Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins (R) (Photo: Secretary of State's Office)
According to a recently-filed lawsuit, this includes, a supporter of President Donald Trump is firing officials who they view as insufficiently compliant to MAGA demands.
"A former Missouri election integrity director alleges Secretary of State Denny Hoskins fired him after he reported plans to manufacture a whistleblower complaint and threats against local election officials," reported The Kansas City Star's Ben Wheeler and Jack Harvel on Monday. "In a lawsuit filed Monday in Cole County Circuit Court, Nicholas La Strada accuses Hoskins of terminating him one week after he reported that senior officials had discussed fabricating an anonymous whistleblower complaint to use in a federal court hearing."
They added, "La Strada had served in the position for roughly 15 months."
The article continued, "The lawsuit details a series of allegations dating back to April 2025, shortly after Hoskins appointed La Strada, a Republican and former Pettis County Clerk, to the office. The complaint lists Hoskins, the State of Missouri and the Secretary of State office as the defendants."
Writing for The New York Times on Sunday, conservative commentator David French warned that Hoskins' various actions as Missouri Secretary of State foreshadow MAGA plans to rig the upcoming midterms.
"It’s only September, and America just barely averted the first constitutional crisis of this year’s midterm elections," The New York Times columnist David French wrote on Sunday. "Hang with me here because this gets a bit complicated. Last September, the Missouri Legislature passed a redistricting bill called H.B. 1. This bill was part of the wave of mid-decade census redistricting initiated after President Trump essentially ordered the state of Texas in July to redistrict to create more Republican-majority congressional districts and diminish Democratic voting power in the state."
A former judge, J. Michael Luttig, argued early in September that Trump plans on completing the coup attempt he initiated on January 6, 2021 during the midterm elections.
“Trump instigated a war against America’s democracy on January 6, 2021,” Luttig explained. “Today, almost six years later, Donald Trump and his Republican congressional allies are even more determined to prosecute the president’s war against American democracy to its catastrophic end than they were on January 6, 2021. That catastrophic end could well come on January 3, 2027, when Trump and his Republican congressional allies wage the final battle in Trump’s determined war to corrupt America’s democracy and deliver a lasting political victory over the Democrats for his MAGA Republican Party.”
Dan Vicuña, Senior Policy Director for Voting and Fair Representation at Common Cause, argued to AlterNet in June that Trump ultimately is afraid of being held accountable by voters.
“What they all add up to is a desire to avoid any accountability to the voters in the midterm elections — to ensure, to preordain the outcome of a midterm that he thinks is going to go badly for him,” Vicuña told AlterNet. “We know, from the Big Lie of the 2020 election to spurring on a violent revolt to overthrow a free and fair election, that he has no respect for democratic norms, for the voice of the people. This is entirely about his own power and his own ego. He will even invest in protecting that ego and protecting his power at the expense of the needs of the public. People are suffering with high gas prices and affordability issues, and he does not care. All that matters is protecting his power, and he has no interest in whether he does that through democratic means.”
He concluded, “I think this all adds up to a desire to ensure that his party stays in power and his ability to do what he wants — to attack vulnerable communities — remains intact.”