Michigan state and local officials are ready for a showdown with the Justice Department over election data, expressing concern that election offices in the state could be targets of FBI search warrants.
The Justice Department has sought ballots and election records related to the 2024 election from Wayne County, which includes Detroit, Fox News reported.
The Justice Department’s request didn’t specify how many records, but Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, said in a letter to the department that 864,767 ballots were cast in the 2024 election.
She referred several times to the recent FBI raid seeking election documents in Georgia. However, the Fulton County, Georgia, raid—and the FBI subsequently obtaining election records from Maricopa County, Arizona—pertained to the 2020 election.
“I am dismayed that it appears you have decided to move forward on theories similar to those deployed in Fulton County, in Michigan,” Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, said in a letter Friday to U.S. Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon.
Nessel later added, “Much like Fulton County, the city of Detroit became the target of efforts to overturn the 2020 election.”
While Nessel is raising the Fulton County comparison, the Justice Department is seeking information from the 2024 election.
On April 14, Dhillon wrote to Wayne County Clerk Cathy Garrett and asked for “all ballots (including absentee and provisional), ballot receipts, and ballot envelopes” from the November 2024 federal election.
Dhillon’s letter said the request was based on a “history of fraud convictions and other allegations” in Wayne County and warned that failure to comply “may result in the United States seeking a court order for production of such records.”
The Justice Department is suing 29 states and the District of Columbia for not providing requested election records, while 16 states have voluntarily provided the information.
When the FBI obtained election records from Maricopa County, Arizona, those were provided by the state Senate, which already had the information after conducting a 2021 audit.
