A Trump prosecutor is targeting election workers: report

A prosecutor appointed by President Donald Trump has Georgia election workers in his sights.

“Fulton County, Georgia, is trying to fend off a subpoena from a federal prosecutor in North Carolina seeking contact information for thousands of poll workers from the 2020 election,” The Guardian’s George Chidi reported on Tuesday. “The subpoena, issued in April by Dan Bishop, the interim US attorney of North Carolina’s middle district, demands the county provide rosters of election staff members who served in the November 2020 election, including their identification by name, position, residential and email address and personal telephone number.”

Fulton County attorneys are responding by trying to quash the federal grand jury subpoena by saying it is a politically motivated act of harassment, adding that even if election fraud had occurred in 2020 it would now be past the statute of limitations.

“Election workers are the referees of our democracy, and they’re going after the referees,” Michael McNulty, policy director for the voting rights organization Issue One, said in a statement. “This is about intimidation of election officials for 2026, and taking executive branch control of elections in 2026. Election workers are supposed to be getting gratitude and protection from the federal government, not being targeted by it. This is a sign of authoritarianism, not a democratically oriented government.”

In January, the FBI raided Fulton County’s clerk of courts and board of registration to seize about 700 boxes of original 2020 election materials, claiming they were part of a criminal investigation. Kurt Olsen, Trump’s “Stop the Steal” lawyer from the 2020 election, initiated the raid. As conservative columnist George F. Will recently explained, Trumpers continue to push the lie that the 2020 election was stolen despite all of their claims being disproved.

“Someone should read to him ‘Lost, Not Stolen,’ a 2022 report by eight conservatives (two former Republican senators, three former federal appellate judges, a former Republican solicitor general, and two Republican election law specialists),” Will wrote. “They examined all 187 counts in the 64 court challenges filed in multiple states by Trump and his supporters. Twenty cases were dismissed before hearings on their merits, 14 were voluntarily dismissed by Trump and his supporters before hearings. Of the 30 that reached hearings on the merits, Trump’s side prevailed in only one, Pennsylvania, involving far too few votes to change the state’s result.”

Will added, “Trump’s batting average? .016. In Arizona, the most exhaustively scrutinized state, a private firm selected by Trump’s advocates confirmed Trump’s loss, finding 99 additional Biden votes and 261 fewer Trump votes.” Therefore he wrote of Trump, “The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.”

In addition to relitigating the 2020 presidential election, some observers believe Trump is laying the foundations to overturn the 2026 midterm elections if Republicans lose seats as anticipated.

According to The Hill’s Julia Mueller and Caroline Vakil, “President Trump’s surging disapproval rating is threatening to become a liability for downballot Republicans as the party looks to keep its fragile GOP trifecta in November. An ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll released Sunday found the president at a new high in his disapproval — 62 percent — while 37 percent said they approved of his job helming of the country.”

They added, “On Trump’s handling of the cost of living and inflation, 76 percent and 72 percent disapproved, respectively. In addition, 66 percent of respondents said they disapprove of how Trump is handling the Iran war. The polling, coupled with low marks he’s received in similar surveys, risk jeopardizing GOP candidates in an election cycle already shaping up to look like the 2018 midterms fueled by anti-Trump sentiment.”