Smoke is seen over buildings after explosions and low-flying aircraft were heard on Jan. 3, 2026 in Caracas, Venezuela. According to some reports, explosions were heard in Caracas and other cities near airports and military bases around 2 a.m. (Photo by Jesus Vargas/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Saturday that the United States will “run the country” of Venezuela until “a proper transition can take place,” following the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in a strike against the South American nation, a stunning move conducted without congressional notice or approval.

Trump in a press conference from his Florida estate made it clear how much the secret military operation earlier Saturday related to securing oil, and he detailed how petroleum companies would finance the rebuilding of Venezuela’s oil infrastructure. 

Trump as well as Secretary of State Marco Rubio also signaled other countries, such as Cuba, could face the same interventionist fate as Venezuela. “If I lived in Havana and worked for the government I’d be concerned,” Rubio said, referring to the communist nation’s capital. 

Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, who was also captured, will be brought to New York to face a U.S. indictment on narco-terrorism and conspiracy charges originally levied in 2020. The Venezuelan’s reelection to the presidency in 2024 was determined by many countries, including the U.S., to be illegitimate, and he has been characterized by the administration as the leader of a drug cartel.

“This extremely successful operation should serve as (a) warning to anyone who would threaten American sovereignty or endanger American lives,” Trump said. “What happened to Maduro could happen to them.”

The military strike quickly drew strong rebukes from Democratic lawmakers, who said the action superseded Congress’ authority to declare war. It’s also caused deep concern among world leaders, some of whom pushed for an emergency United Nations meeting.

However, Republicans in Congress stood by the president’s decision, saying it was justified.

No timeline for US involvement

Trump did not give a timeline for how long the unusual U.S. intervention in Venezuela might go on, but said the next year would look different for the nation. 

“We are going to run the country until such time that we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” Trump said. He added that the U.S. would make Venezuela safe for “the great people of Venezuela, and that includes many from Venezuela that are now living in the United States and want to go back to their country.” 

Since taking office, the Trump administration has tried to end temporary and humanitarian legal protections for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan immigrants. Trump during the press conference repeated accusations that Maduro has sent Venezuelan immigrants with ties to the Tren de Aragua gang to the U.S.

Trump’s military action campaign, named “Absolute Resolve,” came after he waged a months-long pressure campaign to oust the authoritarian leader. Dozens of boat strikes have been carried out in the Caribbean that the president and members of his administration have justified, without showing evidence, by saying the boats were carrying drugs to the U.S.

“The United States of America has successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country,” Trump wrote on his social media site, Truth Social, early Saturday. “This operation was done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement.”

Before the Saturday press event at Mar-a-Lago started, the president posted a picture to social media of Maduro handcuffed, blindfolded and aboard the U.S.S. Iwo Jima Navy ship.

‘We’re not afraid of boots on the ground’

Trump at the press conference was joined by Rubio; Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth; Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine; CIA Director John Ratcliffe; and senior White House adviser Stephen Miller, who is a lead architect of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. 

Trump said that an “overwhelming American military power” was used to capture Maduro and his wife in the “dead of night” from “air, land and sea.”

He added that no U.S. military members were killed in the operation, but did not rule out a continued presence for American troops in Venezuelan territory. 

“We’re not afraid of boots on the ground,” Trump said.

Trump said those officials standing behind him at his press conference, “for a period of time,” would “be running” Venezuela. 

The president offered few details on what that U.S. intervention would look like, but called it a “partnership.” It’s unclear if there are any American officials or troops stationed yet in or near Venezuela. 

Cuba

Trump also lodged a thinly veiled threat against the Cuban government.

“Cuba is not doing really well right now,” Trump said. “I think Cuba is going to be something we’ll end up talking about.”

He added that the U.S. also wants to help Cubans who have been “forced out of their country,” so they can return to the island nation. The Trump administration has also moved to end humanitarian protections for more than 110,000 Cubans. 

Rubio, whose parents were part of the first wave of Cuban exiles before the Fidel Castro regime took over the country, agreed, and criticized Cuba’s government as being run by “incompetent, senile men.”

It’s unclear how the next in line to the presidency for Venezuela, Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, will fare. 

Trump said that Rubio had a conversation with Rodríguez, and said “she’s essentially willing to do what is necessary to make Venezuela great again.”

María Corina Machado, the leader of Venezuela’s opposition party, and recent Nobel Peace Prize winner for her work to advance democracy in her home country, called for national unity and said that “the hour for freedom has arrived.” 

“We have struggled for years, we have given it our all, and it has been worth it. What had to happen is happening,” she said in a statement.

