President Donald Trump has not only turned the Justice Department into a vengeance-seeking arm of the White House, but he’s using it to try and prove the falsehood that massive voter fraud cost him the 2020 election.

That’s the one Trump lost to Joe Biden — but claims he really won, in part because his ego wouldn’t permit him to accept losing to the man he derides as “Sleepy Joe Biden” and worse.

It isn’t clear yet exactly what Trump is up to, though we know it won’t be anything good.

Either the recent FBI raid on Georgia’s 2020 voting data is a precursor to retroactive prosecutions of those he falsely blames for counting him out – or he is trying to establish the basis for federal intervention in next November’s mid-term elections, something that has long concerned top Democrats.

Or both.

William Kristol, a former Republican official turned Trump critic, has no doubt about Trump’s goal.

“The purpose of the FBI’s action in Georgia was to establish a precedent for further federal intervention in state and local elections to ensure Trump’s version of ‘election integrity,’ and to intimidate state and local officials from resisting such efforts,” he said.

And Trump himself, in one of those mind-boggling statements that often signal his true intentions, called on fellow Republicans to seize control of elections from the states.

“The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting,” Trump said on former deputy FBI director Dan Bongino’s podcast, contending without proof that at least 15 states have “crooked” voting procedures.

Longtime Trump adviser Steve Bannon went one step further. “We’re going to have ICE surround the polls in November,” he vowed.

Lest anyone forget, the Constitution says that “the times, places and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives” is a function of state legislatures, unless Congress “make or alter such regulations.”

But that hasn’t stopped Trump. Earlier this year, he issued an executive order demanding that states require proof of citizenship and voter identifications and ban post-Election Day receipt of mail-in ballots. But his order has no legal validity unless subsequently enacted by Congress – which remains highly unlikely despite repeated Republican efforts.

And while requiring proof of citizenship might seem reasonable, voter advocacy groups estimate that more than 20 million current voters – mostly the poor and minorities — have neither birth certificates nor passports – nor the easy means to get them.

But that hasn’t stopped Trump’s repurposed Justice Department from suing 25 predominantly Democratic states for their voter registration data, after they rejected its request to all 50 states. The presumption is that the administration hoped to show widespread voting by illegal immigrants, though every prior probe has shown it’s minimal.

The latest example of Trump misusing the Justice Department came when FBI agents turned up at the Fulton County (Atlanta) Election Hub and Operation Center. Bolstered by a federal court subpoena, they carted away hundreds of boxes of 2020 election data.

Adding to the mystery was the presence of Tulsi Gabbard, the director of the Office of National Intelligence, which focuses on foreign threats to U.S. security and coordinates U.S. spy agencies.

The Washington Post recalled that, at a televised Cabinet meeting last August, Trump noted Gabbard had evidence of “how corrupt the 2020 election was” and asked her when she would produce it.

“I will be the first to brief you once we have that information collected,” she replied.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Gabbard, a former Hawaii Democratic House member, has been secretly leading an administration-wide investigation of the 2020 election, and has regularly briefed Trump and other officials.

Asked about Gabbard’s involvement, White House spokesman Davis Ingle told the Post, “Director Gabbard has a pivotal role in election security and protecting the integrity of our elections against interference, including operations targeting voting systems, databases and election infrastructure.”

Trump told world leaders at the recent Davos conference that, “People will soon be prosecuted for what they did.”

His complaints about the 2020 election have long focused on Georgia, in general, and Atlanta, in particular. He unexpectedly lost the state to Biden by 11,779 votes and, despite repeated efforts to pressure Georgia officials to change the result, was unsuccessful. Of course, even without Georgia, Biden would have won.

Concerns about voter fraud have long bugged Trump, though all recent studies showed it is rare. Last year, an investigation by the Texas Secretary of State of the state’s 18 million registered voters turned up only 2,700 names of possible non-citizen registrants, subject to further determinations by county officials.

Trump even claimed fraud in the 2016 election which he won, blaming it for his 3 million vote California defeat to Democrat Hillary Clinton. He appointed a voter fraud commission to investigate, but it collapsed in disarray after proving nothing.

This time, he seems more serious. Besides weaponizing the Justice department, he has installed like-minded federal attorneys in case he decides to pursue legal action next November.

The recent dispatch of thousands of immigration agents to Minneapolis has exacerbated Democratic concerns Trump might use them or even federal troops to intimidate voters in the name of law and order in Democratic-leaning cities.

They also fear that, if there are close outcomes in key House races, administration supporters will challenge the results as fraudulent.

If that happens, the current GOP House and Senate majorities would decide initially which candidates should be seated, even if their party lost the election.

Carl P. Leubsdorf is the former Washington bureau chief of the Dallas Morning News. Readers may write to him via email at carl.p.leubsdorf@gmail.com.

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