House Democrats call on Justice Department to address ‘insider threats’ posed by candidates who believe false election fraud claims

By Annie Grayer, CNN

More than a dozen House Democrats are calling on the Department of Justice to address “insider threats” that they say candidates for state and local election posts, who believe the 2020 election was stolen, pose to the nation’s election systems.

“Unfortunately, many of the candidates seeking to fill newly vacated state and local election posts support former President Trump’s false claim that the 2020 election was stolen,” wrote the Democrats, including Rep. Adam Schiff, a member of the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, insurrection.

Reps. Deborah Ross of North Carolina, Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Terri Sewell of Alabama are co-leaders on the letter.

“We are concerned that this new cohort of election officials may be inclined to abuse their authority to directly influence the results of future elections,” they wrote.

The lawmakers suggest that there is an “active effort to recruit and convince election officials at all levels of governance to sabotage future elections by spreading conspiracy theories and promoting the claims of election deniers.”

In addition to pointing to local examples in states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Colorado, the lawmakers say that “at least ten candidates running for secretary of state and eight running for state attorney general across the country back false claims that the 2020 election was illegitimate.”

Here are the three things the group of lawmakers are calling on DOJ to do:

• Protect the integrity of election results, including by addressing “threats coming from within our electoral system.”
• Work with states to investigate possibly prosecute individuals and who engage in illegal conduct that poses a “serious threat to voting system security and software, or disrupts the fair and accurate counting of votes.”
• Consider additional steps, such as deploying nonpartisan election monitors.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.