Indictment in Southern District of New York

Maduro and his wife will face a trial in the U.S. They have been indicted in the Southern District of New York, Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote on social media. 

The DOJ also indicted their son, Nicolás Ernesto Maduro Guerra, along with several other Venezuelan politicians, and the alleged leader of the Tren de Aragua Venezuelan gang, Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores.

President Maduro is charged with “Narco-Terrorism Conspiracy, Cocaine Importation Conspiracy, Possession of Machineguns and Destructive Devices, and Conspiracy to Possess Machineguns and Destructive Devices against the United States,” Bondi said. 

In 2020, the first Trump administration lodged the same four counts of narco-terrorism, conspiracy to import cocaine, possession of machine guns and conspiracy to possess machine guns. 

The new indictment includes Maduro’s wife, son and the alleged leader of the Tren de Aragua gang. 

Andy Kim: Officials ‘blatantly lied’ to Congress

The news drew ire from Congress, which has the authority to declare war. New Jersey Democratic Sen. Andy Kim said for weeks Trump officials briefed Congress that the boat strikes were not “about regime change.”

“I didn’t trust them then and we see now that they blatantly lied to Congress,” Kim wrote on social media. “Trump rejected our Constitutionally required approval process for armed conflict because the Administration knows the American people overwhelmingly reject risks pulling our nation into another war.”

However, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, said the capture of Maduro meant the Venezuelan president would be held accountable. 

“President Trump’s decisive action to disrupt the unacceptable status quo and apprehend Maduro, through the execution of a valid Department of Justice warrant, is an important first step to bring him to justice for the drug crimes for which he has been indicted in the United States,” Thune said.

He added that when senators return to Congress Monday, he looks forward to additional security briefings from Trump officials.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, made similar remarks and called the attack “justified.” He said he’s working with the Trump administration to schedule briefings with House lawmakers when they return to Washington.

The top Democrat on the House Rules Committee, Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, wrote on social media that without “authorization from Congress, and with the vast majority of Americans opposed to military action, Trump just launched an unjustified, illegal strike on Venezuela.” 

Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, who is also co-chair of the Congressional Venezuela Democracy Caucus, said in a statement that the “capture of the brutal, illegitimate ruler of Venezuela … is welcome news for my friends and neighbors who fled his violent, lawless, and disastrous rule.”

However, she called for the opportunity for Venezuelans to partake in democracy, such as being able to swear in the presidential candidate who won Venezuela’s election in the summer of 2024.

President-elect Edmundo Gonzalez was forced into exile and fled to Spain under asylum. Voter results showed that Gonzalez won by a large margin, but Venezuelan government officials, without providing proof, determined that Maduro won. 

Mike Lee speaks to Rubio

Utah’s GOP Sen. Mike Lee initially questioned “what, if anything, might constitutionally justify this action in the absence of a declaration of war or authorization for the use of military force.”

But Lee later changed course after speaking with Rubio.

“He informed me that Nicolás Maduro has been arrested by U.S. personnel to stand trial on criminal charges in the United States, and that the kinetic action we saw tonight was deployed to protect and defend those executing the arrest warrant,” Lee said of Rubio.

Rubio has long stated that Venezuela’s president is not legitimate, nor is his government. Rubio accused him of being the head of a drug cartel.  

“He is not the legitimate president of Venezuela,” Rubio said during Saturday’s press conference. “He is a fugitive of American justice.”

Rubio, who while in Congress was a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also defended a lack of notification to lawmakers.

“This is not the kind of mission you can do congressional notification,” Rubio said. 

For months, Democrats and a handful of Republican lawmakers have tried to curb the president’s strikes in the Caribbean, which have killed about 115, but Congress failed to pass several War Powers Resolutions.

The War Powers Resolution of 1973 is a tool for Congress to check the power of the executive branch by limiting the president’s ability to initiate or escalate military actions abroad.  

Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, who has pushed for the Senate to vote on the War Powers Resolution, said he will again advocate a vote to curb Trump’s military actions in Venezuela. 

Venezuelans in the US

As the U.S. conducts military land strikes on Venezuela, more than half a million Venezuelan immigrants are legally fighting the Trump administration’s move to end Temporary Protected Status. 

TPS is granted when a nation’s home country is deemed too dangerous to return to, due to violence, such as war, or a major natural disaster.

More than 600,000 Venezuelans have TPS, which was initially granted in 2021, just one day before the first Trump administration finished its term. Temporary protections were granted to Venezuelans due to Maduro’s regime. 

Trump has also tried to apply the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to any Venezuelan national, aged 14 and older, who is a suspected gang member, for the purpose of removing them from the U.S. without due process. 

