{"id":99,"date":"2026-05-20T16:09:43","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T16:09:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=99"},"modified":"2026-05-20T16:09:43","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T16:09:43","slug":"trump-empowered-election-conspiracy-theorists-bring-doj-meddling-to-michigan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=99","title":{"rendered":"Trump-empowered ‘election conspiracy theorists’ bring DOJ meddling to Michigan"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Over the past year, election-denying allies of President Donald Trump from both inside the government and out have sought voting data from across the country in an effort to \u201cinvestigate\u201d their assertions of electoral fraud. Now, according to new reporting from Talking Points Memo, \u201celection conspiracy theorists\u201d are attempting to lay the groundwork for a Department of Justice probe into Michigan. <\/p>\n

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In April, Michigan officials were left in \u201cbewilderment\u201d when DOJ Civil Division chief Harmeet Dhillon demanded public records pertaining to the 2024 election from the Wayne County clerk, asserting that it was part of an investigation into voter fraud. Officials weren\u2019t bewildered because they were surprised at the request \u2014 quite the opposite, as the FBI has been scooping up voting data from districts across the country that voted against Trump, from Arizona to Georgia \u2014 but because Dhillon had sent it to the wrong office entirely, addressing it to the county clerk, when in Michigan, townships run elections. <\/p>\n

According to local officials, her request not only suggests that Trump\u2019s DOJ doesn\u2019t understand the basic facts of electoral processes, but it raises pressing questions about what the president\u2019s allies intend to do with the voting data. Election denying activists in Michigan are not shy about answering that question, asserting that they\u2019re conducting what they call an \u201caudit\u201d of electoral results in an effort to fight a \u201ccabal\u201d of their enemies. <\/p>\n

As Talking Points Memo explains, these investigations are \u201cbeing carried out with the help of various election conspiracy theorists who are now in positions of power in the government. Kurt Olsen, a 2020 election denier, has been working as White House election security czar. Heather Honey, another activist, has an election security role at DOJ. Clay Parikh, another special government employee involved in the Fulton County raid.\u201d While these figures provide federal support, election denying activists on the ground are doing much of the legwork. <\/p>\n

According to Talking Points, \u201cvoter fraud alarmists\u201d are \u201cusing documents obtained last year from a massive FOIA lawsuit that sought copies of Detroit\u2019s 2020 ballots and other records. Yehuda Miller, a New Jersey-based activist who has been involved in election denialism for the last several years, obtained hundreds of thousands of ballot images from the City of Detroit. The question now on the minds of some Michigan elections officials is whether Miller\u2019s \u2018audit\u2019 \u2014 regardless of how baseless and misleading the results may be \u2014 will prompt federal action. And, whether the conclusions that Miller has drawn may have already made their way to the Trump DOJ.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Chris Thomas, who ran elections for the state of Michigan for nearly 40 years and faced a \u201cmob\u201d trying to stop the count in 2020, says that \u201cthose seeking the records have been in communication with a voter fraud alarmism nonprofit called Michigan Fair Elections and with the far-right, conspiracy theorist website Gateway Pundit, and say that they\u2019ve enlisted dozens of volunteers to comb through the ballots.\u201d He says it\u2019s possible that the DOJ already has the FOIA data, and that the \u201c\u2018audit\u2019 could yield results that, while bogus to anyone familiar with election law, prompt some form of action\u201d from the agency. He has his doubts, however, that the amateur investigation would prove useful in any potential criminal proceedings, saying, \u201cI don\u2019t think that stuff would stand up at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Talking Points notes that it\u2019s unclear whether Miller is working directly with the DOJ, his activist allies have said they would share their findings with the agency. <\/p>\n

\u201cI sure as heck am going to be sharing it with everybody that I know, and I\u2019ve got a lot of contacts up in the DOJ,\u201d said Patrick Colbeck, an election conspiracy theorist and former GOP Michigan state senator. \u201cEverything they share, I will make sure it gets to them,\u201d he asserted, referring to the DOJ.<\/p>\n

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Over the past year, election-denying allies of President Donald Trump from both inside the government and out have sought voting data from across the country in an effort to \u201cinvestigate\u201d their assertions of electoral fraud. Now, according to new reporting from Talking Points Memo, \u201celection conspir…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":98,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nTrump-empowered 'election conspiracy theorists' bring DOJ meddling to Michigan - Next Address America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=99\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trump-empowered 'election conspiracy theorists' bring DOJ meddling to Michigan - Next Address America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Over the past year, election-denying allies of President Donald Trump from both inside the government and out have sought voting data from across the country in an effort to \u201cinvestigate\u201d their assertions of electoral fraud. 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