The move by the Justice Department to try and preemptively block Alaska’s Senate results if Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan loses stunned officials in both parties.
Page B51From§Eachthe evening edition — 3 November 2026
TARGET LETTERS
DOJ's four Alaska ballot probes yield zero charges, earn Marc Elias a target letter anyway.
As it ran on the front
The predicate died this week in Anchorage: the idea that a federal investigation needs a crime before it needs a subpoena. It was born of a name — Dan Sullivan, filed twice for Alaska's open Senate seat, the second filing a Democratic recruit Republicans called a decoy meant to confuse the first Dan Sullivan's voters.
On 23 October the president said he had ordered the Justice Department to sue to block certification of the race if that Sullivan, the Republican, came up short. The department filed the suit, contingent, waiting on a margin nobody had yet seen. Six days later the governor of Alaska, Mike Dunleavy, ordered his state police to open their own criminal investigation into the Peltola campaign over the same two names. The next day, 30 October, the Justice Department issued its first wave of grand jury subpoenas on the decoy theory; the candidate it concerned, Mary Peltola, said she knew nothing about any of it.…
…(cont) By today the tally of that theory's yield had not moved: four separate inquiries, zero charges, zero indictments, zero ballots thrown out. What moved instead was the paperwork. The department sent roughly 20 target letters — early ones, unusually early, days before an election the department itself says it isn't assuming any crime occurred in — to Democrats including the elections lawyer Marc Elias and at least one staffer of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. ABC News reports a second wave of subpoenas went out the same day. None of the roughly 20 letter recipients has been charged with anything; a target letter, by definition, is not one.
On that same filing day, the Sullivan campaign and the National Republican Senatorial Committee opened something called a recount fund, a receptacle built to spend money contesting a count that has not happened yet, filed by the side that has also sued to keep that count from being certified if it goes the wrong way. That is the shit of it: a legal apparatus assembled in advance of a loss, in case there is one.
Preceded in death by the convention that a federal target letter follows evidence rather than precedes it. Born of a filing deadline nobody intended to be a joke. Survived by roughly 20 target letters, two waves of subpoenas, one state investigation, and a recount fund opened before a single ballot was contested.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that Alaska's election officials be left alone to finish the count before anyone outside the state decides what it means.
“Four probes, zero charges — that's not an investigation, that's a fishing license renewed four times with nothing in the boat. They send the letters to the lawyer and the staffers anyway, because a target letter costs you a lawyer and a sleepless month before it costs the department one fact. And the side that isn't under any investigation already built itself a recount fund — this isn't a probe anymore, it's insurance against losing.”
“Look, a target letter isn't an accusation, it's due diligence — the department said itself it isn't assuming a crime, so relax. Four investigations with no charges just means they're being careful, not that there's nothing there — wait, did I just argue the absence of evidence proves diligence? That's not — okay, moving on, the recount fund is just prudent planning, every campaign should have one.”
Earlier in this story
- Justice Department answers five court losses by charging 63 voters, seeking sanctions on its own analysts. By Mitch · the evening edition, 3 November 2026
- DOJ cuts noncitizen-voter claim by 170,000, loses in court three times, asks for sanctions on the analysts. By Mitch · the evening edition, 2 November 2026
- Justice Department says it isn't assuming a crime occurred, appeals the lawsuit built on one. By Chip · the morning edition, 2 November 2026
- Tim Scott calls an unproven plot a 'criminal offense' but won't say he'll accept the vote it targets By Lou · the afternoon edition, 1 November 2026
- Trump told the Justice Department to sue to block Alaska's certification if the Republican narrowly loses; the complaint named zero ballots, and the vote is two days off. By Mort · the evening edition, 1 November 2026
The receipts
Mary Peltola denies knowledge as party accused of recruiting spoiler candidate with same name as sitting Republican Alaska Senate race: what to know about Democrats’ alleged ballot-stacking effort The top federal prosecutor in Alaska confirmed on Friday the existence of a criminal and a civil investigation into an alleged scheme by…
Hans von Spakovsky says Jack Smith's Trump indictment set the precedent for the DOJ's criminal probe into Alaska's "Decoy Dan" Senate race scheme.
Sen. Dan Sullivan's (R-Alaska) campaign and the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), the campaign arm for Senate Republicans, have organized a “recount fund,” according to a Tuesday filing with the Federal Election Commission, the latest sign that Republicans are prepared to contest the results of the Senate election in…
The Justice Department is reportedly sending target letters to Democratic elections lawyer Marc Elias and other Democrats as prosecutors investigate an alleged effort to recruit a second Dan Sullivan to siphon votes from Alaska’s Republican senator. Roughly 20 Democrats were designated to receive the notices, including Elias and at least…
The DOJ has continued moving at an aggressive clip in ramping up its criminal investigation into the Alaska U.S. Senate race, sources tell ABC News.
Alaska’s Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola denied once again any involvement in the alleged ballot-stacking scheme that it was recently reported her campaign engaged in during a rally on Friday, but did not mention the ongoing investigations into the scheme “I am so deeply offended by these accusations about having any involvement…
Marc Elias, a longtime Democratic attorney and vocal opponent of the Trump administration, received one of about 20 target letters sent by the DOJ in its Alaska ballot investigation.
Top election lawyer and lawmakers received notes over alleged scheme to confuse voters with two Dan Sullivans US midterms 2026 live – latest updates The justice department has sent letters to a top Democratic election lawyer and other Democrats informing them they could be targets in a federal investigation into efforts to get an Alaska…
Republican Mike Dunleavy plans search after Peltola accused of recruiting Dan Sullivan to confuse voters Explainer: what to know about Democrats’ alleged ballot-stacking effort The Republican governor of Alaska announced plans to launch a criminal investigation after a report accused the campaign of the Democratic Senate candidate Mary…
The DOJ is issuing new subpoenas in a probe of Alaska's U.S. Senate race and alleged efforts by Democrats to recruit a candidate with the same name as the GOP incumbent.
Republicans' reconciliation package puts $70 billion into ICE's department NBC News, May 2026
Courts Reject Trump’s Attempt at Deploying ICE to Intimidate VotersA judge ordered Homeland Security to stop sending agents door to door in nine key states to hunt for “voter fraud.”
Democrat Mary Peltola’s campaign reportedly recruited a second Dan Sullivan in the race in what Republicans call a ploy to split votes Republican officials have called for an investigation into an alleged ballot-stacking scheme in Alaska’s competitive Senate race by Democrat Mary Peltola’s campaign. For months, Donald Trump and others…
In its Saturday filing, Alaska said this was “both disturbing and impossible.” It added there would be no way to do that without violating voter privacy.
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This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.