Trump and Maduro also clashed after several deportation planes carrying Venezuelan immigrants landed in El Salvador, where more than 200 men were detained at a brutal mega-prison known as CECOT.

Maduro called the move a “kidnapping,” and several months later the Venezuelans were returned to their home country in a prisoner exchange. 

World leaders call for UN to convene

It’s unclear what the consequences of the Trump administration’s move to capture a foreign leader will have on international relations, but many world leaders disavowed the attacks and called for an emergency United Nations General Assembly meeting. 

The U.N., which is five miles away from the New York court where Maduro will stand trial, did not immediately respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo condemned the attacks and said they violated Article 2 of the United Nations Charter. 

“Based on its foreign policy principles and its pacifist vocation, Mexico makes an urgent call to respect international law, as well as the principles and purposes of the UN Charter, and to cease any act of aggression against the Venezuelan government and people,” she said in a statement.

Sheinbaum Pardo called on the United Nations to “act immediately to contribute to the de-escalation of tensions, facilitate dialogue and create conditions that allow a peaceful, sustainable solution in accordance with international law.”

Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also criticized the attack in Caracas, Venezuela. 

“The justifications put forward for these actions have no factual basis. Ideological hostility has prevailed over pragmatic, businesslike approaches and over efforts to build relationships based on trust and predictability,” according to Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said on social media that the U.S. moves to capture Maduro and bomb Venezuela “cross an unacceptable line.”

“Attacking countries, in flagrant violation of international law, is the first step toward a world of violence, chaos, and instability, where the law of the strongest prevails over multilateralism,” he wrote. 

The prime minister of Spain, Pedro Sanchez, called for de-escalation and said that international law “and the principles of the United Nations Charter must be respected.”

A photograph of President Donald Trump and late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is displayed after being unofficially installed in a bus shelter. (Leon Neal/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Justice early Tuesday released thousands more files related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, with several referencing President Donald Trump. 

The latest trove — which features nearly 30,000 more pages of documents related to Epstein — includes a note implicating Trump purportedly written by Epstein that the department later declared to be fake and an email from a prosecutor claiming Trump flew on Epstein’s private jet more times than previously reported.

In a social media post announcing the Tuesday release, the department issued a blanket denial that Trump was involved in Epstein’s crimes, saying the evidence included in the files was discredited.

“Some of these documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election,” the post said.

The agency added “the claims are unfounded and false, and if they had a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already.”

The department has faced backlash for its piecemeal rollout of the files beginning Dec. 19, despite a legal mandate to release the full set on that date. 

Trump had a well-documented friendship with Epstein, but has maintained he had a falling out with the disgraced financier and was never involved in any alleged crimes. 

Flights

A 2020 email from an assistant U.S. attorney in New York says flight records indicate that Trump “traveled on Epstein’s private jet many more times than previously has been reported.” 

The email notes that Trump was “listed as a passenger on at least eight flights between 1993 and 1996” and that this includes “at least four flights” on which Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell “was also present.” 

The files also include a letter that Epstein appeared to have sent to convicted serial sex offender Larry Nassar in 2019 but that the Justice Department declared to be “fake,” pointing to several discrepancies. 

The Justice Department said the handwriting did not match Epstein’s, noted it was postmarked after his death in Northern Virginia, not New York, and did not include Epstein’s jail name or inmate number — a requirement for outgoing mail. 

The department said the “fake letter serves as a reminder that just because a document is released by the Department of Justice does not make the allegations or claims within the document factual.” 

The letter, which appeared to have been sent from Epstein to Nassar, a disgraced former USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University doctor, said Trump shared their interest in young girls.

The letter was postmarked Aug. 13, 2019, just three days after Epstein died in his jail cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City. 

Another email in the Tuesday release references more potential co-conspirators, according to U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

Schumer called on the Justice Department to release more information on a note he said indicates the DOJ “was looking into at least ten potential Jeffrey Epstein co-conspirators.”  

The New York Democrat said the department “needs to shed more light on who was on the list, how they were involved, and why they chose not to prosecute.” 

He added: “Protecting possible co-conspirators is not the transparency the American people and Congress are demanding.”

DOJ takes heat 

The Justice Department has faced heat for opting to release the files in batches instead of adhering to the congressionally mandated full release of the files by mid-December. 

The requirement comes from a bill Trump signed into law in November, which requires the agency to make publicly available “all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in DOJ’s possession that relate to the investigation and prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein,” including materials related to Maxwell.

The measure — co-sponsored by GOP Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California — gave the department 30 days after the bill was enacted into law to release the files, or Dec. 19. 

