Dem
47
GOP
53
The government has a message for everyone: If you do anything we don't like, we'll come after you. If we have to make up some bogus charge, we'll make up a bogus charge. Obey us or else. And no, we are not talking about the Chinese government here, but the American one. As we have written before, a retired Alaska teacher, Dan Sullivan, is running for the Senate. Alaska Secretary of State Carol Beecher kicked him off the ballot because she said he was not running in good faith. Then a judge ruled that nothing in the law or Constitution required a candidate to run in good faith, so ballots were printed and his name is on them.
Donald Trump routinely uses the DoJ as his personal enforcer, mafia style, and so this could not stand. The DoJ is now investigating Sullivan for wire fraud or conspiracy or something, just to make sure that anyone, anywhere who was thinking of challenging Trump or the Republicans in any way, thinks twice. If the DoJ indicts Teacher Sullivan on some made-up charge, the first judge to get the case will toss it out immediately. Acting AG Todd Blanche knows that and doesn't care. He doesn't expect a conviction. What he wants is to force Sullivan to spend a lot of money on lawyers and distract him from actually campaigning. The court case is irrelevant. He also wants to send everyone else a message about exercising their constitutional rights. The message is: Guess what? You don't have any rights anymore. New sheriff in town.
We don't know yet how serious Sullivan is. He could start a campaign on GoFundMe to raise money to pay his legal expenses. He could also use the publicity to collect campaign donations and actually run a campaign of sorts. DoJ's power play could backfire and turn Sullivan into a more serious candidate, especially if he sets up a website with some conservative platitudes, so some Republican voters might actually think he was worth voting for. He could run as a never-Trump Republican. There could be votes to be had for that. (V)