LOS ANGELES — The Department of Justice confirmed Tuesday that it has opened a criminal investigation into Los Angeles County election officials for counting ballots.
The probe, authorized by appointees loyal to Rancid Orange Fuck-Nuckle, landed three days before the midterms. It targets roughly 20,000 ballots that a federal judge had already ordered must be counted.
The department had already lost a civil case asking the same judge to block the count. Judge David O. Carter declined. He wrote that federal law bars systemic voter roll purges after Aug. 5.
"Never before in American history has the federal government on the eve of an election sought to coerce a state and local government to abandon their own constitutional elections procedures," Carter wrote.
The subpoenas do not mention that part. A department spokesman said the probe would examine whether local officials broke federal law by following state law.
"This is not about intimidation. It is about confirming that an election procedure becomes a crime when the executive branch starts to lose," said the spokesman, Alan Reed.
The investigation seeks communications between county officials and California Secretary of State Shirley Weber. Weber has not commented.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta called the move a "surgical assault on the machinery of democracy." He added that the state would not surrender its voter rolls.
Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill in September making it a felony for law enforcement to seize ballots. State officials drafted the law after the former president threatened to prosecute local officials who counted disputed ballots.
The department has not explained how its criminal theory works. The civil case failed. The ballots are legal. Counting them is required by state law.
That did not stop the grand jury subpoenas from going out. They demand records, communications, and data from the very officials who were just told by a court to do their jobs.
The department also asked for the names of any election worker who touched a ballot that was later counted. A DOJ official called those workers persons of interest, then corrected the term to "defendants pending probable cause."
A separate group of former federal prosecutors announced the Rule of Law Project this week. It will build criminal cases the current department refuses to bring. The group said it would preserve them for state or future federal prosecutors.
The goal is to keep the evidence safe until the statute of limitations runs out on the current approach to law enforcement.
In Los Angeles, workers continued counting the 20,000 ballots. The department said it would review that conduct too.
A DOJ motion asked a federal magistrate to seal the subpoenas. The request was denied.
