Wednesday, June 11

A group of election-denier Republicans in Michigan’s House of Representatives is trying to impeach Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D), alleging that she’s hiding something by not releasing sensitive election training information. Benson says the information, if made public, could pose a major security threat. Also in this week’s newsletter: How the latest lawsuits from the right-wing legal group the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) plant the seeds for 2026 election chaos; and the Proud Boys are suing the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) for $100 million.   As always, thanks for reading.    — Matt Cohen, Senior Reporter

Election Deniers Are Trying to Impeach Michigan’s Secretary of State

Republicans in Michigan’s House of Representatives introduced articles of impeachment against Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D) earlier this month alleging “corrupt conduct in office” and “crimes and misdemeanors.” Corruption and crimes and misdemeanors sounds like serious business, but the truth of what’s going on is far darker: Election deniers in the state legislature are still on a quest to find fraud from the 2020 election.    Last November, Rep. Rachelle Smit (R) — who told Votebeat in February that she “absolutely” thinks the 2020 election was stolen —  requested election training documents for state election clerks from Benson’s office. When Smit became chair of the House’s Election Integrity Committee this year, she doubled down on her request and held hearings to get the documents from Benson, who is running for governor.   After some back and forth — there were thousands of pages of election training documents, which take time to prepare and release — Benson’s office publicly released more than 3,000 pages of those documents. But that wasn’t good enough for Republicans, who accused Benson of not providing all the documents and redacting some information.    Here’s the thing: Benson did withhold some information in the election training materials because there’s sensitive election information that, if leaked, could be a huge security threat.   “Since the beginning of this saga, Secretary Benson has asked lawmakers to let a court review their request for sensitive election information that, in the wrong hands, would compromise the security of our election machines, ballots and officials," Cheri Hardmon, a spokesperson for Benson’s office, said in a statement.    And so, House Republicans sued Benson. And they also filed articles of impeachment against her.    "I believe in oversight and I believe in transparency,” Benson said in response. “This isn’t it. This is Republican lawmakers abusing their authority to access sensitive election information that would allow them — or any conspiracy theorists they share it with — to tamper with election equipment, interfere with the chain of custody of ballots, or impersonate a clerk on Election Day.”   The impeachment effort is a longshot — so far, only seven lawmakers have signed on as sponsors. Benson, meanwhile, will travel the state for a series of town hall conversations with voters this summer as she campaigns for governor.

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How PILF’s latest lawsuits plant the seeds for 2026 election chaos

Ever since its founding in 2012, the right-wing legal group PILF has worked to pressure state and local governments, often through lawsuits, to adopt stricter rules for maintaining voter rolls.    In the months before last year’s election, the group sued a number of states — including battleground ones like Nevada and Wisconsin — to gain access to voter rolls. The group’s latest target: Utah.    Last week, a Utah voter, represented by PILF, filed a lawsuit demanding full access to Utah’s voter registration list — including records that are private or classified as protected under state law. The lawsuit accuses Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson (R) of violating the National Voter Registration Act by refusing to turn over the full statewide voter file. PILF asked a court to order Utah to produce the complete statewide registration list.    It’s not the first lawsuit like this PILF has filed this year.   In January, PILF filed a similar lawsuit targeting Oregon’s voter rolls. Without getting too much in the weeds, the Oregon lawsuit accuses the state of violating the NVRA through its list maintenance procedures. Oregon is one of 24 states that’s a member of the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), which it uses to help with voter list maintenance. As part of their ERIC membership, Oregon receives “deceased reports” detailing a list of voters who may be deceased and should subsequently be removed from state voter rolls. ERIC also issues “retraction reports” to correct erroneous mistakes in previous deceased reports and ensure voters are not wrongly removed from voter rolls. PILF requested a copy of ERIC’s retraction reports from the secretary of state’s office in the spring of 2024, but said in their lawsuit that they never received them, in violation of the NVRA.    Historically, PILF’s lawsuits have targeted mostly battleground states, where a win in court could lead to voters being removed from state rolls, which tend to help Republicans in an election. Both Oregon and Utah aren’t exactly swing states, but PILF’s lawsuits here are part of the group’s broader campaign to access state voter rolls, facilitate removals, and, it appears, spread disinformation about the election process, sowing doubt among voters.    With the 2026 midterm elections just around the corner, these sorts of lawsuits are the seeds right-wing legal groups like PILF plant to impose tighter voting rules. Expect more to come.

The Proud Boys are suing the DOJ for $100 Million (yes, seriously)

Five leaders of the far-right extremist group Proud Boys are suing the DOJ for $100 million dollars over their Jan. 6 arrests. