Markwayne Mullin uses Homeland Security to further Trump’s voter fraud crusade

Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP

A puzzling email landed in Nevada’s state election office last month. A Fox News reporter wanted to know if the state had a response to the Department of Homeland Security’s purported discovery of more than 15,000 noncitizens on its voter rolls.

Election officials circulated the request. No one knew where the claim had come from.

“We just responded very plainly, like we have no idea what you’re talking about,” Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar told CNN.

Three days later, they got their answer. DHS announced that an analysis of public voter data had found more than 250,000 potential noncitizens registered in Nevada, California, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

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Officials in all four states said they were blindsided. They disputed the findings and said DHS had provided neither its methodology nor the names of the allegedly ineligible voters.

“I can’t take something that’s made up out of thin air and try to justify it or defend it,” Aguilar said. “We operate off of facts, not allegations or anecdotal information.”

The announcement coincided with a primetime address by President Donald Trump, who said he was declassifying information exposing vulnerabilities in the nation’s election system. His allies hailed the findings as a bombshell. Publicly and privately, some Republican officials balked at them .

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, who has long echoed some of Trump’s election fraud claims, underscored his role after the president’s speech. At a press conference on the White House grounds, he touted his department’s noncitizen findings, urged more states to collaborate, and delivered a stark warning.

“If the election officials – once we gave them the information they need to secure their elections, and they chose not to – then those individuals can also be held accountable by fines, by penalties, and even, depending on how far it goes, prison,” Mullin said.

Since taking over DHS in March after Trump fired Kristi Noem, Mullin has accelerated efforts to make the department a central force in Trump’s crusade against purported widespread election fraud. DHS has pushed states to share their voter rolls for audit and vowed to withhold grant funding from those that refuse to adopt a broader set of election reforms.

Last year, DHS tapped Heather Honey , a Trump-aligned election researcher who gained national attention for her efforts challenging the 2020 results, to lead an “election integrity” campaign.

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Honey’s influence has grown under Mullin, and in June, the department promoted her to senior counselor to the secretary.

In Trump’s second term, DHS has pivoted away from its longstanding role to help with election security and focused far more resources on voter fraud allegations, claiming troves of noncitizens are registered – and likely voting – especially in Democratic-led states.

Federal law bars noncitizens from voting as well as making false statements to register. The administration has sharply intensified efforts to uncover such violations – pursuing criminal charges and deportations.

The department has leaned for investigative work on one of its federal agencies – Homeland Security Investigations – an arm of Immigration and Customs Enforcement that typically tackles major crimes like human trafficking, drug smuggling and child exploitation, not voter fraud.

“HSI is actively rooting out and investigating election fraud wherever it can be found,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement to CNN. “We have repeatedly demonstrated that illegal aliens can and do vote in our elections.”

Communications obtained by CNN show that HSI agents have spent months pressing local election officials across the country for voter records to build criminal cases. Their inquiries have primarily centered on a slew of individual voters, but the probes have expanded to canvassing groups and even questions on debunked theories about the 2020 election – often with a sense of urgency.

“I wouldn’t normally ask this of you if I was conducting an investigation with my usual methodology and speed, but there’s a bit of pressure on the timeline of things,” one HSI agent told a county election official in Ohio while requesting records for several names.

The agent later acknowledged: “Voter fraud investigations aren’t typically what HSI works.”

Under the Trump administration, agents have, for example, been assigned to investigate whether naturalized US citizens registered or voted before becoming citizens, according to an internal memo reviewed by CNN. Another memo directs HSI agents to coordinate with US Citizenship and Immigration Services to begin removal proceedings when a noncitizen is suspected of or linked to voter fraud.

“All HSI offices are engaged in these important efforts,” the DHS spokesperson said.

For months, agents have been working to trace the voting histories of tens of thousands of people flagged as potential noncitizens by a controversial federal verification system — the same pool of names Mullin cited at his news conference as definitive proof that large numbers of noncitizens are registered to vote.

While Trump and his allies have made sweeping claims about widespread noncitizen voting, emails obtained by CNN reveal a messier reality. Agents repeatedly pursued leads only to discover that they had identified the wrong people or lacked enough information to know for sure — and in some cases, few had ever cast a ballot.

In Franklin County, Ohio, several people flagged by HSI had never been registered to vote. After confusion over another person’s birthdate, the agent wrote: “Oops! Turns out the voter is actually his father.”