Under a settlement in a federal lawsuits a northern Wisconsin town has agreed to make voting machines available that can help people with disabilities cast a ballot. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

A Rusk County community that more than two years ago rejected the use of electronic voting machines has agreed to provide them so people with disabilities can vote in federal elections.

The agreement, signed in federal court in Madison earlier this month, ends a lingering legal dispute over voter access in the northern Wisconsin town of Thornapple that prompted a federal investigation.

The case underscores the importance of provisions in the federal Help America Vote Act, enacted in 2002, which includes voting rights guarantees for people with disabilities, according to Lisa Hasenstab, public policy manager for Disability Rights Wisconsin.

“Access to accessible voting is something that is not always a top priority in the mix of everything that has to happen for elections,” Hasenstab told the Wisconsin Examiner on Tuesday. “But it is the law. It’s federal law. and state law as well, that accessible means of voting be provided at every polling place. If at even one polling place that option is not provided, that is a violation of voters’ rights.”

Hasenstab said a variety of voting machine systems include provisions tailored to people with disabilities who have difficulty marking paper ballots. Systems also include headphones for voters who can’t see, so they can  listen to the names of candidates on their ballots.

The Help America Vote Act requires every polling place to include such machines for people who need them, and any voter is able to use them, Hasenstab said.

Thornapple Town Chairman Tom Zelm declined to tell the Wisconsin Examiner in a phone conversation Tuesday why the town had stopped using voting machines and said he would have no comment on the settlement that the town and the U.S. Department of Justice signed in federal court on Dec. 12.

According to a May 13, 2024, report in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the  Thornapple town board voted in June 2023 to stop using electronic voting machines and use only paper ballots.

That same summer, Douglas Frank — profiled in the Los Angeles Times as a purveyor of “baseless claims about suspicious voting trends and secret algorithms used to steal elections” — visited the area, giving talks that stoked conspiracy theories about voting machines, according to several published reports.

After the April 2024 Wisconsin presidential preference primary, a local Democratic Party activist called another town board member to complain about the absence of voting machines that could be used by some people with disabilities. She recorded the call, in which the board member repeated false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump and blamed voting machines. The activist then posted the recording on YouTube.

DOJ lawyers wrote to the town’s chief election officer on May 7, 2024, referring to reports received by the department that the town board “may have voted to remove all electronic voting machines in all elections,” including presidential primary.

The DOJ letter stated that some voters with disabilities had reported their requests to use accessible voting machines in the primary election were not granted. It quoted the Help America Vote Act’s requirement for all polling places to include systems that enable voters with disabilities to cast their ballots.

The Lawrence Town Board in Brown County also passed a measure in 2023 to stop using voting machines. Lawrence reversed its decision Sept. 9, 2024, according to DOJ, and signed an agreement with the feds to comply with HAVA.

Thornapple did not reverse its voting machine ban, and DOJ sued the town. That October a federal judge issued an injunction, requiring the town to use accessible voting machines in the November 2024 election.

Separately, the Wisconsin Elections Commission ordered the town and its elections clerk to “take affirmative steps” and comply with Wisconsin’s law that also requires accessible electronic voting equipment at polling places to accommodate people with disabilities.

The town appealed the federal court injunction, losing before the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in July.

Under the Dec. 12 settlement, Thornapple and the town’s election officials “will ensure their voting systems are accessible to people with disabilities as required by HAVA.” The deal requires the town to use an electronic voting system “or other voting system equipped for individuals with disabilities at each polling place in the state, for each election for federal office.”

Town officials are also required to be trained on how to implement accessible voting systems that comply with HAVA, to keep the equipment in working order and provide all software and other updates. The deal also requires them to certify after every federal primary and general election that they have complied with the agreement.

Because the cases was originally pursued by the DOJ in the last year of President Joe Biden’s term, Hasenstab acknowledged that voting rights advocates watched the progress of the case with some concern after President Donald Trump took office and began reversing many Biden administration policies.

“We did have some nervousness that they wouldn’t pursue a final resolution to the case,” Hasenstab said Tuesday. “We’re pleasantly surprised that an agreement ended up being reached and that the Department of Justice stuck with that case.”

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A Tennessee voter casts his ballot in Nashville during a special election this month. The U.S. Department of Justice has sent confidential draft agreements on voter data sharing to more than a dozen states, including Tennessee — part of the Trump administration’s effort to obtain unredacted voter rolls from states. (Photo by Jon Cherry/Getty Images)

The U.S. Department of Justice has sent a confidential draft agreement to more than a dozen states that would require election officials to remove any alleged ineligible voters identified during a federal review of their voter rolls.

The agreement — called a memorandum of understanding, or MOU — would hand the federal government a major role in election administration, a responsibility that belongs to the states under the U.S. Constitution.

