Department of Justice. (A post-election audit and litigation of the Buongiorno’s race uncovered no evidence of fraud, according to an investigative report by a local TV station.)

When Martin left the Justice Department in August, President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that he was “leaving to go outside to fight Legal Battles for the upcoming Midterm Election.” Trump expressed confidence that Martin would “do an outstanding job, ensure Free, Fair, and Honest Elections, and strongly advance our Constitutional Rights.” The post ended: “Good luck, Ed!”

Buongiorno also lost a Republican primary when he ran for a state House of Representatives seat earlier this year. He was arrested three days before the Aug. 18 primary for trespassing and unlawful solicitation of voters at a polling location when he refused to leave a parking garage at the Palm Beach Supervisor of Elections office, where he was intercepting voters at the elevator in violation of a posted notice prohibiting campaigning.

“I have been texting Ed for 2 years on this,” Buongiorno wrote in reply to Martin’s post. “Funny how everyone was silent during the primaries. The primaries are all in question, there the general is riddled with candidates who were installed, not elected. The deep state cannot have it both ways. If the general is in question, so are the primaries.”

Buongiorno, who gave no legitimate evidence for his claim, told Raw Story that if there are vulnerabilities in the system, the time to fix it would have been during the primaries, when the elections are staggered across the calendar from state to state. If Martin’s call to action is an effort to mobilize Trump’s base voters, Buongiorno said he’s worried it could have the opposite effect.

“If it’s rigged, then they’re not going to come out and vote, so I don’t know what he’s doing!” he said. “He’s causing confusion, which is what Marxism is — that’s a Marxist thing.”

Martin could not be reached for comment for this story.

Other responses to Martin’s posts echoed the same theme as Buongiorno.

“Many of us witnessed the same thing happen to down ballot [races] in 2024,” a user called “True North” wrote, while claiming that America First Legal, a nonprofit founded by White House advisor Stephen Miller, witnessed irregularities, and yet no lawsuits were filed. The user noted that Miller is Trump’s closest advisor, adding, “So, I’m confused at what ‘all hands on deck’ truly means.”

“I don’t get it,” “The Right Stuff” wrote. “We had nearly two years to fix this. Why is it still a crisis?”

“You had two years to arrest the deep state, nothing,” another user, nicknamed “Going Fishing,” commented.

The specter of Jan. 6, 2021 hovers over efforts to interfere with the 2026 midterms, despite Trump’s blanket pardon of the rioters. One user in Martin’s thread suggested that the upheaval caused by the prosecutions might make Trump supporters “a little skittish” of calls to action.

“Is Ali Alexander going to be leading the crowds again?” they asked, referencing a political operative who collaborated with Martin to launch the “Stop the Steal” movement and to organize the Jericho March in Washington, D.C. that functioned as a dress rehearsal for the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Martin has not responded to any of the replies from fellow election deniers on his X account, but he doubled down on his call to action with a new post at 3:41 a.m. on Wednesday, writing: “STOP THE STEAL.”

One user replied, “That was your job! The last time we tried to peacefully [stop the steal] January 6^th happened. Our only option to stop it in the future is to drag the traitors out of their homes and kill them on the spot.”

Kayla Gogarty, the research director at Media Matters for America, told Raw Story that up until now election deniers haven’t focused on vigilante mobilization because they have powerful allies inside the administration with the ability to set policy.

“We’re seeing more of them trying to use the government infrastructure,” she said. “As those options don’t pan out, we saw that in 2020 it led to violence. I hope it doesn’t lead to violence, but we’ve seen that in the past.”

Martin’s recent escalation in rhetoric coincides with a visit to the White House on Monday by Tina Peters, a former Colorado county clerk who was convicted of allowing an outsider to illegally access the election system following the 2020 election. Trump issued a symbolic pardon to Peters, and Gov. Jared Polis subsequently commuted her sentence.

Following her release from prison, Peters issued a “plan” calling on Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to order the seizure of voting machines.

Martin mentioned Peters’ meeting with Trump during an appearance on Real America’s Voice on Monday.

“The laws that govern the system, like safety and national security, are federal laws,” Martin claimed. Referencing Peters’ visit to the White House, Martin added that Trump is “taking it seriously.”

Martin went on to say that because the Republican Congress is unlikely to pass the SAVE Act, which critics say would disenfranchise millions of citizens, “then the president is going to have to do what he’s going to do. And it’s not a local issue when it’s national security. And clearly, it’s national security. So, we’ll see how it plays out.”

Peters is “one prong of all these other election deniers that are perpetuating claims that there’s going to be fraud in the election or it’s rigged,” Gogarty said. “We see others in the administration and right-wing media that are already trying to undermine the results of the election.”