The emails show the inquiry soon expanded to canvassing groups, including questions about the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, a progressive voter-turnout organization that federal agents raided in June – four months after the exchange.

In Fort Bend County, Texas, HSI subpoenaed the election director for records before supplying a list of names to check, according to records obtained by Democracy Forward and shared with CNN. When county officials asked for more details to ensure they had identified the correct voters, the investigator replied: “At this time, the information I sent is all we have. If you could just proceed with the information provided, that would be great. We may have to do additional checks on our end.”

“This looks like DHS scraping the bottom of the barrel,” said Brendan Fischer, Director of Strategic Investigations at Campaign Legal Center, a voting-rights advocacy group.

Over the past 18 months, the administration has enhanced the citizenship records programs known as SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements) with data from other federal agencies, a move that was praised by Republican election officials who nonetheless have acknowledged that the data-matching can produce false positives and requires further investigation. Separately, the Justice Department has been demanding that states turn over their voter rolls — bringing lawsuits against 30 states that have refused — so that the administration can do its own SAVE audits for ineligible voters.

“The expansion of SAVE failed to substantiate claims of widespread noncitizen voting, so now the administration is trying to save face by directing HSI investigators to pursue a very limited number of potential cases,” Fischer said.

A guidance document circulated within HSI last year, which CNN reviewed, tells agents working election-related cases to determine which federal laws give them authority to investigate before collecting evidence. It also directs them to consult prosecutors before issuing subpoenas or conducting interviews.

The document warns against public actions that could influence an election and bars immigration enforcement that “chills” voting. It also prohibits agents from bypassing election officials who control records or Justice Department divisions that oversee election matters.

DHS has also joined the administration’s continuing effort to find evidence supporting Trump’s unfounded claim that the 2020 election was rigged against him.

In February, HSI contacted the Arizona attorney general’s office with questions about previous reviews of the election. The outreach, first reported by VoteBeat, came days after Noem, then the Homeland Security secretary, held an unusual news conference in Arizona promoting a stalled Trump-backed election bill.

In the queries to officials working under Arizona’s Democratic attorney general, an HSI agent asked about claims involving late-arriving ballots in Maricopa County and supposed discrepancies in the ink used to print some ballots — allegations that had already been investigated.

“I have to get a report in by (close of business) today, so was hoping to have some of the materials soon if at all possible,” an HSI agent wrote in a follow-up email.

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The attorney general’s office provided materials assembled during an earlier investigation by Mark Brnovich, the Republican who led the office until 2023, prompting additional questions from the HSI official on March 5.

Noem was fired by Trump that day, with her replacement by Mullin announced simultaneously. HSI’s 2020-related queries to the state attorney general ceased, but separately, the Justice Department obtained records from another review of that election from Arizona’s Republican-controlled Senate. There has been no public investigatory action in the federal 2020 probes in Arizona since then.

Under Mullin, DHS has made sweeping claims of foreigners polluting the voter rolls of Democratic-led states while at times overstating what has been uncovered while working with Republican election officials.

Last month, DHS said it found more than 28,000 noncitizens (since revised to under 25,000) on the voter rolls of roughly two dozen mostly GOP-led states that voluntarily handed over their rolls.

But officials in two of those states – Georgia and North Carolina – have questioned the findings, saying the numbers are likely inflated and require more scrutiny. Republican officials elsewhere have stressed that the matches produced by SAVE must go through additional rounds of vetting once the federal government hands them over to states.

In Texas, one of the states DHS has touted for its cooperation, the secretary of state’s office recently informed local election officials that some voters whose registrations were cancelled because of the SAVE review might need to be added back to the rolls, because the state had records indicating they had already proved their citizenship at the DMV.

Still, DHS is urging states to let the administration inspect their voter rolls, noting that only state and local election officials – not the federal government – can remove voters.

The DHS voter audit operation faces multiple lawsuits alleging the federal data system is leading to sloppy purges that disenfranchise eligible voters. In one of those cases, a court found the DHS violated privacy law in how it revamped the data program and issued a ruling that has blocked its use for most states.

DHS is appealing that ruling, and Mullin blasted it as coming from an “activist” judge.

