Why Pam Bondi tried to hold Minnesota hostage
The ongoing administration efforts to disenfranchise voters
In the hours after masked Border Patrol agents executed Alex Pretti, as senior Homeland Security officials and the Trump administration smeared the murdered ICU nurse, Attorney General Pam Bondi decided to turn an occupation into a hostage situation.
In a letter to Gov. Tim Walz, Bondi suggested that state and local officials should take several steps to “bring back law and order” to Minnesota. More than anything else, Bondi’s letter demanded access to the sensitive personal information of the state’s residents, including Medicaid and SNAP recipients. She also asked that Minnesota provide the Department of Justice access to the state’s voter registration records.
Bondi linked the demand for Medicaid and SNAP information to the welfare fraud investigation that inspired ICE’s takeover of Minneapolis; her request for access to state voter rolls was justified by a need to “confirm” that the voter registration process complied with the Civil Rights Act of 1960. But there’s been no indication that Minnesota’s election system violates any federal statute, so why would Bondi want access to that information?
“They want to kick eligible voters off of the rolls,” Rebekah Caruthers, the executive director of the Fair Elections Center, told me earlier this month.
At the time, Caruthers was commenting on the administration’s attempt to force states to hand over its voter roll information to the DOJ, which she said was part of a concerted effort to take a haphazard hatchet to Americans’ voting rights.
“They’re using databases that have pieces and partial pieces of information — it’s not complete information — and want to use it as the basis to say someone doesn’t have the right to vote,” she explained. “We’re seeing that they’re going after certain surnames that might signal certain ethnic identities.”
While the states all maintain public voter rolls, the administration is seeking the private, unredacted lists of voters, which contain personal information like Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers. The White House wants to build a massive national voter database, and not because it’s worried about data security.
According to Caruthers, because the DOJ has no role in election administration, it sends lists of names to states, recommending that they strike them from the voter rolls. Beyond improper, their lists are based on fractured information and make overly broad assumptions of wrongdoing. For example, somebody can be registered for Social Security at a different address than the one where they are registered to vote, but that does not indicate any error, fraud, or other impropriety.
In the case of Minnesota, the DOJ has objected to the state’s same-day voter registration system, which allows some voters to establish residency through sworn vouchers authorized by neighbors. There’s been no evidence that the process has encouraged voter fraud, but then, the administration’s insistence on these faulty verification measures aren’t actually based on any actual evidence of fraud in the first place.
“The fact is that when people register to vote, they’re affirming, under threat of penalty, that they are who they are,” Caruthers says. “So we already understand who it is that are registering to vote in this country and who are trying to vote in this country. So at this point, we have a president who is saying, ‘Look, you are technically eligible or not, I don’t want you to vote.’”
So far, 11 states, all run by Republicans, have handed over the voter data to the administration, while the DOJ has sued 24 Democratic-run states as well as Washington, DC for refusing to comply. That list of defendants includes Minnesota, leading to Bondi’s effort to exploit the tragedy in Minneapolis.
The state immediately rebuffed Bondi’s “offer,” and two days later, President Donald Trump began the slow process of admitting defeat in Minneapolis, pulling Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino from his post in the Twin Cities.
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She needs to be disbarred! And then she should be brought up on state & federal charges of violating the Law. She has left a wide and long trail of wrongdoing!
Yes. But it is likely Bondi was told to send that letter by someone in the White House where all this is managed. Miller no doubt. Because she is not allowed to think fir herself. And would not venture to take such initiative. Its did not occur to her.