How Trump’s Federal Agencies Are Targeting the 2026 Midterms
But we can push back. Here's how.
Frank Figliuzzi hosts The Frank Figliuzzi Show on Lincoln Square. He is an FBI Assistant Director (retired); 25-year veteran Special Agent; and author of the national bestseller, The FBI Way, and Long Haul: Hunting the Highway Serial Killers. Subscribe to his Substack.
I had the honor of running the FBI Cleveland Field Office for four years during my Bureau career.
Last Thursday, agents from that same division executed a search warrant at the office of a group that tries to get more Ohioans registered to vote. According to a board member of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, agents seized computer files and documents from the racial justice and voting rights grassroots entity that’s been around for almost 20 years.
Agents also showed up at the homes of workers and volunteers and reportedly asked questions about voter fraud allegations. I don’t know what probable cause of criminal activity was included in the FBI’s affidavit for this search warrant, signed by a federal judge, but it better be damn good.
Maybe the Ohio allegations have merit; maybe they don’t. If some group is committing voter fraud on behalf of either party, they should be charged. Yet I’m concerned that this incident isn’t a one-off. Rather, it appears part of an increasing and seemingly organized effort to insert the federal government, from DOJ to DHS to the U.S. Postal Service, and even the Department of Defense, into the lead up toward the midterms in myriad ways that can suppress and intimidate voters, destroy trust in elections and outcomes, and tilt close calls toward the party of Trump.
Signs are pointing to plans for even more such efforts in a kind of whole-of-government approach to messing with the midterms. And when I say all government, I’m including developments that could place federal agents or even the military at polling places.
Ohio is in the throes of hotly-contested races for U.S. Senate (Democratic former Sen. Sherrod Brown vs. GOP Sen. Jon Husted) and for governor (Republican businessman Vivek Ramaswamy vs. Democratic Dr. Amy Acton). It’s no coincidence that federal agents, prosecutors and even MAGA sheriffs are also already at work in other states like Georgia, Arizona, and California that could see Democrats clobber the GOP in November.