Ep 142 - Who Does the Justice Department Work For?
Oct 26
9 min read
The United States Department of Justice is supposed to serve the law, not the political interests of the president. But when Donald Trump publicly takes credit for directing federal intervention in a competitive Senate election, and his attorney general declares that he works for President Trump, an uncomfortable question demands an answer: At what point does legitimate presidential authority become political interference in the administration of justice?
There's something almost comical about the political situation unfolding in Alaska. Two men named Dan Sullivan are running for the same United States Senate seat. One is the Republican incumbent. The other is a retired educator who shares his name, but apparently not his political ambitions. And in a closely contested election, that coincidence has created an extraordinary amount of controversy.
Except the controversy isn't funny anymore. Not when the United States Department of Justice becomes involved. And certainly not when the president of the United States acknowledges that he personally wanted the department to intervene.
On October 22, the Justice Department filed a federal lawsuit concerning Alaska's Senate election. The department contends that the presence of two candidates with similar names creates a risk of voter confusion serious enough to warrant judicial intervention. Its requested relief includes the possibility of restricting certification of the election results if confusion is found to have affected the outcome.
Consider what that means. The federal government is asking a court to contemplate interfering with certification of an election before the votes have even been counted. Not because a fraudulent result has been established. Not because investigators have uncovered a scheme to manipulate ballots. But because officials believe voters might become confused.
That is an extraordinary request. And extraordinary requests demand extraordinary justification.
Two Candidates, One Familiar Name
Alaska's incumbent Republican senator, Dan S. Sullivan, is facing a competitive reelection campaign against Democrat Mary Peltola. Also appearing on the ballot is Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., a retired educator whose candidacy has become a source of Republican suspicion.
The second Sullivan's efforts to appear on the ballot raised legitimate questions. Among other things, he initially sought to use a middle initial that wasn't his own. State election officials challenged his eligibility, but Alaska's courts ultimately permitted his candidacy, with distinguishing information identifying the two men on the ballot.
Republicans have suggested that Democrats encouraged or orchestrated the second Sullivan's candidacy to siphon votes from the incumbent. They point to circumstances surrounding his filing and political connections as reasons for suspicion.
Those circumstances are worth examining. But suspicion is not evidence of coordination, and political advantage is not proof of a conspiracy.
The second Sullivan has offered his own explanation for running: dissatisfaction with the incumbent and a desire to represent Alaskans differently. He has denied coordinating with Democrats, and the Democratic Party has denied involvement. No publicly established evidence has demonstrated that Mary Peltola's campaign orchestrated his candidacy.
Could somebody benefit politically from having two candidates with similar names? Of course. But that observation proves remarkably little. One could construct an equally speculative argument that Republicans might benefit from the controversy by creating grounds to challenge an unfavorable election result. There is no established evidence of such a Republican scheme, either.
That's precisely the point. If political benefit alone is sufficient to establish wrongdoing, anybody can invent a conspiracy about anybody else.
The more straightforward possibility is that a citizen decided to run for office, his candidacy created complications for an incumbent politician, and those complications became politically useful to people with competing interests.
In a functioning democracy, that is not automatically a federal case.
An Election Challenge Before the Election
The Justice Department argues that confusion between the two Sullivans could affect the outcome of a close election. If the incumbent loses by fewer votes than the second Sullivan receives, officials suggest that mistaken votes might have made the difference.
There is an obvious problem with that reasoning.
How do you determine that somebody voted for the wrong candidate?
A voter selecting Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. might have misunderstood the ballot. Or that voter might genuinely prefer the retired educator. Or perhaps the voter dislikes the incumbent and deliberately chose the other Sullivan.
A secret ballot does not come with a written explanation of the voter's intentions. And although Alaska's ranked-choice system may provide additional information about voter preferences, ranking patterns cannot necessarily reveal what somebody intended when casting a vote.
You cannot simply assume that every vote for the second Sullivan belongs to the first. Those votes belong to the people who cast them.
There is also a serious legal question about the Justice Department's authority to seek its proposed remedy. The lawsuit invokes the National Voter Registration Act, a federal statute principally concerned with voter registration. Yet the dispute in Alaska involves candidate names, ballot presentation, and potentially the certification of election results.
Mary Peltola's campaign, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and voting-rights organizations have challenged the department's legal theory. They argue that the law does not authorize the kind of intervention the government is seeking. Those arguments remain for the courts to evaluate; they are not established judicial conclusions.
And that's where this dispute belongs: before an independent court, where the government must demonstrate that its actions are authorized by law and supported by evidence.
But the legal arguments are only part of the story. Because the president himself has made it impossible to ignore the political context.
“I'm the One That Said Do It”
On October 23, Donald Trump was asked about the Alaska lawsuit. His response was strikingly direct.
“Well, I'm one that said, ‘Do it.’”
There it was. The president publicly taking credit for directing the Justice Department's intervention in an election with potentially significant consequences for control of the United States Senate.
Now, presidential involvement in Justice Department affairs is not inherently illegal. The department is part of the executive branch. The president has constitutional authority to supervise executive officials, establish enforcement priorities, and ensure that federal laws are faithfully executed.
But there is a meaningful difference between directing the government to enforce election laws fairly and directing federal intervention in a particular election because the result might benefit your political party.
Trump's statement does not, by itself, establish that he acted unlawfully or that the department's legal arguments lack merit. It does, however, make the question of political influence impossible to dismiss.
And Attorney General Todd Blanche's response did little to resolve it.
Appearing on CBS's Face the Nation on October 25, Blanche declined to discuss his private communications with the president. When pressed about whom Trump had instructed to file the lawsuit, Blanche said he had no idea whom the president was referring to and would not discuss it even if he did.
Perhaps that's true. Perhaps Blanche genuinely doesn't know which official received the instruction. His answer is not proof that he lied.
But the American public is entitled to find the situation troubling. The president says he directed a politically consequential lawsuit, while the nation's chief law-enforcement officer declines to clarify how that instruction reached the department.
That is not a reassuring picture of transparent, impartial law enforcement.
And it becomes more troubling when considered alongside Blanche's declaration that he works for President Trump.
The President Is Not the Client
In one sense, Blanche is correct. The attorney general serves in the president's administration. The president appoints the attorney general, subject to Senate confirmation, and exercises legitimate authority over the executive branch.
But the Justice Department is not the president's private law firm.
Its prosecutors do not exist to punish the president's enemies. Its civil attorneys do not exist to manufacture advantages for the president's political party. And its considerable investigative and enforcement powers do not belong to the individual occupying the Oval Office.
They are powers entrusted to the federal government, constrained by law, and exercised on behalf of the American people.
This distinction is not some recent Democratic invention. The modern emphasis on Justice Department independence developed in significant part from the abuses exposed during Watergate. Richard Nixon's efforts to interfere with the investigation threatening his presidency demonstrated the danger of treating federal law enforcement as an instrument of personal political survival.
The resulting safeguards were never intended to eliminate presidential authority. They were intended to prevent that authority from overwhelming the department's responsibility to exercise independent legal judgment.
The Justice Department's own policies recognize both principles. Presidents have legitimate oversight responsibilities. At the same time, communications concerning particular investigations and cases require safeguards against inappropriate political influence.
Those ideas are not contradictory. They are complementary.
An administration can establish a policy of vigorously enforcing voting-rights laws. That is a legitimate governing priority. But the decision to bring a particular case should rest on evidence, applicable law, and a defensible legal theory—not on whether the president would prefer one candidate to win.
Blanche has argued that previous administrations were hardly models of Justice Department independence. And he's right that no administration has been entirely free from allegations of political interference. Such allegations deserve examination regardless of party.
But pointing to somebody else's alleged misconduct is not a defense of your own.
If earlier presidents crossed the line, the answer is to hold presidents to a consistent standard. Not to eliminate the standard altogether.
Imagine the Parties Were Reversed
Imagine a Democratic president directing the Justice Department to intervene in a competitive Senate election where a Democratic incumbent was in danger of losing. Imagine the department asking a federal judge to establish conditions that might prevent certification of the result.
Would Republicans calmly accept the explanation that federal officials were merely protecting election integrity?
I doubt it. And frankly, they would be right to demand answers.
The appropriate standard cannot depend on whether the president is a Republican or a Democrat. Federal power is not less dangerous when wielded by politicians we happen to support.
To be clear, there are circumstances in which courts should intervene before an election. If election procedures violate federal law or threaten voters' rights, timely judicial action may be essential. Waiting until the damage is done can make meaningful relief impossible.
But intervention must be grounded in a genuine legal violation, supported by evidence, and tailored to the problem. The more disruptive the proposed remedy, the more carefully it deserves to be examined.
And restricting certification of an election is no small matter.
It raises questions that extend far beyond Alaska. What happens if future administrations begin treating close elections as opportunities for preemptive federal litigation? What prevents a president from identifying a potential irregularity, asserting that it might affect the outcome, and asking the Justice Department to intervene before voters have finished casting their ballots?
The answer cannot simply be that the president believes he's doing the right thing.
Our system of government was designed around the recognition that power requires limits precisely because those who wield it tend to believe their own purposes are justified.
The Oath Is to the Constitution
At the center of this controversy are ordinary Alaskans preparing to vote. Some will support the Republican incumbent. Others will support Mary Peltola. Some may prefer the second Sullivan or another candidate entirely.
Their choices belong to them.
If a voter's rights are violated, the Justice Department has a responsibility to act. But it has an equally important responsibility not to substitute the political interests of the president for the lawful choices of the electorate.
That is why the attorney general's oath matters.
The oath is not a pledge of personal loyalty to Donald Trump. It is a commitment to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.
And that distinction is considerably more than ceremonial.
Presidents come and go. Political parties win elections and lose them. Administrations change, sometimes dramatically. But the rule of law is supposed to endure beyond the ambitions of any one president or political movement.
The courts will determine whether the Justice Department's Alaska lawsuit has a legitimate legal foundation. That decision deserves to be evaluated on its merits.
But the larger question is already before the American people.
When the president directs the nation's law-enforcement apparatus toward an election in which he has a political interest, who ensures that the law—not the president's preferred outcome—remains the guiding principle?
And when the attorney general says he works for the president, who reminds him that his authority comes with obligations extending far beyond the man who appointed him?
The Justice Department does not belong to Donald Trump. It did not belong to Joe Biden, Barack Obama, or any president who came before them.
It belongs to the American people.
And the American people have every right to expect it to act that way.
SOURCES
Associated Press — Trump says he ordered the Justice Department's lawsuit over Alaska's U.S. Senate race - https://apnews.com/article/d8f4a3c7b5247cc427a05f796d7c0d82CBS News — October 25, 2026, Face the Nation interview with Attorney General Todd Blanche; full transcript covering the Alaska lawsuit, Trump's involvement, and election certification - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/todd-blanche-attroney-general-face-the-nation-transcript-10-25-2026/CBS
News — Full October 25, 2026, Face the Nation broadcast transcript -
Department of Justice — Justice Manual, Section 1-8.600: Communications with the White House - https://www.justice.gov/jm/jm-1-8000-congressional-relationsU.S.
Congress — National Voter Registration Act of 1993, statutory text -
Archives — Saturday Night Massacre and the Watergate investigation - https://www.archives.gov/research/investigations/watergate
Comments