A Justice Department official identified 11 states that have expressed an interest in the agreement during a federal court hearing in December, according to a transcript reviewed by Stateline. Two additional states, Colorado and Wisconsin, have publicly rejected the memorandum of understanding and released copies of the proposal.

The 11 states “all fall into the list of, they have expressed with us a willingness to comply based on the represented MOU that we have sent them,” Eric Neff, the acting chief of the Justice Department’s Voting Section, said at the hearing. He spoke at a Dec. 4 hearing in a federal lawsuit brought by the Justice Department against California, which has refused a demand for the state’s voter data.

Neff’s courtroom disclosure, which Stateline is the first to report, comes as the Justice Department has sued 21 states and the District of Columbia for unredacted copies of their voter rolls after demanding the data from most states in recent months. The unredacted lists include sensitive personal information, such as driver’s license and partial Social Security numbers.

The states Neff identified are led by Republicans — Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia.

The draft memorandum of understanding represents a new effort by the Trump administration to gain access to some states’ voter data without litigation.

The administration’s lawsuits mostly target Democratic states, where election officials refused initial requests for voter data and allege the demand is unlawful and risks the privacy of millions of voters. They have also voiced fears that the Trump administration could use the information to target its political enemies.

Neff said four states with Republican secretaries of state — Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas and Wyoming — have “complied voluntarily” with the Justice Department’s demand without memoranda of understanding.

The Justice Department says it needs voters’ detailed information to ensure ineligible people are kept off state voter rolls and that only citizens are voting.

Federal officials say they will follow federal privacy laws, but critics fear voter data is being shared with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which operates a powerful citizenship verification tool known as SAVE. The Trump administration has previously confirmed the Justice Department plans to share voter data with Homeland Security.

“What the DOJ is trying to do is something that should frighten everybody across the political spectrum,” said David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research. “They’re trying to use the power of the executive branch to bully states into turning over highly sensitive data: date of birth, Social Security number, driver’s license — the holy trinity of identity theft.”

Becker, who worked as a senior trial attorney in the Justice Department’s Voting Section during the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, told reporters on Dec. 8 that several states received the memorandum. But Neff’s identification of 11 states wasn’t widely available until the judge in the California lawsuit on Tuesday ordered the transcript of the Dec. 4 hearing immediately posted to the lawsuit’s public docket, where Stateline accessed it.

The draft memorandum of understanding, which is labeled “confidential,” outlines the terms of the proposed agreement between each state and the Justice Department. After a state provides its voter roll, the federal department would agree to test, analyze and assess the information. The department would then notify states of “any voter list maintenance issues, insufficiencies, inadequacies, deficiencies, anomalies, or concerns” found.

Each state would agree to “clean” its voter roll within 45 days by removing any ineligible voters, according to the memorandum. States would then resubmit their voter data to the Justice Department for verification.

While the Justice Department has demanded states’ voter rolls since this summer, the memorandum of understanding offers the most detailed picture to date of how the Trump administration plans to use the data.

“It lays out in a way that we haven’t seen in any other context their plan for one of the things, I will say, that they plan to do, which is disturbing,” said Eileen O’Connor, a senior counsel and manager in the voting rights and election program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, a progressive think tank.

O’Connor was a trial attorney in the Justice Department’s Voting Section during the Obama, first Trump and Biden administrations. “I think with each passing lawsuit, they are clearly trying to create a national database of every voter in the country,” she said.

The Justice Department didn’t answer questions from Stateline about how many states had been sent the memorandum and whether any had signed it.

Assistant U.S. Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who leads the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, wrote in a statement to Stateline that the department has a statutory mandate to enforce federal voting rights laws. Ensuring the voting public’s confidence in election integrity is a top priority of the Trump administration, she wrote.

“Clean voter rolls and basic election safeguards are requisites for free, fair, and transparent elections,” Dhillon wrote.

Federal involvement in elections

The Justice Department memorandum, if implemented, would mark a significant departure from how election officials typically maintain voter rolls.

States, often in coordination with local election officials, check lists for changes in address, deaths and other reasons for ineligibility, such as a felony conviction. States typically perform this task with little to no federal involvement.

Some states participate in voluntary programs that allow election officials to share voter information with other states for the purposes of looking for voters who may have moved or who are registered in multiple locations. But those don’t include the federal government, which plays a limited role in election administration under the United States’ decentralized approach to elections.

Matt Crane, executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Association, said clerks continually look at death records and other sources of data to update voter lists. He said the United States’ localized election system is a strength that guards against election interference.

“The federal government has no role in list maintenance,” Crane said.

But that has begun to change under the Trump administration, as President Donald Trump has made removing noncitizen voters a priority.