The administration has not disclosed how many HSI investigations have led to referrals for prosecution or deportation beyond a small number of publicized cases. They include charges announced by the Justice Department this spring against several alleged noncitizen voters in New Jersey.

Those charges predated Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s disclosure that a state DMV error had mistakenly added thousands of noncitizens to New Jersey’s voter rolls, nearly 400 of whom cast ballots, according to the governor.

DHS officials say they’re investigating the blunder to tee up prosecutions and deportations. Sherrill has refused the administration’s request for data on those voters, saying “The request had no legal basis, and I will always protect New Jerseyans.”

In Nevada, meanwhile, DHS last week requested that state election officials meet virtually with Mullin to discuss the thousands of potential noncitizens purportedly registered to vote. In emails obtained by CNN, DHS said it appreciated Nevada’s “willingness to collaborate on this important effort” and hoped to schedule “as quickly as possible.”

A Nevada official waved off that request, telling DHS it had not adequately explained how it came up with its claims about the state’s voter rolls.

“Once we receive and evaluate that information, we will be in a position to engage in a productive and meaningful discussion with your office,” the official said.

DHS replied that its analysis “was not done using SAVE” and offered to explain its process and provide a list of suspected noncitizens during the meeting.

“Let’s set up a call,” the Nevada official responded.

朱莉娅·德马雷·尼金森/美联社

上个月，内华达州选举办公室收到了一封令人费解的电子邮件。一位福克斯新闻记者想知道，对于国土安全部声称在该州选民名册上发现超过15000名非公民一事，内华达州有何回应。

选举官员散发了这份请求。没有人知道这一说法来自哪里。

内华达州州务卿思科·阿吉拉尔告诉 CNN：“我们的回应非常直接，就好像我们完全不知道你在说什么一样。”

三天后，他们得到了答案。国土安全部宣布，对公开选民数据的分析发现，内华达州、加利福尼亚州、新泽西州和宾夕法尼亚州登记在册的潜在非公民超过25万人。

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这四个州的官员都表示他们对此毫不知情。他们对调查结果提出异议，并称国土安全部既没有提供调查方法，也没有提供所谓不符合资格的选民名单。

阿吉拉尔说：“我不能凭空捏造一些东西，然后试图为它辩护或开脱。我们行事以事实为依据，而不是指控或轶事。”

这一消息的公布恰逢唐纳德·特朗普总统发表黄金时段讲话，他在讲话中表示，他将解密一些暴露美国选举系统漏洞的信息。他的盟友称这些发现“犹如一枚重磅炸弹”。然而，一些共和党官员无论公开还是私下，都对这些发现表示反对。

长期以来一直附和特朗普部分选举舞弊指控的国土安全部长马克韦恩·穆林，在总统发表讲话后强调了自己的作用。在白宫草坪举行的新闻发布会上，他大力宣传了国土安全部对非公民移民问题的调查结果，敦促更多州参与合作，并发出严厉警告。

穆林说：“如果选举官员——在我们向他们提供保障选举所需的信息后，他们却选择不这样做——那么这些人也应该受到罚款、处罚，甚至根据事态严重程度，可能面临监禁。”

自今年3月特朗普解雇克里斯蒂·诺姆后接管国土安全部以来，穆林加快了将该部门打造为特朗普打击所谓大规模选举舞弊行动核心力量的步伐。国土安全部敦促各州共享选民名册以供审计，并誓言将扣留拒绝采纳更广泛选举改革方案的州的拨款。

去年，国土安全部任命了与特朗普结盟的选举研究员希瑟·霍尼（Heather Honey）领导一项“选举诚信”运动。霍尼因质疑 2020 年大选结果而受到全国关注。

Mark Scolforo/美联社/档案照片

在穆林的领导下，霍尼的影响力与日俱增，6 月，该部门将她提拔为部长的高级顾问。

在特朗普的第二个任期内，国土安全部放弃了其长期以来在选举安全方面发挥的作用，转而将更多资源投入到选民欺诈指控中，声称大量非公民已登记在册，并且很可能参与投票，尤其是在民主党领导的州。

联邦法律禁止非公民投票，也禁止非公民在选民登记时作虚假陈述。政府已大幅加大力度打击此类违法行为，包括提起刑事诉讼和驱逐出境。

该部门倾向于由其下属的联邦机构——国土安全调查局——负责调查工作。国土安全调查局是移民和海关执法局的一个部门，通常负责处理人口贩运、毒品走私和儿童剥削等重大犯罪，而不是选民欺诈。

