The U.S. Department of Justice has become a partisan weapon in the Democrats' ongoing
battle to stop the Arizona election audit.
On Wednesday Pamela Karlan, the principal deputy assistant attorney general with the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, wrote in a letter that federal officials see two issues with the election review ordered by the Arizona state Senate.
Conservatives will remember Pamela Karlan as the smartassed Stanford law professor who made a crack about President Trump’s son Barron during the Democrats’ first political impeachment farce.
The letter followed a request by the Leftwing Brennan Center for Justice and various Far Left progressive organizations, which wrote to the DOJ on April 29 and requested they send federal monitors to observe the audit and recount process.
Our friends at OANN report it appears the DOJ took the Brennan Center’s request to heart because their letter Wednesday asked for the state Senate’s “response to the concerns described herein, including advising us of the steps that the Arizona Senate will take to ensure that violations of federal law do not occur.”
Dominion Voting Systems also suddenly resurfaced and sharply criticized the election firm conducting the recount of ballots in Arizona, saying auditors had "already committed serious errors" and "demonstrated incompetence."
Dominion, which supplied election technology to several polling locations in Arizona, has been a target of criticism since before the troubled 2020 election.
In a statement on Tuesday, Dominion said that Cyber Ninjas, the lead contractor hired by the Arizona legislature, wasn't qualified to conduct a recount and that its leader was "operating with a false, pre-determined conclusion" that votes were altered in the first place.
"The firms conducting this so-called audit are not federally-accredited Voting Systems Test Labs," Dominion said. "The lead firm, Cyber Ninjas, has no election experience, and publicly available information shows its leader has helped spread debunked lies about election fraud."
In its statement, Dominion said it had numerous security measures in place for its election machines, including creating a voter-verified paper trail for each vote, using two-factor authentication that requires a physical key, and ensuring the machines don't connect to the internet.
The timing of Department of Justice letter and the resurfacing of Dominion strike us a just a little too coordinated to be a coincidence.
And, as OANN reported, the United States Constitution grants the power to oversee elections exclusively to state legislatures, meaning the federal government has no authority to interfere in the audit. The letter was fairly benign and only cited media reports as evidence.
The main issues raised were with regard to voting rights, especially for minority voters, and the security of the facility, both of which have been easily addressed by the Senate. In fact, the letter did not include a single piece of factual evidence on which the DOJ could base their concerns.
Further, Democrats have sued the Senate four times in an effort to stop the audit and have failed every time. The Department of Justice’s letter appeals to the exact same concerns as those raised in court, meaning the Senate has four court opinions that they can send to the DOJ to refute their claims and say their concerns are baseless at this time.
The fact that the DOJ sent the letter at all is odd given the strict constitutional differentiation from state and federal rights. It’s a strange appeal that comes across as a “hail Mary” from Democrats looking to impede the audit. Like all previous attempts, however, this is also unlikely to be successful.
Arizona election audit
U.S. Department of Justice
Pamela Karlan
Civil Rights Division
Arizona senate
Federal Monitors
Dominion Voting Systems
Cyber Ninjas
election security
Constitution
State legislatures