A former senior Trump administration official warned Tuesday of a potential midterm plot by the Trump administration involving “ballot-snatchers,” one they argued the White House was already laying the groundwork for.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration staged a raid on an election office in Georgia, seizing ballots as part of an effort to find evidence of President Donald Trump’s false claims of systemic voter fraud in the 2020 election. And in June, reports surfaced of the administration’s plans to “blackmail” states into handing over their voter rolls to the federal government. Those plans involve withholding federal funding for states earmarked for disaster preparedness to force compliance.
Regarding the Trump administration’s “blackmail” operation, 33 states and the District of Columbia have refused to comply, leading the Trump administration to sue. And, according to Miles Taylor, who served as chief of staff to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen in the first Trump administration, the states’ refusals were likely anticipated and part of its plan to create “a pretext.”
“In my opinion, the Trump administration is preparing the rationale for its future warrant affidavits to go seize ballots in these ‘non-compliant’ states,” Taylor wrote in an analysis published Tuesday on his Substack.
“This will be their logic: We asked X state to let us verify its rolls to weed out fraud; it refused; the courts blocked us; therefore, no one can say whether noncitizens decided this election. So to investigate any fraud claims, we need to go get the ballots themselves. The result would be chaos-by-design.”
Taylor predicted that such a plan would likely target states with “top battleground races,” identifying 13 in total, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and California, among others. The ensuing chaos of enacting such a plan, he also warned, would play in the Trump administration’s favor.
“Picture FBI agents carting boxes out of election offices in two or three states with razor-thin margins, races that decide control of the House and Senate. While the ballots sit in federal custody, certification of a victor will be difficult if not impossible,” Taylor wrote.
“In the meantime, voters will rightfully fret that Trump’s agents are meddling with the results. MAGA candidates on the losing end will refuse to concede, citing the ‘ongoing investigations.’ And the White House will make sure the fog stays thick enough to hand GOP leaders in Congress a pretext to delay seating new members, which will be the final step in preventing a peaceful transfer of power if Democrats win either chamber.”
