The Justice Department has stepped into the 2024 midterm contest in ways that break with a half-century of self-imposed restraint. Within weeks, federal agents executed a raid on the Washington, DC, residence of Rep. Ilhan Omar a vocal critic of the president and a Democratic contender for re-election. Earlier, an undisclosed Democratic congresswoman’s home was also searched, and the FBI released a video that attacked Michigan Senate hopeful Abdul El-Sayed and other Democrats, prompting immediate backlash from oversight groups.
Simultaneously, the department began circulating press releases that highlighted arrests of non-citizens accused of voter fraud. While illegal voting by non-citizens is exceedingly rare, the announcements paired photographs of the arrestees with claims that such cases are widespread, even though court filings provide scant detail about the defendants’ awareness of their ineligibility.
Federal raids and public accusations
On a Monday that fell in September 2024, federal officials entered Rep. Omar’s DC home under the banner of an immigration fraud investigation. The raid, described by sources as part of a broader attempt to challenge her citizenship status, arrives as Minnesota Democrats confront a tougher electoral environment than their counterparts elsewhere. The same period saw a raid on an unnamed Democratic congresswoman up for re-election, further fueling speculation that the department’s enforcement actions target opponents of the president.
The FBI added another layer of controversy by publishing a video that criticized El-Sayed and other democratic candidates. Watchdog group Democracy Forward immediately condemned the footage, labeling it “inappropriate for a democratic society.” In response, former DOJ attorney Stacey Young now director of Justice Connection, warned that the agency’s involvement could tilt the electoral playing field.
Long-standing election safeguards under pressure
For decades, DOJ policy has discouraged any investigative step that could influence an election. The department’s internal manual explicitly states that prosecutors and agents should avoid “any action … for the purpose of giving an advantage or disadvantage to any candidate or political party.” A secondary provision adds that overt criminal investigations into alleged ballot fraud should wait until after results are certified.
Beyond the written rules, an unwritten 60-day blackout—a norm that senior officials have respected for years—has traditionally kept prosecutors from activities that might affect the outcome. In September 2024, former White House counsel Todd Blanche invoked this rule while defending Special Counsel Jack Smith against a filing deadline, arguing that the practice should block a damaging brief in the election-interference case against former President Trump. Legal scholars at the time disputed Blanche’s reading, noting that Smith was complying with a court-ordered schedule.
The disputed 60-day norm
Now leading the Justice Department, Blanche appears to have sidelined the informal safeguard. A senior department official admitted that the “60-day rule” is merely a tradition, not a binding policy, suggesting that the agency can act at any point before an election. Skye Perryman president of Democracy Forward, warned that discarding the practice “undermines the very purpose of the rule: protecting election integrity.”
Compounding the controversy, the DOJ issued a 48-hour demand to Los Angeles election officials, sending a USB drive with a handwritten password. The drive allegedly contained the names of 20,000 voters the department suspected of lacking citizenship. County chief Dean Logan refused to open the drive, citing security concerns, and the department subsequently sued California when the state declined to segregate those ballots.
Experts such as David Becker of the Center for Election Innovation and Research noted that the federal government could have provided the list and methodology months earlier, before mail-in ballots were mailed out. Federal law, they remind us, explicitly bars systematic voter purges within 90 days of a federal election.
Attorney General Todd Blanche’s partisan foray
Adding a personal dimension to the political drama, Blanche has taken the stage at Republican rallies and even addressed the party’s convention in Dallas earlier this year. The department later revised its ethics guidance, allowing presidential appointees confirmed by the Senate to engage in more overt partisan activity.
When asked about his appearances, a DOJ spokesperson insisted that Blanche acted in a “personal capacity” and that any travel expenses were reimbursed according to federal regulations. Nevertheless, former top ethics official Joseph Tirrell wrote that the real issue is whether such participation makes a federal law-enforcement agency appear as an arm of a political campaign.
Critics such as Donald Sherman head of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), argue that the latest moves—raids, voter-fraud narratives, rapid-response lawsuits—mirror the Trump administration’s earlier attempts to weaponize law-enforcement for electoral gain. As the midterms approach, the Justice Department’s departure from its historic impartiality is reshaping the political landscape and raising fresh questions about the health of American democracy.
