White House’s chilling warning about midterm elections: ‘Can’t guarantee an ICE agent won’t be around polling locations’
Threat of stationing immigration agents around voting locations has become a concern as it can be a deterrent to legal residents of color who are concerned they may be harassed by federal agents
The White House has refused to rule out the possibility of carrying out its threat to send Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to “surf” polling places during the November midterm elections, in an effort to discourage Democratic voter turnout and increase Republicans’ chances of gaining control of the House of Representatives and the Senate.
White House Press Secretary Carolyn Leavitt said Thursday that she could offer “no guarantees” that ICE agents would not be present at polling places as Americans decide whether or not to maintain Republican control of the House and Senate.
On Tuesday, during her podcast “The War Room,” Ms. Leavitt was asked about former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon’s call for Donald Trump to deploy ICE agents around polling places, just days after Trump himself urged Republicans to “take control” of the vote count in Democratic-run states and municipalities.
Mr. Bannon endorsed Trump’s proposal that his party should control the voting machines and the vote-counting process, telling his listeners, “We will absolutely have ICE agents around polling places in November.”
When asked whether Trump would follow Bannon’s advice, Levitt dodged the question, telling reporters that she had “never heard the president mention” the idea of deploying ICE agents around polling places.
When pressed to guarantee that Trump would prevent ICE agents from voting, she replied, “I cannot guarantee that there will not be an ICE agent near a polling place in November,” calling the question “absurdly hypothetical” and “misleading,” and stating that she had never heard Trump “discuss any concrete plans on this matter.”
Levitt’s remarks come just a week after FBI agents, accompanied by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, executed a search warrant at election offices in Fulton County, Georgia, seizing ballots and other documents related to the November 2020 election lost by Trump to his successor, Joe Biden.
Gabard’s presence during the search has raised concerns among Democrats and legal experts, who have pointed out that the former Hawaii congresswoman’s position does not give her the authority to conduct local law enforcement operations or to be present during a search of an election office in the United States.
Trump himself has focused his efforts on Fulton County since it saw record Black voter turnout in the 2020 election, making him the first Republican to lose Georgia since former President George H.W. Bush lost the state to Bill Clinton in the 1992 presidential election.
According to some sources, Gabbard used his cell phone to facilitate a call between Trump and the agents searching the premises. Trump himself stated last week that the Director of National Intelligence was on site “doing everything possible to ensure the security of the election.”
In a letter released last week, she stated that her presence in Atlanta was “at the President’s request and within my broad legal authority to coordinate, integrate, and analyze intelligence related to election security.” However, Trump contradicted this version in a speech Thursday at the National Prayer Breakfast, claiming that Gabbard had gone there at the request of Attorney General Pam Bondi.
When asked about this contradiction, Leavitt did not directly address the issue, simply stating that Gabbard was there “to ensure that the American elections are free from foreign interference and conducted securely.”
She added, “It was the media that alleged Russian interference in the American elections… You should all be glad that we finally have an administration that is investigating this matter.” “
The Justice Department and the Senate Intelligence Committee—then chaired by Florida Senator Marco Rubio—both released detailed reports on what former FBI Director Robert Mueller described as a “broad and systematic” campaign by the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 election in favor of Trump through multiple channels.
Levitt, however, did not specify the nature of this alleged foreign interference, if any, in the 2020 election.
Three recounts conducted by Georgia officials confirmed Biden’s victory in that state that year.
Despite this, Trump continues to claim victory, despite the complete lack of evidence.” During an interview on Dan Bongino’s recently relaunched podcast, Trump promoted a racist conspiracy theory claiming that Democratic opposition to strict immigration policies was part of a deliberate attempt to inflate voter rolls with undocumented immigrants, even though non-citizens are disenfranchised and rarely vote.
The president asserted that the Biden administration’s dismantling of border policies implemented during his first term was designed to boost Democrats’ chances in elections. He argued that Republicans in Congress should respond by taking control of elections in Democratic-held districts, even though the U.S. Constitution assigns this responsibility to states and local governments, not the federal government.
He stated, “People have come to our country to vote, and they are voting illegally… It’s incredible that Republicans aren’t taking a tougher stance.” Republicans should say, “We want control.”
Trump then claimed that the Republican Party “should control the election process in at least 15 states” and “universalize” voting, in defiance of the Constitution, because those states are “very corrupt.”
He told Bongino that there were “states I won that prove otherwise,” and suggested that listeners “would see something in Georgia” after the FBI seized ballots that were recounted three times that year, each recount confirming his defeat to Biden by 11,779 votes.
“You’re going to see some interesting things,” Trump asserted. “But you know, like in 2020, I won that election by a landslide.”
