Trump may have accidentally torpedoed his own bid to seize voter rolls: analyst
President Donald Trump's executive order demanding states put new procedures in place for mail-in voting and turn over information about who is voting by mail is almost certain to be struck down in court, Jim Saksa wrote for Democracy Docket on Friday — but that's not the only way it could derail Trump's ambitions.
That's because this order could also undermine one of the main arguments Trump's Justice Department has used in court to defend the lawsuits filed against dozens of states to seize their voting rolls.
"In those lawsuits, the DOJ has claimed it needs millions of voters’ private sensitive data in order to ensure the states are complying with federal laws that require states to take steps to ensure accurate rolls," said the report. "But outside of court, DOJ officials like Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon have undermined that claim by boasting that the state voter records they’ve already obtained have been used to verify citizenship status using the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program."
After judges began ruling against the lawsuits on these grounds, DOJ officials backpedaled somewhat and said there was no plan to help the Department of Homeland Security build a national database of voters.
Trump, however, may have blown that excuse by outright acknowledging in his executive order that he "directs DHS to create a nationwide voter registration database," noted the report.
"Along with Dhillon’s statements and Trump’s orders, the DOJ’s courtroom attestations have been impeached repeatedly," wrote Saksa. For example, "last week, CBS reported that DOJ and DHS were working to formalize a data-sharing agreement for the voter rolls. And on the same day Tucker was assuring a federal judge that the DOJ wouldn’t share state records with DHS, Eric Neff, acting chief of the DOJ’s Voting Rights Section, admitted to another judge in Rhode Island that they, in fact, would."
Trump's lawsuits for state voting data are not just limited to Democratic-controlled states, but even some Republican-controlled states where GOP election officials have concluded sharing the data would be illegal. Some of these lawsuits have run into legal blunders, including the revelation that there was no proof the suit against Washington State was properly served.
After failing to brokerage peace with Iran, Trump meets with China empty handed
President Donald Trump is scheduled to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing for a high-stakes summit this week.
Despite the event being viewed as a potential turning point for ending the U.S. and Israeli war against Iran, reports Axios, Trump arrives without a negotiated agreement after months of failed diplomatic efforts.
The Trump administration has pursued an Iran deal since early April but rejected Tehran's counterproposal Sunday, describing it as "unacceptable."
The situation was further complicated Monday when Iranian Ambassador Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli announced Iran's readiness to support a Chinese-proposed four-point peace plan focused on establishing security and development in the Persian Gulf region, according to an automatic translation of their post on X.
The Chinese government has not publicly disclosed details of the proposal, reports The Wall Street Journal.
Iran's endorsement of China's plan, rather than Trump's, creates significant complications for the Beijing summit discussions.
Journalist Charbel Antoun wrote for The Hill, Trump enters negotiations with weakened leverage having failed to broker a deal before the meeting.
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