Addressing this crisis of election security demands that Congress must pass the SAVE America Act…
The only reason you wouldn’t do it is you want to cheat.
That was the bottom line of Trump’s July 16th TV address on election security. In fact there is no crisis and it’s Trump who wants to cheat in order to disenfranchise millions of voters to help Republicans maintain their slim majorities in Congress.
The SAVE Act, which it appears the Senate will not pass (and in any event can’t be implemented in thousands of jurisdictions in time for the mid-term elections) would require every person who wants to register to vote to present documentary proof of US citizenship (a passport, birth certificate or naturalization papers) and a valid government picture ID (usually a drivers license) to vote.
The polling firm SSRS conducted surveys in 2023 showing that 21.3 million voting age citizens do not have ready access to a documentary proof of citizenship, mainly in groups likely to vote Democratic—minorities, married or divorced women who’ve changed their names, and young people who don’t drive. In addition, 34.5 million do not have a driver’s licenses or have one that doesn’t meet the requirements of strict voter ID laws. More than 50 percent are unsure of their states’ voter ID laws.
Fact checkers ruled that there was nothing truly “explosive” in Trump’s speech. His charge that China interfered in the 2020 election to his detriment has been debunked by the US intelligence community. The Intelligence consensus was that China considered such action but did not execute it for fear of being caught. China did gather reams of data on US voters, but it was information readily available on states’ websites or in commercial databases.
Trump claims that 278,000 noncitizens are unlawfully registered to vote—250,000 of them in California, Nevada, Pennsylvania and New Jersey—but a review of public documents and interviews with government officials and election experts show that the figures are vastly overstated and US officials have struggled to find information that would justify the Trump assertions. The administration is suing states which refuse to turn over their voter rolls, but federal courts have so far rejected the suits. Now the administration is threatening to withhold funds from states that won’t comply with its dicta and/or punish state officials who permit noncitizens to register and vote.
Trump persistently claims that he won the 2020 election, and that it was stolen from him. The Trump campaign filed 43 lawsuits to bolster its claim, but all were rejected, including by his friendly US Supreme Court. Recounts were conducted in Maricopa County, AZ, confirming a Biden victory; Georgia (two hand counts, confirming a Biden victory); Texas (an audit of 3,885,000 ballots in three Democratic counties and one Republican, confirming Trump’s victory; and in Wisconsin, recounts of Dane and Milwaukee counties, increasing Biden’s margin of victory by 87 votes.
Though Trump is fixated in public on what he considers election security, he has dismantled or downgraded agencies that dealt with exactly that. He imposed significant cuts on the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which had been the federal government’s lead partner with states, sharing cybersecurity best practices and intelligence on foreign intentions around elections. In his first term, he fired CISA’s chief, Christopher Krebs, after he validated the results of the 2020 election. In his second term he has stripped the agency of a third of its personnel.
He also has downsized the personnel of the FBI’s election security staff and the Foreign Malign Influence Center. And this month he forced out the three remaining members of the Election Assistance Commission, a bipartisan agency that supported states in administering their elections and gave cybersecurity support to the states.
For someone ostensibly concerned with election integrity, Trump has done his best to undermine Americans’ trust in voting. After he lost the 2020 election—and was told by officials of his administration that he lost— he mounted a multi-faceted campaign to steal it for himself, culminating in the violent assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, followed by giving blanket amnesty to those convicted or charged with organizing or participating in the riot designed to reverse the result of the election.
Other Outrages
Todd Blanche Confirmation
Earlier this month, Trump’s nominee to be Attorney General, Todd Blanche, said it would be against the law for him to meet with survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual exploitation system. But, to save his chances to be confirmed, he did meet with a group of survivors last Thursday, which suggests his claim it was against the law was a disingenuous excuse for dodging a meeting.
When he did meet with survivors, it didn’t go well.
After the meeting, survivors called him condescending and evasive and accused him of meeting with them solely to win support from Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), who said his vote for Blanche’s confirmation depended on his meeting with survivors. Despite the survivors’ blasting Blanche after the meeting, Tillis seemed satisfied that Blanche had met his challenge.
