Alaska election officials oppose Trump DOJ’s involvement in Senate race

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Alaska officials said new revelations in The New York Times about efforts by Democrats to recruit a Senate candidate with the same name as GOP incumbent Sen. Dan S. Sullivan do not change the state’s opposition to a Trump administration lawsuit seeking to potentially delay certification of the election.

The Times story , a spokesperson for the Alaska Department of Law told CNN in an email, confirms the “initial concerns” election officials had about the candidacy of Daniel J. Sullivan, a retired teacher, but it has “no impact on the current litigation.”

“Placing candidates on the ballot is a matter of state law, not federal law,” said spokesperson Sam Curtis, noting that the Alaska Supreme Court has already decided that Daniel J. Sullivan would be on the ballot. The Justice Department, meanwhile, is citing a federal law in the case that “does not dictate what candidates can run in elections and does not authorize the relief the DOJ seeks,” Curtis said.

“The Division is bound by the Alaska Supreme Court’s order and is committed to running a fair election and assisting voters as needed,” Curtis said.

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The story published Wednesday rattled one of the country’s most competitive Senate races with less than a week until Election Day.

Mary Peltola, the state’s former at-large House member, is considered one of Senate Democrats’ top recruits of the midterms and her campaign continues to deny any involvement in Daniel J. Sullivan’s campaign. Republicans have been concerned enough about the race that both President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance have made trips to Alaska in recent weeks.

Trump, who has complained about the two Sullivan issue for months and said he directed the Justice Department lawsuit last week, piled on with multiple social media posts slamming Peltola over the story, including one that said she “should be removed from the Ballot and prosecuted.”

“So should the FAKE Dan Sullivan,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Nothing else will do!”

The incumbent’s campaign accused Peltola of spending months “gaslighting Alaskans.”

“We always knew this was a concerted effort to deceive Alaskans, and Mary Peltola was hoping it would stay covered up until after the election,” the campaign spokesman for Sen. Dan S. Sullivan, Nate Adams said in a statement.

Attorney General Todd Blanche on Fox News touted the Times’ story as proof that the Justice Department was right in bringing its unprecedented federal lawsuit. But when pressed over whether anything illegal had occurred that gives the DOJ the ability to intervene in the election, which is run by states, Blanche could not say.

The Justice Department on Wednesday told a federal judge it would like to seek answers and evidence from Peltola’s campaign regarding the Times report and Sullivan issue, which it called a “conspiracy.”

Some Democrats noted that Republicans have also meddled in the race to boost spoiler candidates. An array of GOP groups, for example, contributed to a super PAC that attacked Peltola in the primary and promoted a lesser-known Democratic candidate and a Green Party candidate.

“This is basically a more extreme version of what the parties do all the time, which is try to find a candidate on the other side who can siphon votes away from the major party competitor,” election law specialist Rick Hasen told CNN. “And, you know, you can’t really hold someone responsible for impure motives.”

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Dean Franita Tolson of the University of Southern California Gould School of Law said the Times reporting doesn’t give the Department of Justice’s lawsuit any more credence.

“At the end of the day, the federal government should not try to block certification of a race because they don’t like the outcome,” she said.

“It, I think, makes the Peltola campaign look bad,” Derek Muller, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame Law School, added. “I think it will adversely affect her in the eyes of some voters, but from litigation perspective, I think it really won’t affect things at this stage.”

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阿拉斯加州官员表示，《纽约时报》披露的有关民主党人试图招募一位与共和党现任参议员丹·S·沙利文同名的参议员候选人的新消息，并不会改变该州反对特朗普政府提起的旨在可能推迟选举认证的诉讼的立场。

阿拉斯加州法律部门的一位发言人在一封电子邮件中告诉 CNN，《泰晤士报》的报道证实了选举官员最初对退休教师丹尼尔·J·沙利文的候选资格的“担忧”，但这“对目前的诉讼没有影响”。

发言人萨姆·柯蒂斯表示：“候选人是否应该出现在选票上，是州法律而非联邦法律的管辖范围。”他指出，阿拉斯加州最高法院已经裁定丹尼尔·J·沙利文应该出现在选票上。与此同时，司法部援引的联邦法律“并未规定哪些候选人可以参选，也未授权司法部寻求的救济措施”，柯蒂斯说道。

“选举部门受阿拉斯加州最高法院命令的约束，致力于举行公平的选举，并在需要时为选民提供帮助，”柯蒂斯说。

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周三发布的这篇报道，在距离选举日不到一周之际，给该国竞争最激烈的参议院选举之一带来了震动。

阿拉斯加州前众议员玛丽·佩尔托拉被认为是民主党在中期选举中力捧的参议院候选人之一，她的竞选团队一直否认参与丹尼尔·J·沙利文的竞选活动。共和党人对这场选举十分关注，以至于唐纳德·特朗普总统和副总统J·D·万斯最近几周都曾前往阿拉斯加州视察。

特朗普几个月来一直抱怨苏利文事件，并表示他上周指示司法部提起诉讼。他随后在社交媒体上发布了多条帖子，抨击佩尔托拉的报道，其中一条帖子称她“应该被取消参选资格并受到起诉”。

“所以，那个假冒的丹·沙利文也应该如此，”特朗普在Truth Social上写道。“除此之外，别无他法！”

现任议员的竞选团队指责佩尔托拉花了数月时间“对阿拉斯加人进行精神操控”。

“我们一直都知道这是蓄意欺骗阿拉斯加人的行动，玛丽·佩尔托拉希望这件事能被掩盖到选举之后，”参议员丹·S·沙利文的竞选发言人内特·亚当斯在一份声明中说。

司法部长托德·布兰奇在福克斯新闻上称赞《纽约时报》的报道，认为这证明司法部提起史无前例的联邦诉讼是正确的。但当被追问是否存在任何违法行为，使得司法部有权干预由各州组织的选举时，布兰奇却无法给出明确答复。

周三，司法部告诉联邦法官，它希望就《纽约时报》的报道和沙利文事件向佩尔托拉的竞选团队寻求答案和证据，司法部称这是一场“阴谋”。

一些民主党人指出，共和党人也干预了选举，以扶持“搅局者”候选人。例如，许多共和党团体向一个超级政治行动委员会捐款，该委员会在初选中攻击佩尔托拉，并支持一位名不见经传的民主党候选人和一位绿党候选人。

选举法专家里克·哈森告诉CNN：“这基本上是各党派惯用伎俩的极端版本​​，即试图找到一个能够从主要竞争对手那里分走选票的对手候选人。而且，你知道，你不能真正追究某人动机不纯的责任。”

两个丹·沙利文的名字出现在选票上？这事以前还真发生过。

南加州大学古尔德法学院院长弗兰妮塔·托尔森表示，《泰晤士报》的报道并没有增加司法部诉讼的可信度。

“归根结底，联邦政府不应该因为不喜欢选举结果就试图阻止选举结果的认证，”她说。

“我认为这会让佩尔托拉的竞选形象受损，”圣母大学法学院的法学教授德里克·穆勒补充道。“我认为这会对她在一些选民眼中产生不利影响，但从诉讼的角度来看，我认为在现阶段不会产生什么实际影响。”