“国土安全调查局正在积极查明并调查任何形式的选举舞弊行为，”国土安全部发言人在给CNN的一份声明中表示。“我们已经反复证明，非法移民可以而且确实在我们的选举中投票。”

CNN获得的通信记录显示，国土安全调查局（HSI）特工数月来一直向全国各地的选举官员施压，要求提供选民记录以建立刑事案件。他们的调查最初主要集中在大量个人选民身上，但后来扩展到拉票团体，甚至质疑一些已被证伪的关于2020年大选的理论——而且往往显得十分紧迫。

“如果我按照通常的方法和速度进行调查，我通常不会这样要求你，但现在时间比较紧迫，”一名国土安全调查局特工在俄亥俄州向一名县选举官员索取几个名字的记录时说道。

该探员后来承认：“选民欺诈调查通常不是国土安全调查局的工作内容。”

据CNN查阅的一份内部备忘录显示，在特朗普政府时期，一些特工被指派调查已入籍的美国公民在入籍前是否已登记或投票。另一份备忘录指示国土安全调查局（HSI）特工与美国公民及移民服务局（USCIS）协调，一旦怀疑或与选民欺诈有关，就启动遣返程序。

“所有国土安全调查局办公室都参与了这些重要工作，”国土安全部发言人表示。

几个月来，特工们一直在努力追踪数万名被有争议的联邦核查系统标记为潜在非公民的人的投票历史——穆林在新闻发布会上引用的名单正是大量非公民登记投票的最终证据。

尽管特朗普及其盟友大肆宣扬非公民投票现象普遍存在，但CNN获得的电子邮件揭示了更为复杂的现实。调查人员反复追踪线索，最终却发现他们找错了人，或者缺乏足够的信息来确定真相——在某些情况下，这些人中很少有人真正投过票。

在俄亥俄州富兰克林县，国土安全调查局 (HSI) 发现的几个人从未登记过选民。在对另一个人的出生日期产生误解后，特工写道：“哎呀！原来这位选民实际上是他的父亲。”

邮件显示，调查很快扩展到拉票团体，包括对俄亥俄州组织合作组织（Ohio Organizing Collaborative）的询问。该组织是一个进步的选民投票率提高组织，联邦特工在6月份对其进行了突袭——而此时距离双方的交流已经过去了四个月。

据“民主前行”（Democracy Forward）获取并与CNN分享的记录显示，在德克萨斯州福特本德县，国土安全调查局（HSI）在提供一份待核对的选民名单之前，曾向选举主任发出传票索取相关记录。当县官员要求提供更多细节以确保他们已确认正确的选民时，调查人员回复道：“目前，我们掌握的信息仅限于我提供的信息。如果您能仅凭这些信息继续进行调查，那就太好了。我们可能需要进行额外的核查。”

“这看起来像是国土安全部黔驴技穷了，”投票权倡导组织“竞选法律中心”的战略调查主任布伦丹·费舍尔说。

过去18个月里，本届政府利用其他联邦机构的数据，加强了名为“SAVE”（系统性外国人资格核查）的公民身份记录项目。此举受到共和党选举官员的赞扬，但他们也承认，数据匹配可能会产生误报，需要进一步调查。与此同时，司法部一直要求各州交出选民名册——并对30个拒绝交出的州提起诉讼——以便政府能够对不符合资格的选民进行SAVE审计。

菲舍尔说：“扩大‘SAVE’计划未能证实非公民广泛投票的说法，因此现在政府试图通过指示国土安全调查局调查人员追查数量非常有限的潜在案件来挽回颜面。”

美国国土安全调查局（HSI）去年流传的一份指导文件（CNN曾审阅过该文件）指示负责选举相关案件的特工在收集证据前，必须先确定哪些联邦法律赋予他们调查权。该文件还指示他们在发出传票或进行讯问前，必须咨询检察官。

该文件警告公众不要采取可能影响选举的行动，并禁止任何可能“阻碍”投票的移民执法行动。它还禁止执法人员绕过掌握选举记录的选举官员或负责监督选举事务的司法部部门。

国土安全部也加入了政府的行列，继续寻找证据来支持特朗普毫无根据的说法，即 2020 年大选对他不利。

今年2月，美国国土安全调查局（HSI）联系了亚利桑那州总检察长办公室，询问此前对该州选举的审查情况。据VoteBeat网站报道，此次联系发生在时任国土安全部长诺姆在亚利桑那州举行了一场不同寻常的新闻发布会几天后，诺姆当时正在宣传一项陷入僵局的、由特朗普支持的选举法案。

