This Is Abuse of Power: Trump Is Weaponizing the DOJ to Block an Unfavorable Election Result

October 23, 2026

Editorial

By Yiannis Damellos and Mars Strangelove Jr.

For Donald Trump, an election is a contest to be won—and a matter of political survival. For those of us who believe in democracy, it is a process whose legitimacy depends on accepting the voters’ decision, obeying the law, and allowing institutions to operate independently of a political leader’s personal interests. In the past, that standard distinguished the United States from authoritarian states, where those in power manipulate elections to preserve their rule and turn the machinery of government into an instrument of abuse. Not anymore.

Today, President Donald Trump admitted that he personally ordered the Department of Justice to sue Alaska over its upcoming U.S. Senate election, seeking to block certification of the result if Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan loses under specified circumstances. The lawsuit, filed less than two weeks before Election Day, raises a fundamental question about the use of federal power: can a president direct the Justice Department to intervene in a state election when the outcome could cost his party a Senate seat?

“I’m the one that said do it,” Trump told reporters on Friday, October 23. His administration argues that the presence of a second candidate named Daniel J. Sullivan could confuse voters and divert votes from the incumbent. The Republican senator faces Democratic challenger Mary Peltola, while Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. is also on the ballot. The Justice Department wants certification blocked if the incumbent loses by fewer votes than the second Sullivan receives and the disputed votes could have changed the outcome.

The problem is that the administration is seeking extraordinary relief on the basis of a potential outcome, before voters have cast their ballots. Alaska’s courts have already ruled that Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. can remain on the ballot. The two candidates are distinguished on it by their names and other identifying information. The Justice Department invokes the National Voter Registration Act, but election-law experts have questioned whether that statute authorizes the federal government to stop a state from certifying its election results. Notre Dame law professor Derek Muller described the legal argument as one of the worst he had seen.

The stakes extend beyond Alaska. The state’s Senate race could help determine control of Congress in the November 3 midterm elections. If the courts allow the federal government to intervene in this way, the consequences could reach far beyond one candidate or one state. A president’s authority over the Justice Department would become a tool for challenging the certification of an election on grounds that the administration itself has advanced, even when state courts have already addressed the candidate’s eligibility.

The lawsuit has also drawn criticism from within the Republican Party. Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski has questioned the Justice Department’s intervention. The administration, meanwhile, maintains that it is protecting election integrity. But protecting the integrity of an election and preventing certification because the preferred candidate may lose are not the same thing. The contrast is central to this case.

Trump’s admission makes the political responsibility unusually clear: this was not simply a lawsuit initiated by career officials without his knowledge. He says he ordered it. Whether the legal arguments survive judicial scrutiny remains to be seen, and no court has yet ruled that the administration’s action is unlawful. But the constitutional concern is already apparent. When a president uses the Justice Department to seek an extraordinary intervention in an election that could cost his party a Senate seat, the issue is no longer just voter confusion. It is whether the power of the federal government is being deployed to protect a political interest at the expense of the voters’ decision. This is abuse of federal power.