Attorney General Todd Blanche insists there's nothing unusual about the Justice Department sending more than 1,000 monitors to polling places next month, but one legal journalist said this week Blanche was flat-out lying, and that his own history lesson leaves out the most important part.
Blanche defended the plan on "Fox News Sunday," telling host Shannon Bream that critics were fear-mongering.
"Since the '60s, the Department of Justice has monitored elections. Every single election has been monitored," Blanche said.
On Monday's episode of All Rise News and Legal AF, Adam Klasfeld told viewers they "may not be shocked to learn that Todd Blanche was lying." Klasfeld argued that Blanche skipped over that the practice grew out of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and its purpose was to protect voters rather than police them.
"Election monitors from the U.S. Department of Justice were sent to guarantee access to the ballot during the height of the Civil Rights Movement and to remove barriers to the ballot based on race, sex, disability, or any other protected characteristic," Klasfeld said.
The Trump DOJ, by contrast, has framed its effort around fighting voter fraud, especially noncitizen voting, which studies show is exceedingly rare. Civil rights chief Harmeet Dhillon has accused some election officials of knowingly leaving noncitizens on the rolls, and she has called the deployment the "biggest DOJ election observer effort in history."
The roughly 1,000 monitors planned for November dwarf the 289 the department sent in 2022 and the 714 it sent in 2024, according to Democracy Docket, which reported Friday that the NAACP has sued for records on the plan.
CNN reported last month that several monitors deployed during this year's primaries had helped challenge Trump's 2020 loss, including one who advised the Georgia Republicans who tried to cast electoral votes for him.
The monitors have already caused friction in at least one deep-red state. In Wyoming, a county clerk refused DOJ observers' requests to interview voters and examine vote-counting machines during the August primary, though the department disputes that account.
The push comes as the administration presses on other fronts, after the Supreme Court blocked Trump's order restricting mail-in voting last month.
Blanche also told Bream that claims armed federal agents would be sent to polling places were "completely false."
Todd Blanche Just MISLEAD Fox Viewers at the WORST TIME... by Legal AF
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