It turns out that DHS officers were told by department counsel to break the law in their search for non-existent non-citizen voting fraud.
I can haz disbarrment?
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) lawyers told officers investigating voter fraud they would not be held responsible for violating state laws around accessing voter registration information, an anonymous whistleblower revealed on Monday. DHS officers also had concerns about the reliability of the data they were working with, the whistleblower said.
The Trump administration has ramped up its investigation into noncitizen voting ahead of the midterm elections. Noncitizen voting is extremely rare and the effort has only turned up a handful of cases so far.
As part of the effort, officers tasked with investigating potential non-citizen voters were told to take data DHS had compiled on voters and run it through state websites where voters can look up their voter information. Some states require voters to click attestations affirming that they are looking up their own voter information. On the Virginia Department of Elections website, for example, voters must click a disclaimer that says: “I certify and affirm that the information provided to access my voter registration is my own or I am expressly authorized by the voter to access this information. I understand that it is unlawful to access the record of any other voter, punishable as computer fraud.”
“In light of these instructions about access to the state websites, officers expressed concerns that accessing registered voter information on these websites may be illegal as officers are essentially misrepresenting themselves as the potential registered voter (with or without a specific attestation),” lawyers for Democracy Defenders Fund, who is representing the whistleblower, wrote in the disclosure.
I'm an engineer, not a lawyer, dammit* but it does seem to me specifically instructing your client to break the law should be cause for these lawyers to lose their license to practice.
*I love it when I get to go all Dr. McCoy!
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