A veteran Republican election lawyer was baffled Friday by President Donald Trump’s Justice Department pursuing an extraordinary election lawsuit in Alaska that he predicted would collapse in court.
The Justice Department sued Alaska on Thursday, seeking to block certification of the state’s U.S. Senate race pending an investigation into whether votes cast for a second candidate named Daniel J. Sullivan were meant for Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan. Trump said he ordered the suit.
CNN contributor Ben Ginsberg argued on “The Arena With Kasie Hunt” that the president was crossing a constitutional line.
“The president has no role under our Constitution in elections,” Ginsberg said. “And here he is trying to tell the Justice Department to overrule the votes, the votes of the people of Alaska who under Alaska laws and Alaska rules, voted to put both Dan Sullivans on the ballot.”
He called it “an extraordinary attempt by the executive branch to go in an area clearly forbidden by the Constitution,” adding that it was “an enduring mystery” why the Justice Department “would think this was a well-founded complaint.”
“It is sort of an enduring mystery about why the Justice Department would think this was a well-founded complaint,” he added Friday.
Politically, Ginsberg said, “it is not a vote of confidence in Dan Sullivan that they go to such extraordinary lengths.”
He predicted a motion to dismiss “will undoubtedly be successful,” and pointed to the administration’s record in court. He said it was “zero for 26” in trying to get state voter rolls and had “flopped before the Supreme Court” in trying to change postal rules.
“This feels like the Justice Department has a very demanding client who is insisting on them doing all sorts of unprecedented things, throwing it against the wall and hoping something sticks,” Ginsberg said.
New York Times journalist and CNN contributor Lulu Garcia-Navarro noted that Trump had said he told the DOJ to bring the case.
“The president says, jump. And Todd Blanche says, okay, I’m going to jump,” she said, calling the suit “the first salvo” of what Democrats have been preparing for, “a very long and legally protracted season.”
The move has already left Americans bracing for a wave of post-election legal fights.