Blanche said at first he’d had a “productive initial discussion” with a small group of survivors. But he later told reporters “it wasn’t all cordial.”
“Because there’s something they want that I don’t think I can give them, which is some form of justice. And I want to be able to give justice in the form of prosecutions, and maybe we can do a prosecution at some point. I don’t know.”
Even though Blanche has quickly mounted prosecutions Trump has ordered against his adversaries, notably former FBI Director James Comey, Blanche seems reluctant to pursue men who victimized scores of young women.
One victim, Annie Farmer, said “After meeting with Todd Blanche, I feel even more confident in urging Senators to vote against confirming him as Attorney General of the United States…. I found him abrasive, condescending and intentionally non-committal to survivors… While quick to point out the failures of previous administrations, he refused to take accountability for mistakes made under his own leadership.”
Republicans have justifiably criticized Joe Biden’s Attorney General, Merrick Garland, for inaction on Epstein’s crimes, but there is plenty to criticize Blanche for also. He was in full charge of reviewing the Justice Department’s voluminous Epstein files. Trump opposed the release and Blanche did not release them until Congress passed the Epstein Transparency Act, calling for full release with redactions only to protect the identities of victims.
Blanche’s first release was several hundred pages long (out of a total of 3.5 million pages eventually released and 6 million in the full files). Blanche indicated that the release was complete, and that limits in the law were strictly followed. But critics in Congress said the release was incomplete, riddled with redactions and contained “thousands of mistakes.” The most serious of these was identifying victims, causing trauma and rage among the survivors. Blanche played down the disclosures, claiming they represented “.001 percent of all the material.”
There were four more releases as DoJ sought to correct its errors, but the last of these, on Jan. 6, 2026, contained 3.5 million pages and DoJ said there would be no more. ABC News said there were still identities of victims in the material and victims’ lawyers said there remained “thousands of errors.”
Pam Bondi, Trump’s original AG, was fired—largely for mishandling the Epstein files, but she made clear that Blanche, now promoted from Deputy Attorney General to Acting Attorney General, was fully responsible for handling the files.
In his Senate confirmation hearing, Blanche was asked if he was Trump’s friend. He replied, “I’m his lawyer,” then quickly added “was his lawyer.” He indeed was Trump’s lead defense counsel—in the Stormy Daniels money gathering case, the federal classified documents and the federal election obstruction case before joining DoJ. But critics leapt on his misstatement as a confession that he still represents Trump first and the American people last.
In that capacity, he has investigated or indicted Trump adversaries, besides Comey, former CIA Director John Brennan, federal prosecutors Jack Smith and Alvin Bragg; prominent Democrats Tim Walz, US Senators Adam Schiff, Mark Kelly and Elissa Slotkin, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and former Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.
He also conducted a two-day interview with Epstein’s partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, who’s serving 20 years in jail for child sex trafficking. After Maxwell said she never saw Trump doing anything wrong, she was suddenly transferred from a medium security prison to what’s referred to as a “country club” prison, where sex offenders otherwise are never housed.
In a scandal condemned by both parties and federal judges, Blanche was a central figure in permitting Trump to convert a $10 billion lawsuit against the federal government (that is, himself) into a $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund available to persons who claim they have been unjustly pursued by the Justice Department. The fund was widely assumed to be another reward for Jan. 6 rioters, several of whom applied for grants. Under pressure, Blanche has said the fund is “dead,” but so far has declined to put that in writing.
Blanche also personally created an addendum to the fund—a “get out of jail free” permanent immunity grant from financial audits or prosecution to Trump, his sons and his companies for transactions prior to this May. Both Trump and Blanche were blasted in an opinion by US District Judge Kathleen Williams. She denounced Trump for filing a dishonest lawsuit intended to be “settled” tapping the US Treasury for billions to benefit his friends and supporters. And Blanche, she said, was Trump’s enabler. She referred him to the New York bar for possible disciplinary action.
She wrote that she was “extremely troubled” by testimony Blanche gave to the Senate in May. Blanche asserted at his hearing that the settlement agreement had been dismissed and there was ‘no mechanism’ for reviewing the agreement.
The Senate should be “extremely troubled” by Blanche’s actions in service of Trump—and reject his appointment.
