District attorneys from major cities across the United States are pledging to take legal action against federal agents who are suspected of intimidating voters at polling places during the midterm elections.
A group of 10 district attorneys, representing cities such as Philadelphia, Minneapolis, and Dallas, plans to announce on Tuesday their commitment to investigate any incidents of voter intimidation allegedly carried out by federal agents acting under the direction of President Donald Trump.
“A federal badge is not a license to violate the Constitution, and it is not a shield from state criminal law,” stated Larry Krasner, the district attorney of Philadelphia. “We will prosecute ICE agents who break the law. There is no category of American who gets to operate above it.”
Minnesota’s Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty is also part of this coalition. She recently filed charges against an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent for shooting a man during an immigration raid.
“Federal law makes voter intimidation a crime. Minnesota law makes voter intimidation a crime,” Moriarty declared. “If ICE officers are dispatched to polling places in Hennepin County to frighten voters away from the ballot box, my office will investigate, and we will charge.”
Their announcement, shared in advance with POLITICO, follows President Trump’s refusal to dismiss the possibility of deploying the National Guard or ICE agents to polling stations to prevent what he has inaccurately described as voter fraud.
“I’d do anything necessary to make sure we have honest elections,” Trump told reporters last week. “We have to have honest elections.”
The coalition, known as the Project for the Fight Against Federal Overreach, has cautioned the Trump administration that any federal agents sent to polling places within their jurisdictions will face prosecution.
Concerns have grown among Democrats due to the Trump administration’s aggressive use of federal immigration agents and the National Guard, coupled with the president’s history of sowing doubts about election integrity. They fear he may attempt to influence the midterms through federal force deployment.
The administration has already taken steps to oversee election administration, including the Department of Justice suing several states for access to their voter registration rolls. In January, the FBI conducted a raid at Fulton County, Georgia’s election hub to obtain voting records from the 2020 election, which the president falsely claims was stolen.
In February, a Department of Homeland Security official informed election officials during a private call that immigration officers would not be stationed at polling places in November. The announcement did little to ease Democrats’ concerns at that time.
It remains uncertain whether the prosecutors’ efforts will involve collaborating with local law enforcement to prevent federal agents from accessing polling places or what the consequences might be if they determine federal agents engaged in widespread voter intimidation.
Alongside Krasner and Moriarty, the coalition consists of Travis County, Texas, district attorney José Garza; Dallas County, Texas, district attorney John Creuzot; and Pima County, Arizona, prosecutor Laura Conover. From Virginia, it includes Steve Descano of Fairfax County; Parisa Dehghani-Tafti of Arlington County; Stephanie Morales of Portsmouth; and Ramin Fatehi of Norfolk.
