DOJ sends target letters to Marc Elias and other Democrats over decoy Dan Sullivan candidacy
The Justice Department is sending more than 20 target and document preservation letters in its investigation into an alleged effort to recruit a second Dan Sullivan to siphon votes from Alaska’s Republican senator, the Washington Examiner has learned. The letters went out to 20 recipients, including potential targets and third parties asked to preserve records, […]
The Justice Department is sending more than 20 target and document preservation letters in its investigation into an alleged effort to recruit a second Dan Sullivan to siphon votes from Alaska’s Republican senator, the Washington Examiner has learned.
The letters went out to 20 recipients, including potential targets and third parties asked to preserve records, according to sources familiar with the matter. The department’s planning tracks with an earlier New York Times report that Democratic elections lawyer Marc Elias and at least one Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee official were among the recipients of the letters, though it is unclear if Elias is a specific target. Investigators are examining possible donor fraud and conspiracy charges, according to the newspaper.
” data-large-file=”https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/doj-sends-target-letters-to-marc-elias-and-other-democrats-over-decoy-dan-sullivan-candidacy.webp?w=1024″ src=”https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/doj-sends-target-letters-to-marc-elias-and-other-democrats-over-decoy-dan-sullivan-candidacy.webp” alt=”Attorney Marc Elias stands on the plaza of the Supreme Court in Washington, March 21, 2016. ” class=”wp-image-4790014″ srcset=”https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/doj-sends-target-letters-to-marc-elias-and-other-democrats-over-decoy-dan-sullivan-candidacy.webp 1024w, https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/doj-sends-target-letters-to-marc-elias-and-other-democrats-over-decoy-dan-sullivan-candidacy.webp?resize=300,218 300w, https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/doj-sends-target-letters-to-marc-elias-and-other-democrats-over-decoy-dan-sullivan-candidacy.webp?resize=768,559 768w” sizes=”auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px”>Attorney Marc Elias stands on the plaza of the Supreme Court in Washington, March 21, 2016. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
The escalation comes on Election Day as Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) faces Democrat Mary Peltola. Elias’s firm, the Elias Law Group, has represented Peltola and other Democratic candidates, with her campaign paying ELG as much as $150,000, per Federal Election Commission records.
Elias, a former campaign attorney to Hillary Clinton, responded earlier Tuesday to President Donald Trump’s statement on Fox News that the lawyer was “a very bad guy” who “should go to jail in my opinion.”
“It’s Election Day and Donald Trump is calling for the Democratic Party’s leading election lawyer, someone who has humiliated him and his lawyers in scores of cases, to be jailed,” Elias wrote on X. “This is not normal and yet here we are.”
There were more than 20 recipients of the letters, though not all of them were named targets of the investigation. Preservation requests do not necessarily indicate that recipients are targets under investigation. Target letters do not establish guilt or guarantee charges.
A spokesperson for the DOJ declined to comment to the Washington Examiner, saying, “The Department cannot discuss ongoing investigations.”
Notably, Elias’s post did not address Trump’s allegation that he was involved in the Sullivan recruitment effort. The Washington Examiner contacted his law firm for a response.
Attorney General Todd Blanche declined to confirm the target letters when asked Tuesday afternoon by Fox News’s Martha MacCallum, but he defended the investigation. Reports indicate the department has issued 120 subpoenas related to the investigation.
“This is a situation where everybody agrees that there is a fraud on the ballot,” Blanche said. “Everybody agrees that there is a man running that doesn’t want to run, that doesn’t expect to be senator, that is only running to confuse Alaskan voters.”
The investigation concerns Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., a retired teacher whose name appears alongside the incumbent’s on Alaska’s ballot. The newspaper first reported on Oct. 28 that Democratic operatives linked to the Peltola campaign helped recruit him to draw support away from the senator by confusing voters.
Democrats have defended recruiting additional candidates as a familiar tactic known as ballot stacking and accused the administration of using prosecutors for political purposes. However, Republicans have pointed out that the Democratic operatives involved sought someone with a name identical to the incumbent’s, which goes beyond what is traditionally considered ballot stacking.
State ballot eligibility, however, does not resolve whether a recruitment effort alone violates federal law. The federal conspiracy-against-rights statute, 18 U.S.C. § 241, prohibits agreements to interfere with protected rights. If prosecutors pursued that theory, they would need to prove an agreement and specific intent to interfere with voting rights, rather than simply an effort to recruit another candidate.
“The right, properly understood, is the right to cast a ballot for the candidate of one’s choice,” conservative lawyer Will Chamberlain wrote in a piece analyzing the DOJ’s options. “The conspiracy here was to put two Dan Sullivans on the ballot and deceive people about whom they were voting for, about the literal identity of the people on the ballot.”
The criminal investigation remains separate from the DOJ’s civil lawsuit that was dismissed Sunday. U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, found the department lacked standing because it offered no workable remedy for alleged voter confusion while preserving ballot secrecy.
The DOJ sought to delay certification if the incumbent lost and votes for the second Sullivan could have changed the outcome. Gleason dismissed the case without prejudice without deciding whether the alleged recruitment operation was illegal.
The New York Times linked it to the alleged recruitment operation, and it subsequently represented Peltola’s campaign and the DSCC in their effort to defeat the DOJ’s certification lawsuit.
Elias personally celebrated that intervention, declaring, “We will win this case, Mary will win this election, she will be certified and seated.” The DOJ has said it intends to appeal.
