Credible threats appear to have been overlooked as administration focuses on unverified claims of voter fraud
The Trump administration has abandoned key security bodies meant to investigate direct threats to US elections by foreign actors and domestic terrorists, according to former officials and a recent report.
While administration officials have been actively focused on unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud by noncitizens, other credible election threats appear to have been overlooked, the officials say.
Between 2021 and 2024, the justice department’s election threats taskforce prosecuted 21 cases, like that of Solomon Peña, a failed candidate for the New Mexico house of representatives who organized shootings at the houses of election officials, or Quintez Brown, who shot up a campaign meeting of Louisville’s mayor.
No one should treat the US as a serious or mature entity until they can prove they’re capable of holding another legitimate election.
The US government and a sad number of citizens should be treated “seriously” as in “a serious threat to global stability”. When I try to predict what it would take to repair all this damage… It is not a smooth path to say the least. And it’s a decades-long road at my most optimistic. Probably impossible to be a trustworthy country again, even if everything turns around hard, for 50+ years.