U.S. Attorney Michael J. Heyman and FBI Anchorage Special Agent in Charge Matthew Schlegel held a press conference Friday about the ballot scheme involving Mary Petola’s campaign.
“Anyone who tries to illegally deceive voters and interfere with the election will answer for it,” Heyman said. “We are aware of the recent New York Times reporting regarding the Petola campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee that they orchestrated a sprawling conspiracy, to recruit and prop up Daniel J. Sullivan as a sham candidate, and we are taking that extremely seriously.”
He said there is both a civil and criminal investigation underway.
“The civil lawsuit is publicly faced and is focused on preserving the ballots versus the criminal investigation on the other side. Each investigation will follow facts in its own right,” Heyman told reporters. The DOJ is also filing a motion for a preliminary injunction in the pending civil case and is seeking expedited discovery by Monday concerning the election-related issues raised in the civil complaint.
Peltola has dismissed the bombshell report as a distraction. “This is all stuff to sell newspapers,” she said. “This is all stuff to get subscriptions.”
But the growing federal response comes after the Justice Department sent subpoenas to Democrat Mary Peltola’s Senate campaign and the campaign of the second Dan Sullivan running in Alaska following a report that leftist operatives recruited the challenger to confuse voters and draw votes from the Republican incumbent, Sen. Dan S. Sullivan.
A U.S. official told NBC News that investigators had issued at least three dozen new subpoenas and document preservation requests.
The Associated Press reported that the DOJ had issued grand jury subpoenas. ABC News reported that prosecutors are investigating whether the effort to put the second Sullivan on the ballot could violate federal conspiracy statutes.
The reporting matches Heyman’s assertion about a surge of federal resources going into the investigation.
“This new information has resulted in a significant surge of law enforcement assets to Alaska, and I have assigned several attorneys in my office to assist in the matter as well,” he said.
Heyman said he had been recused from the case until yesterday, when he became the lead attorney overseeing the investigation. A CNN reporter pressed him on the circumstances surrounding the reversal.
“There is an internal process by which the Department of Justice can review that recusal. The facts and circumstances that gave rise to the initial recusal are no longer applicable,” he said. “I was being considered for a judicial nomination. The White House has nominated someone else for that position, so the facts and circumstances have changed, and they’ve decided to rescind—not unrecuse.”
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