Earlier this year, Homeland Security overhauled the SAVE program into a tool that can scan millions of voter records against government databases for evidence of citizenship. The program was previously used for one-off searches to check whether noncitizens were eligible for government benefits.

Some Republican secretaries of state have agreed to upload their voter rolls into SAVE. Democratic secretaries of state object to using the program and say they are wary of what will happen to the voter information once it’s provided to the Trump administration, including its potential use by the Department of Homeland Security.

While SAVE can flag voters with potential eligibility issues, the onus now is still on state officials to investigate whether those voters are actually ineligible and decide whether to initiate a process to remove them from the rolls.

By contrast, the Justice Department memorandum would empower federal officials to take a more active role, allowing them to check the work of state election officials as they remove — or don’t remove — voters.

“We have a system that allows Americans to voice their opinions and to hold government accountable, and that is so fundamentally central to the way our system works,” Oregon Democratic Secretary of State Tobias Read, who has been sued by the Justice Department, said in an interview. “We should be focused on how to make that better, not on erecting artificial barriers and putting people’s privacy and confidence at risk for no reason.”

Republican interest

Some GOP election officials have welcomed the Trump administration’s interest and have accused the Biden administration of not doing enough to help states vet their voter rolls. In particular, they praise the overhaul of SAVE, which some GOP secretaries of state had requested before Trump took office.

Some secretaries have touted the removal of noncitizen voters after using SAVE. Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray, a Republican, in November announced three voters identified as noncitizens had been removed from his state’s voter rolls. Gray has also provided the Justice Department with full access to Wyoming’s voter roll.

“The voter list maintenance that we have been conducting is extremely important for election integrity,” Gray said in a news release.

But as of early December, nearly all states hadn’t provided the Justice Department access to their unredacted voter rolls, with Neff identifying only four that had shared their lists. It also remains unclear whether any state has signed the memorandum of understanding. No state has told Stateline it signed the document.

Nebraska Secretary of State Robert Evnen, a Republican, has received a memorandum of understanding and plans to comply with the Justice Department request, pending the outcome of an ongoing lawsuit, Evnen spokesperson Rani Taborek-Potter wrote in an email to Stateline. A voting advocacy group has sued to block the release of the data.

In an interview with Kentucky Lantern, Kentucky Republican Secretary of State Michael Adams said that his office was “going back and forth a little bit” with the Justice Department over what federal law requires.

“We’ve not really figured out exactly where that line is of what-all they’re entitled to,” Adams said. “What’s not in dispute is they’re entitled to the vast majority of information — people’s names, addresses, birthdays — and we’ve given them all of that.”

Adams added that many state officials “are in the same boat of trying to figure out what exactly they need to do their job and what our obligations are legally.”

Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, a Republican, confirmed in a statement to Stateline that her office received a proposed memorandum of understanding from the Justice Department. “We are in the process of reviewing the document with our attorneys and carefully considering our options,” Henderson wrote.

Rachael Dunn, a spokesperson for Missouri Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, wrote in an email that the state hadn’t entered into an agreement with the Justice Department “at this time.”

DOJ ‘contractor’ could get voter data

The draft agreement would give the Justice Department wide authority to share the voter data of states that sign on.

The department would be authorized to share the data with “a contractor” who needs access “to perform duties related” to voter list maintenance verification, according to the draft agreement. The agreement doesn’t name any contractors or specify whether they would be inside or outside of government.

Two states have publicly rejected the draft agreement. Colorado Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold announced Dec. 3 she would refuse to sign the memorandum. The Justice Department later sued Colorado.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission also rejected the draft agreement that week. In a Dec. 11 letter to Neff, the Justice Department official, the commissioners wrote that state law prohibits them from releasing certain personally identifiable information, such as date of birth, Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers.

“I don’t look at the action that we’re taking today to be commentary on the motive of the appropriateness of the Department of Justice’s request,” Commissioner Don Millis, a Republican appointee, said at a virtual commission meeting the same day. “The U.S. DOJ is simply asking the commission to do something that the commission is explicitly forbidden by Wisconsin law to do.”

The Justice Department on Thursday sued Wisconsin for its voter data.

Justin Levitt, who served as senior policy adviser for democracy and voting rights in the Biden White House and is now a law professor at Loyola Marymount University, told Stateline in an email that he expects no states to sign the agreement.

“It’s no surprise that both Colorado and Wisconsin said no — and I don’t think that’s a question of political leadership,” Levitt wrote. “It’s hard for me to imagine any Republican state with faith in its own list maintenance capacity agreeing to outsource that decision to the DOJ.”

