At Trump's Explicit Direction — "I'm the One That Said, 'Do It'" — the Justice Department Preemptively Sued to Block Certification of Alaska's U.S. Senate Race if the Republican Incumbent Dan Sullivan Lost, on a Theory About a Same-Named Spoiler Candidate; a Federal Judge Tossed the "Highly Unusual" Suit, and Even Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski Said the Department "Should Never Have Filed" It
In late October 2026, the Trump Justice Department filed an extraordinary lawsuit: it asked a federal court to block the certification of Alaska's U.S. Senate election — but only if the Republican incumbent, Sen. Dan Sullivan, lost. The government's theory rested on the presence of a second candidate on the ballot, Daniel J. Sullivan, which it claimed was a deliberate effort to confuse voters who meant to vote for the senator. Trump made no secret of who was behind it: asked about the suit, he told reporters, "Well, I'm the one that said, 'do it.'" The filing was remarkable for what it asked a court to do — pre-authorize the nullification of an election result contingent on the wrong candidate winning. A federal judge dismissed the "highly unusual" suit around November 1, declining to block certification. The bipartisan nature of the rebuke was striking: Alaska's own Republican senator, Lisa Murkowski, said the department "should never have filed this lawsuit," and Attorney General Todd Blanche publicly retreated, insisting the DOJ did not seek to stop any ballot from being counted or any certification from occurring — a claim hard to square with the lawsuit's plain demand. It was the election-denial impulse this archive has tracked all year, translated for the first time into an actual federal filing: a request to let the government refuse to certify an election it did not like the look of.