Cleta Mitchell thinks President Donald Trump may declare a national emergency to allow him to take control of national elections.
Her comments will add to growing concern that Trump is plotting a way to use his power over the military and federal law enforcement to rig next year’s vote.
“The president’s authority is limited in his role with regard to elections except where there is a threat to the national sovereignty of the United States — as I think that we can establish with the porous system that we have,” said Mitchell, a prominent anti-voting lawyer who played a key role in Trump’s failed bid to overturn the 2020 election, in an appearance on a podcast hosted by the Christian conservative leader Tony Perkins.
“Then, I think maybe the president is thinking that he will exercise some emergency powers to protect the federal elections going forward,” Mitchell added.
It isn’t clear whether Mitchell’s comments were based on knowledge of Trump’s thinking, or whether she was speculating on what she believes Trump has the power to do.
Though Mitchell has no official role in the Trump administration, she is well-connected in Trump World. Her anti-voting group, the Election Integrity Network (EIN), received a briefing in June from a senior official in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on how a database run by the department can be used to verify the citizenship status of registered voters, Democracy Docket reported. And she was on the December 2020 phone call in which Trump pressed Georgia’s secretary of state to “find” him enough votes to win the state.
Her comments about taking control of elections come amid increasing concern that Trump could try to use the National Guard or law enforcement agencies to obstruct voting in Democratic strongholds in coming elections.
In the interview with Perkins, Mitchell also said Trump has the power to issue an executive order requiring voter ID, because some states require it.
“I do think that the fact that about half the states do require some form of identification — I think that that would give authority to the president to say to vote in a federal election, it has to meet these standards.”
Mitchell’s comments come after Trump has in recent weeks teased plans to sign new anti-voting executive orders aimed at banning mail-in ballots and requiring voter ID.
Presidential orders taking these steps would be blatantly unconstitutional. And Trump’s previous anti-voting executive order, which includes a documentary proof of citizenship requirement, has been largely blocked by the courts.
Mitchell also told Perkins that Trump could sign an executive order targeting voters living abroad, like deployed military and overseas citizens.
“I think that there are some areas in which the president can issue an executive order under existing law,” Mitchell said. “One would be the overseas people who vote — deployed military and overseas citizens — the president has authority to appoint a designate to enforce that. And all of those are federal ballots.”
There’s currently a GOP push in Congress to strip voting rights from overseas and military voters. Last month, three GOP House members introduced the Protecting Our Voter Eligibility (PROVE) Act, which would force nonmilitary overseas voters to prove they maintain a “current residence” in the United States with a verifiable mailing address.