VRLData Sharing Agreement DOJ-WI (2)

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct when Colorado refused to sign the memorandum and when the suit was brought against the state. Colorado Newsline’s Lindsey Toomer contributed reporting. Stateline reporter Jonathan Shorman can be reached at jshorman@stateline.org.

Voters at the Wilmar Neighborhood Center on Madison's East Side cast their ballots. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

The Wisconsin Elections Commission on Thursday denied a demand from the U.S. Department of Justice for the state’s full voter registration list, including personally identifiable information such as dates of birth, driver’s licenses and Social Security numbers. 

At a special meeting Thursday afternoon and in a letter sent in response to the DOJ demand, WEC stated that Wisconsin law explicitly prevents the commission from sharing the personal information of voters. 

“The U.S. DOJ is simply asking the commission to do something the commission is explicitly forbidden by Wisconsin law to do,” commissioner Don Millis said. 

This is the second time this year the DOJ has requested Wisconsin’s voter database. Both times, the department has been informed that Wisconsin state law requires that the commission charge a fee to obtain the list. 

Since the summer, the DOJ has requested the voter databases of several states — raising concerns over why the department is seeking massive amounts of voter data, especially as President Donald Trump has remained fixated on conspiracy theories that his 2020 election loss was rigged. 

In its demand for the data, sent Dec. 2 as a “confidential memorandum of understanding” the department said it was seeking the data to check if Wisconsin is properly complying with the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act.

VRLData Sharing Agreement DOJ-WI

“The Justice Department is requesting your state’s [Voter Registration List] to test, analyze, and assess states’ VRLs for proper list maintenance and compliance with federal law,” the memo states. 

However the WEC response questions the authority with which DOJ is asserting its right to the records. For one, Wisconsin is exempt from the NVRA because it offers same-day voter registration at polling places. Also, WEC wrote in its response letter that HAVA does not grant the DOJ access to confidential voter data. 

Compliance with HAVA and the thoroughness of states’ compliance with voter list maintenance requirements have become regular talking points among Republicans who say they’re concerned that there are thousands of people who have active voter registrations when they should be ineligible to vote because they’ve moved, died or otherwise are unable to cast a ballot. 

The sources of those complaints include the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, a right-wing law firm that in October sent a letter to the DOJ asking for the department to assess Wisconsin’s compliance with HAVA. 

WEC has said repeatedly that the commission and Wisconsin’s municipal election clerks are properly maintaining the voter rolls. They’ve also noted that the concerns are often overstated because even if a voter is ineligible and their file is deactivated in the database, their name will still appear in the system.

WEC Letter – Resp to 12.2.25 DOJ Correspondence

“The joint effort between state and local election officials enhances the integrity of the system by ensuring responsibilities are distributed across thousands of officials in every city, village, and town, rather than concentrated among a small handful of state employees in the Capitol,” the WEC response letter states. “The vast majority of list maintenance work consists of routine updates, and the processes also serve to identify attempts at wrongdoing. Each year, Wisconsin election officials at all levels of government identify and refer to criminal prosecution: felons attempting to vote, double voters, non-citizens, and others trying to circumvent election law.” 

In the WEC decision to deny DOJ’s request as well as to release the DOJ memo and the response letter, Republican commissioner Bob Spindell was the lone vote against. Spindell pointed to a provision of state law that allows WEC to share restricted information in the voter database with law enforcement agencies. Spindell has often used his role on the commission to indulge conspiracy theories and cast doubt on the security of the election system. 

“This is a highly, highly controversial issue throughout the country at this point in time, and my point of view is that this information can be released,” Spindell said. “I believe that through the HAVA Act, the federal government has the appropriate ability to see if we’re doing everything that’s correct and OK. I’ve talked forever about we need to have, in the state of Wisconsin, an independent audit, or whatever, of the registration list to satisfy the many individuals and groups and so forth that question it. And all HAVA is doing here, the federal government is asking for a chance to take a look at us.” 

But commissioner Mark Thomsen said there is no way that a provision meant to help law enforcement find information about suspects in criminal investigations could be interpreted to mean WEC can give the personal information of every Wisconsin voter to the federal government. 

“Our rights as commissioners are limited by the Fourth Amendment, by state law itself,” Thomsen said. “Mr. Spindel is just flat out wrong that this one provision that he relies on would allow us to legally give Wisconsin citizens’ private information off to someone for some unknown reason. It’s not just a person that’s suspected of a crime, it’s everybody, and Wisconsin has never stood for the proposition that any government is entitled to all this data anytime someone asked. So I think Bob, you’re just making up the law there.”

