Donald Trump’s justice department has aggressively inserted itself into the midterm elections in the contest’s final weeks, shattering the department’s longstanding practice of political neutrality and leaving little doubt about the department’s willingness to help should the president attempt to subvert elections where his party is forecasted to lose seats and ultimately control of Congress.

In the last few weeks, federal agents have raided the home of a Democratic congresswoman up for re-election. It has touted criminal charges and arrests of non-citizens charged with voter fraud. The attorney general has hit the campaign trail to stump for Republican candidates. And the department gave California election officials 48 hours to investigate the citizenship of 20,000 people, and then sued the state when it refused to comply. The FBI also recently published a video criticizing Michigan senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and other Democrats, drawing an immediate rebuke from one watchdog, who said the video “has no place in a democratic society”.

On Monday, federal agents raided the DC home of Minnesota representative Ilhan Omar, who is running for re-election this fall. The raid was part of a reported immigration fraud investigation into Omar, an outspoken critic of the president, and an apparent push to try to denaturalize her. Omar is up for re-election, and Minnesota Democrats broadly are facing more headwinds than fellow party members in most other states.

“For decades, the justice department sought to avoid investigative steps that might influence an election, recognizing that election integrity is threatened when DoJ is perceived as putting its thumb on the scale,” said Stacey Young, a former justice department attorney who now leads Justice Connection, a group that supports justice department alumni.

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