According to a new report from The New York Times, the U.S. Department of Justice is considering criminal charges against election officials whom the Trump administration deems as not sufficiently safeguarding their computer systems, including voting machines.
[Note: President Donald Trump, who has long maintained that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged” against him, recently called for a special prosecutor to be appointed to investigate the election even though dozens of lawsuits challenging the results of the election failed due to a lack of sufficient evidence.]
Former U.S. Attorney and Deputy Assistant Attorney General Harry Litman responded to the Times report by revealing his “number one fear” about President Donald Trump and the conservative-heavy U.S. Supreme Court. (During his first administration, Trump appointed Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh.)
On MSNBC, Litman said: “My number one fear that keeps me up at night is the Supreme Court greenlights some emergency powers for the president, that they give him deference so they don’t second-guess the predicates, and he somehow makes the totally bogus assertion that the elections are fraudulent.”
Harry Litman: “My number one fear that keeps me up at night is the Supreme Court greenlights some emergency powers for the president, that they give him deference so they don’t second-guess the predicates, and [Trump] somehow makes the totally bogus assertion that the elections… pic.twitter.com/azvDJEX52v
— Blue Georgia (@BlueATLGeorgia) July 6, 2025
Litman, who clerked for Supreme Court justices Thurgood Marshall and Anthony Kennedy, isn’t the only legal expert who is fearful of such a power grab.
Stanford Law graduate Dax Goldstein, director of election protection at the nonprofit organization States United Democracy Center, told the Times that even though U.S. elections are safe and secure, the “DOJ has the full power of the federal government behind it…And under the guise of election integrity, they could end up using their unique tools to introduce new vulnerabilities to the system.”
Note: The advisory board of the States United Democracy Center includes several Republicans who held cabinet positions during the George W. Bush administration including Tom Ridge, Christine Todd Whitman, Michael Chertoff, and former RNC Chair Michael Steele, among others.