The ICE Pack Grows Again
When on earth is Congress going to investigate the Trump administration’s mass deportation immigration policy, which has just led to the second killing of an innocent man in a week, the fifth this year and eighth in Trump’s second term. Some 52 people have died in ICE detention centers.
The first killed last week, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, was not the target of any federal apprehension effort. But unmarked ICE vehicles chased him down and fired through his windshield, killing him. ICE claimed he tried to use his work van as a weapon against them, but passengers in his van denied that. They are still in detention. The FBI, without testing, said that Salgado’s van contained small bags of what appeared to be methamphetamine, a clear attempt to discredit the victim. When the bags’ contents were examined, they proved to be salt.
Officials in Harris County (Houston), Texas said that ICE was not sharing details of the shooting so they could not conduct their own investigation. The ICE agents were not wearing body cameras.
The second victim was Joan Sebastian Guerrero, a 25-year-old citizen of Colombia who was working legally in the US. He, too, was not a target of investigation. ICE officers apparently mistook Guerrero for another person who was sought by them and gave chase. ICE agents said the driver of the car attempted to flee and was shot through his front windshield. His three-year-old daughter was in the car with him.
After the shooting, the car made an uncontrolled circle, then was blocked by an ICE vehicle. After it stopped, ICE agents pulled Guerrero from his car, bouncing his head on the street before handcuffing his lifeless body. The Department of Homeland Security said the ICE officers fired because they “feared for public safety,” not because Guerrero posed a danger to them. A witness said he heard Guerrero say, “I was trying to stop” before he died. The killing sparked angry protests in Biddeford, Maine, and throughout the state, with Sens. Angus King and Susan Collins calling for a full investigation. Instead of treating the street where Guerrero died as a crime scene, ICE and Biddeford police allowed his blood to stain the street until it was washed away by a city truck.
After those killings, the Department of Homeland Security ordered a temporary pause in vehicle apprehensions, but that policy was reversed by the White House almost immediately. Detaining someone in a car or on the street is easier than knocking on an immigrant’s door, which may not be answered. (Unless ICE breaks down the door for a no-warrant arrest. Or pulls a US citizen out of his home in the cold with little but his underwear on. Or separates a child from his family.)
In addition to the recent killings in Houston and Biddeford, and before that, in Minneapolis, in May, a young man in Memphis, TN, Jonah Neal, was having a mental breakdown. His mother called 911, but instead of Memphis police or a crisis management expert showing up, an ICE agent appeared and told Mrs. Neal to leave the house. Minutes later, she heard a shot. The ICE agent, for unknown reasons, killed the young man.
And in addition to all that, TV network MS Now carried video of five ICE agents holding a man down in a field and mercilessly beating and kicking him. The Department of Homeland Security claimed he was resisting arrest, though he was not in a position to do so as he was being pummeled.
ICE is deeply unpopular: a recent Marist poll shows that by 60-33, the public disapproves of its performance. A Reuters/Ipsos poll shows that by 53-39, the public disapproves of Trump’s handling of immigration, and a Public Policy Research Institute poll shows he is underwater on the issue, 61-35.
So the policy being pursued now is a political burden for Republicans and an opportunity for Democrats, though they have yet to make ICE’s often-violent detention tactics the major 2026 campaign issue that it deserves to be.
Immigration enforcement is now funded at $240 billion—$170 billion approved last year plus an additional $70 billion this year. ICE is now the nation’s best-funded law enforcement agency, though it has failed to carry out its stated mission of deporting hardened criminals—the “worst of the worst.” Independent studies show that 78% of those in ICE detention centers have no criminal records at all and among those who do have records, the majority are for minor offenses such as traffic violations immigration offenses. Only 5% of detainees were shown to had arrests or convictions for violent crimes.
The real reasons for Trump’s “mass deportation” policy seem to be ideological and nativist. Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, the chief driver of ever-larger detention quotas, said during a 2024 campaign speech that “America is for Americans—and Americans only.”
Congress ought to be reforming the US immigration system. It’s stupid to deport all illegals. We need their labor and their contribution to our Social Security. And we should totally recast ICE, its leadership, personnel recruitment and training. We don’t need masked thugs.
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