The Next Attorney General Will Probably Be an Election Denier

Monday afternoon, a call for “election integrity” hosted by conservative podcaster Steve Stern featured a who’s who of election deniers rehashing years-old conspiracy theories about rigged elections and hijacked voting machines.

These kinds of calls have been happening for years. But unlike similar calls I listened to in 2021 and 2022, which were filled with then-unknown activists mostly shouting into the void, this call was made up of people who allegedly participated in President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. They claim to still have the president’s ear when it comes to trying to undermine democratic elections in the United States.

And as Trump prepares to choose his next attorney general following his decision last week to fire Pam Bondi, some of these numbers claim to have already weighed in.

A number of speakers lamented that, despite the advantage of having Trump in office, the Justice Department is dropping the ball when it comes to making real changes to the way elections are conducted in the country — a matter reserved, under the Constitution, for the states and Congress.

“The fact that these matters are not being investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent” — the “things” he was referring to were allegations that voting machines were used to rig the election — “finds me deeply troubling, because it means that some people on our side, or allegedly on our side, are literally dropping and blocking and tackling,” said John Eastman, the architect of the effort to overturn the 2020 election, which is now a senior member of the influential far-right. The Claremont Institute think tank announced Monday’s call.

Michael Flynn, a disgraced former national security adviser, agreed, adding, “We just wasted a year without achieving what the Justice Department should have achieved,” before calling members of the agency “deep state goops.”

In fact, the DOJ has worked hard to undermine confidence in elections, filing dozens of lawsuits against states demanding that they share unredacted voter rolls. He also dismantled the highly respected elections section within the Civil Rights Division, replacing experienced lawyers with Trump loyalists who propagated election conspiracies. Flynn wasn’t the only one unimpressed, however.

“Pam Bondi has been terrible, no arrests of terrible deep state and Democratic thieves, frauds and traitors, no arrests of any kind,” said Wayne Root, a right-wing radio host who previously promoted the false conspiracy around former President Barack Obama’s birth certificate. “We need to change that. I hope he finds the right attorney general. I’ve given him some good suggestions.” Root claimed he urged the president to fire Bondi shortly before she was removed from office.

He also claimed on the call that he sent a text message to Trump last month urging him to sign an executive order on mail-in voting. A few days later, Root said, Trump signed the order. (Root would not tell WIRED whether the president responded. “The president is the only one who decides whether and when to sign an executive order,” Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, told WIRED.)

Root’s shortlist includes many favorites for the role of attorney general, but all those tipped to replace Bondi permanently have significant bona fides when it comes to promoting Holocaust denial conspiracy theories.

Todd Blanche, the current acting attorney general, is familiar with Trump’s claims about rigged elections. Blanche, who served as Bondi’s deputy attorney general, was previously Trump’s personal attorney and worked on teams defending the president against charges related to Stormy Daniels, retaining classified documents and obstructing federal elections.