在向亚利桑那州民主党籍总检察长手下的官员询问时，一名国土安全调查局特工询问了有关马里科帕县迟到的选票以及一些选票印刷所用墨水存在差异的说法——这些指控此前已经进行过调查。

“我必须在今天（下班前）提交一份报告，所以如果可能的话，希望能尽快拿到一些材料，”一位国土安全调查局特工在后续邮件中写道。

Olivier/AFP/Getty Images/文件

司法部长办公室提供了此前由共和党人马克·布尔诺维奇（Mark Brnovich）领导的调查期间收集的材料，布尔诺维奇一直领导该办公室直至 2023 年。这引发了国土安全调查局官员在 3 月 5 日提出的更多问题。

诺姆当天被特朗普解雇，穆林接任州长的消息也同时宣布。国土安全调查局（HSI）就2020年大选相关事宜向州检察长提出的质询停止了，但与此同时，司法部从亚利桑那州共和党控制的参议院获得了另一份关于该次选举的审查记录。此后，联邦政府在亚利桑那州就2020年大选展开的调查再无公开进展。

在穆林的领导下，国土安全部曾大肆宣扬外国人污染民主党执政州的选民名册，但有时又夸大了与共和党选举官员合作时发现的情况。

上个月，国土安全部表示，在大约二十几个主要由共和党领导的州自愿交出选民名册后，他们在这些州的选民名册上发现了超过 28,000 名非公民（后来修正为不到 25,000 名）。

但佐治亚州和北卡罗来纳州的官员对调查结果提出质疑，称这些数字可能被夸大，需要进一步审查。其他地区的共和党官员也强调，联邦政府将SAVE系统生成的匹配结果移交给各州后，必须经过额外的审核。

在德克萨斯州，国土安全部一直称赞该州的合作，该州州务卿办公室最近通知当地选举官员，一些因 SAVE 审查而被取消登记的选民可能需要重新登记，因为该州有记录表明他们已经在 DMV 证明了自己的公民身份。

不过，国土安全部仍敦促各州允许政府检查其选民名册，并指出只有州和地方选举官员（而非联邦政府）才能删除选民。

国土安全部选民审计行动面临多起诉讼，指控联邦数据系统导致草率的清理工作，剥夺了符合资格选民的投票权。其中一起案件中，法院认定国土安全部在改进数据程序的过程中违反了隐私法，并发布了一项裁决，禁止大多数州使用该系统。

国土安全部正在对该裁决提出上诉，穆林抨击该裁决出自一位“激进”法官之手。

除了少数已公开的案例外，政府并未透露有多少国土安全调查局（HSI）的调查最终导致起诉或驱逐出境。这些案例包括司法部今年春天宣布对新泽西州几名涉嫌非法投票的非公民提起的指控。

这些指控早于民主党州长米基·谢里尔披露新泽西州车辆管理局的错误，该错误导致数千名非公民被错误地添加到新泽西州的选民名册中，据州长称，其中近 400 人投了票。

国土安全部官员表示，他们正在调查这起失误，以便提起诉讼和遣返。谢里尔拒绝了政府索要这些选民数据的要求，并表示“这项要求没有任何法律依据，我将始终保护新泽西州人民。”

与此同时，上周，国土安全部要求内华达州选举官员与州长穆林举行线上会议，讨论数千名疑似非公民登记投票的问题。据美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）获得的电子邮件显示，国土安全部表示感谢内华达州“愿意在这项重要工作上进行合作”，并希望“尽快”安排会议。

内华达州一名官员驳回了这一请求，并告诉国土安全部，国土安全部没有充分解释其关于该州选民名册的说法是如何得出的。

“一旦我们收到并评估了这些信息，我们将能够与贵办公室进行富有成效和有意义的讨论，”这位官员说。

国土安全部回应称，其分析“并非使用 SAVE 系统完成”，并表示愿意在会议期间解释其流程并提供疑似非公民名单。

“我们安排一次通话吧，”内华达州官员回应道。