DOJ Sends Target Letters to About 20 Democrats in Alaska Senate Candidate Probe

The Justice Department has sent criminal target letters to about 20 people linked to the Democratic Party in its probe of the recruitment of an Alaska Senate candidate who shares a name with Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, according to reports on Election Day, Tuesday. The New York Times reported that Marc Elias, a Democratic elections lawyer whose firm represents Democratic nominee Mary Peltola, and at least one Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee official received letters saying they could be targets. An anonymous source told the Times the DOJ is also examining possible donor fraud and conspiracy charges; when the letters were sent is unknown. On Tuesday President Donald Trump said on Fox & Friends that Elias should go to jail, and on Monday night he posted on Truth Social that independent candidate Daniel J. Sullivan was missing and that Democrats were trying to steal the race. Separately, the DOJ said it will deploy about 1,000 election monitors to all 50 states for the first time.

The New Republic and CNN, the left-leaning outlets, both lead with the letters going to Democrats. The New Republic's headline frames them as targeting Democrats right before the election and stresses Trump's remarks about Elias and Schumer and his missing-candidate posts. CNN's headline calls recipients people aligned with the Democratic party, and its excerpt says the DOJ believes they helped recruit the candidate. Newsmax, on the right, uses a flatter headline about 20 letters in a recruitment probe and says they notify Democrats they could be targets; its excerpt has no Trump quotes. The sides agree on the core facts. AP matches them, while Axios adds a distinct angle: the monitor deployment after courts rejected DOJ efforts on noncitizen voting.