Attorney General Todd Blanche told CNN's Dana Bash on Sunday to "stop it" when she asked whether the Justice Department's Alaska Senate lawsuit is groundwork for overturning an election - insisting "We're not laying any 'groundwork' for the president to do that, so your premise, your question, is not true!" he said.
Bash, on State of the Union, referred to a "doomsday scenario" that Blanche had described days earlier, and asked whether Trump was positioning himself to overturn a result he did not like. "Oh, stop it," Blanche answered. "You are not being a real person. Come on, man." Bash replied, "Why are you yelling at me?" and said she "would have said that 'before Jan. 6.'" Blanche called the question "crazy," and then "not a real question."
The suit at the center of it was filed on Thursday, Oct. 22, against the state of Alaska. It asks a federal court to bar Alaska from certifying its Senate result in certain circumstances while the Justice Department investigates whether voters were confused by a second "Dan Sullivan" on the ballot. Incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan faces former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola. Daniel J. Sullivan, a former teacher with the same name, CBS News reports, announced his candidacy in June.
The Justice Department's own framing is narrower than the headlines. Blanche said the filing "does not seek to stop any ballot from being cast or to stop the certification of Alaska's election," the Daily Caller reports. On Face the Nation the same morning he told CBS's Margaret Brennan the suit was not "saying, 'don't certify,'" and that the state should not certify only if a court found the race was decided "because of confusion, and not the will of the voters." He called it "the Department of Justice doing our own research under the law," and said the aim was to "put guardrails in place" so ballots could be preserved to determine whether there was confusion.
The Alaska courts have already looked at the name overlap, and ruled against removing him. An election official found Daniel J. Sullivan ineligible, citing a "determined effort and a deliberate attempt" to confuse voters, CBS reports. He appealed, and the state Supreme Court affirmed that he could appear on the ballot. Blanche said the administration had hoped the court "would actually issue an opinion and explain their reasoning."
Blanche also conceded the outcome is open. "We don't know what's going to happen yet," he said. Asked about Trump's remark that "I'm the one that said, 'do it,'" he said he had "no idea" to whom the president was referring.
The suit has opponents on the right. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said, "The Department of Justice should never have filed this lawsuit." Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said it was appropriate "to take a look at" the situation, but added: "I do mind the appearance of filing a lawsuit before we even know if the facts..." The Peltola campaign called the suit "a despicable political threat to overturn an election." The ACLU has challenged it, arguing the federal government lacks authority over certification under the National Voter Registration Act, the Daily Caller reports.
The filing came 11 days before Election Day, Blanche said. As ZeroHedge reported when Trump first floated "powerful legal options" against the other Sullivan, the second candidate took only 2.5% of the primary vote. Alaska uses ranked-choice voting, and the suit's trigger is a result in which the incumbent loses but would have won had every vote for the other Sullivan gone to him.