Ex-White House Aide Predicts Legal Chaos After Midterms

The Alaska Senate race has become the first test of how far the Trump administration will push to keep Democrats out of power. Miles Taylor, who served as chief of staff to former Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, warned on Friday that the current dispute is just the beginning of a long legal fight.

Taylor told reporters that President Donald Trump and the Department of Justice are preparing a flurry of litigation. He said the administration does not plan to accept losses the way it would in an ordinary election cycle. Instead, officials expect to challenge results even if non-Republican candidates win their races.

The immediate trigger is the confusing ballot in Alaska. Voters choose between Democrat Mary Peltola and two men named Dan Sullivan. One is the Republican incumbent. The other is a dark-horse candidate, Daniel J. Sullivan. The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit arguing that if the incumbent loses, the election results should be blocked.

The Justice Department claims the presence of the second Sullivan was part of a scheme to mislead voters. Recent reports from The New York Times alleged that Peltola’s campaign helped recruit him because of his name. Both Peltola’s team and Daniel J. Sullivan have denied those allegations. A sample of the ballot shows the visual difference between the two candidates is small.

Taylor described the situation as a bellwether for a messy post-election period. He said he does not want to predict the worst-case scenario where Congress refuses to seat elected officials. However, he noted that the administration is already showing signs of a difficult fight to allow the democratic process to move forward.

Legal experts question the strength of the federal government’s case. Lisa Rubin, a senior legal reporter for MS NOW, argued that the dark-horse candidate’s eligibility is no longer in question. An Alaska Superior Court judge overturned an initial disqualification in June. The Alaska Supreme Court later ordered that he be included on the ballot.

Rubin stated that the Alaska Supreme Court decided under state law and the federal Constitution that Daniel J. Sullivan is allowed to remain on the ballot. The Department of Justice did not intervene in that state-level decision. She argued that the question of whether the candidate had bad motives does not make the situation actionable under the National Voter Registration Act or the Supremacy Clause.