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Then-U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Geoffrey Berman announces charges against Jeffrey Epstein on July 8, 2019 in New York City.  (Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A Manhattan federal judge granted an order Tuesday to unseal grand jury records in the case of Jeffrey Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of sex trafficking minors among other offenses in 2021.

Federal Judge Paul Engelmayer wrote in a 24-page order that unsealing the documents fell within the scope of a new law passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump. The law compels the U.S. Department of Justice to release nearly all investigative files in the government’s case against Epstein, who died in jail in 2019 awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

The U.S. Department of Justice asked the court to release the records after Congress overwhelmingly passed the legislation last month requiring disclosure of “all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in its possession that relate to Epstein or (co-conspirator Ghislaine) Maxwell.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi must release the material by Dec. 19 in accordance with the law, which lawmakers dubbed the Epstein Files Transparency Act. 

Law covers grand jury material

Engelmayer described the act’s language as “strikingly broad” and wrote Congress was “undeniably aware” that grand jury materials in Maxwell’s case were in possession of the U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York.

“Its decision not to exclude grand jury materials despite knowledge as to their existence, while expressly excluding other categories of materials (such as classified information), indicates that the Act covers grand jury materials,” Engelmayer wrote.

The order comes days after a Florida federal judge reached a similar conclusion Friday and ordered the unsealing of federal grand jury materials related to the government’s investigation of Epstein from 2005 to 2007.

Epstein pleaded guilty to a state charge for soliciting a minor for prostitution but avoided a federal probe when then-U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta cut a deal with state prosecutors. Acosta was later appointed secretary of Labor during Trump’s first administration.

Florida interview

Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence. The Trump administration recently transferred the sex offender to a minimum security prison shortly after Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche interviewed her in a Tallahassee, Florida, facility as pressure to release the Epstein files ramped up in Congress and among Trump’s base.

According to transcripts, Maxwell told Blanche, Trump’s former personal defense attorney, that she “never witnessed the president in any inappropriate setting in any way. The president was never inappropriate with anybody. In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects.”

Trump had a well-documented friendship with Epstein but denies any involvement with Epstein’s alleged crimes. The president has said that he kicked Epstein out of his private Florida club, Mar-a-Lago, because Epstein had poached young female staffers from the club.

Maxwell was convicted in December 2021, after a one-month jury trial, of conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, conspiracy to transport minors to participate in illegal sex acts, transporting a minor to participate in illegal sex acts, sex trafficking conspiracy, and sex trafficking of a minor.

The Justice Department maintains Epstein had over 1,000 victims.

Security personnel stand watch outside the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., in August. The Justice Department on Tuesday sued six more states for unredacted copies of their voter rolls. (Photo by Jonathan Shorman/Stateline)

The U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday expanded its legal campaign to force states to turn over voter lists containing sensitive personal information, suing six more states that have refused to provide the data.

The Justice Department has now sued officials in more than a dozen states for the voter lists, following a first round of lawsuits filed in September. The lawsuits are aimed at mostly Democratic states that won’t turn over unredacted copies of the lists, which include driver’s license and partial Social Security numbers.

For months, the Trump administration has demanded that states provide copies of their voter lists, calling the information necessary for election integrity efforts. While some states have turned over lists that withhold sensitive personal data, most have declined to offer all the information on their lists.

Democratic election officials have raised privacy concerns over how the Trump administration plans to use the data. They are especially concerned that the Justice Department will share the data with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which is building a powerful citizenship verification tool. The Trump administration previously confirmed to Stateline it plans to share the data.

The new wave of lawsuits target Delaware, Maryland, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington, the Justice Department announced in a news release. The department has already sued California, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon and Pennsylvania.

“Accurate voter rolls are the cornerstone of fair and free elections, and too many states have fallen into a pattern of noncompliance with basic voter roll maintenance,” U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a news release on Tuesday. “The Department of Justice will continue filing proactive election integrity litigation until states comply with basic election safeguards.”

Rhode Island Secretary of State Gregg Amore in September offered the Justice Department a free copy of his state’s publicly available voter list. The information is typically provided upon request with a $25 fee, but he refused to provide confidential personal information absent legal action.

“This lawsuit, like those filed in other states, is a continuation of the current presidential administration’s unconstitutional attempts to interfere with elections processes across the country,” Amore said in a statement on Tuesday. “One of my most important responsibilities as the chief state election official is safeguarding the data privacy of Rhode Islanders, who entrust us with their personal information when they register to vote. I will continue to fight to protect it.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify the states previously sued by the Department of Justice. Rhode Island Current reporters Nancy Lavin and Christopher Shea contributed reporting. Stateline reporter Jonathan Shorman can be reached at jshorman@stateline.org.