WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department has escalated its investigation over an Alaska Senate candidate who shares a name with the Republican incumbent, sending letters advising a prominent Democratic attorney and others that they are considered targets of the criminal inquiry.
The letter to attorney Marc Elias, who for years has represented Democratic presidential campaigns and the party itself in election-related challenges — and has himself been a target of President Donald Trump — is among numerous ones that have been issued, according to two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. Target letters are sometimes issued to people the department intends to indict, but they do not necessarily mean someone will be charged.
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They come as the department has ramped up an investigation into a race headlined by two-term Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan and Democratic former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola. Also on the ballot is retired teacher Dan J. Sullivan, whose presence the Trump administration is investigating as a potential effort to spark voter confusion and steal votes from the incumbent Republican.
A look at the latest developments:
The criminal investigation has been quietly unfolding for months but gained new steam after The New York Times reported last week that Peltola’s campaign appeared to be involved in recruiting Dan J. Sullivan.
The Justice Department has issued more than 100 subpoenas and has also sent letters ordering people to preserve records as part of the investigation, according to one of the people briefed on the probe. The FBI has also paid home visits to donors of Dan J. Sullivan.
Alaska U.S. Attorney Michael Heyman told reporters in Anchorage on Friday that the new revelations led to a “significant surge of law enforcement assets to Alaska.” He declined to say what specific crimes authorities were investigating.
“I’m not making any assumptions on whether a crime has been committed or not,” Heyman said last week. “That’s why we are conducting that thorough investigation.”
Peltola has said she didn’t know anything about the effort to put Dan J. Sullivan on the ballot.
“I am not interested in tricking voters,” Peltola said last week.
Democrats, including the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, have also repeatedly denied that they were involved in any campaign trick. Dan J. Sullivan has long denied he was running at Democrats’ behest.
Recruiting spoiler candidates to siphon votes from the other major party is a practice that has been used by Republicans and Democrats alike for decades without drawing criminal scrutiny. But Trump's Justice Department says it is taking the matter seriously.
“Everybody agrees that there is a man running that doesn’t want to run, that doesn’t expect to be senator, that is only running to confuse Alaskan voters,” Attorney General Todd Blanche told the Fox News Channel on Tuesday. “And so that’s why the Department of Justice has been fighting tooth and nail to stop this process.”
Blanche declined to discuss the target letters, saying he was not going to “confirm anything that has to do with an ongoing investigation.”
Elias has for years been a target of Trump's ire due in part to his role as general counsel for the 2016 presidential campaign of Trump's Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.
During that campaign, he hired a research and intelligence firm to conduct opposition research on Trump — an arrangement that ultimately led to the creation of a dossier of allegations on the Republican candidate's connections to Russia that contained salacious gossip, unverified rumors and discredited information.
Trump has long been furious about the research, known casually as the “Steele dossier,” and last year announced that he would sanction the law firm of Perkins Coie, where Elias then worked, by revoking security clearances of attorneys there. The punishment was blocked by a judge after a court challenge.
Elias, who did not return messages seeking comment Tuesday, alluded to that history in a statement that said: “No one should be surprised that President Trump’s Department of Justice is targeting me and my law firm on Election Day. This administration has repeatedly weaponized the DOJ against the President’s political enemies despite zero evidence of wrongdoing, and we are the latest targets."
A target letter is a letter that the Justice Department sometimes sends to individuals whom it sees as at legitimate risk of indictment. The department defines a “target” as a person against whom it has gathered substantial evidence linking them to a possible crime and it regards as a potential defendant.
It was not immediately clear exactly how many people received a target letter in connection with the Alaska investigation.
The Justice Department does not typically require targets of its investigations to testify before a grand jury in part because of constitutional protections against self-incrimination.
In this case and others, though, getting a target letter does not necessarily mean that a person will be indicted or has committed any crime. The Trump administration Justice Department has repeatedly struggled to secure grand jury indictments in politically sensitive cases, and other sensitive cases it has charged have been dismissed by judges.
“We will not be intimidated by a sham investigation. We are going to keep working around the clock to support our clients and make sure President Trump and his party enjoy a well-deserved beating at the ballot box," Elias said in a statement.
