Trump’s Homeland Security Rocked by Whistleblower Bombshell

Annabelle Gordon/REUTERS A whistleblower says Department of Homeland Security agents may have broken state laws while searching voting rolls for noncitizens.

The department’s “Unlawful Voter Initiative,” an operation Donald Trump has pushed as his party faces an uphill battle in the midterms, involves hundreds of agents looking through state-managed voter rolls to try to find ineligible voters.

But several concerning—and potentially illegal—aspects of this operation seem to exist.

In the whistleblower’s report, obtained by The New York Times , the individual says agents may have broken state laws at department leaders’ direction.

For instance, investigators used personally identifiable information like birth dates and partial Social Security numbers to pose as voters and search for voter records on public-facing state websites.

But in certain states, like Virginia, the law states that only individuals may access their own voter records.

The whistleblower also says the operation used questionable data DHS compiled through “supplemental magic,” and may have erroneously flagged U.S. citizens eligible to vote.

Additionally, agents have a quota of 40 reviews in a typical eight-hour workday, meaning there is considerable potential for a rushed error during a 12-minute search, on average, the whistleblower alleges.

Errors can affect individuals’ residency and immigration status.

The report says that when the whistleblower raised legal concerns with leadership in the department’s Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate, the office of the chief counsel told them the actions were permissible.

The office also added that agents “are not personally liable for conducting these searches when done as part of their official duties and properly documented.” Democracy Defenders Fund, a watchdog group that produced the report, said this response was concerning.

“This statement suggests that there may be legal implications for accessing these websites,” it said.

“Yet they are still requiring officers to engage in this illegal activity with promises of personal liability protection.” DHS disputed that conclusion.

“The Department accessed publicly available data from states’ voter rolls and cross-referenced them with known aliens in our systems.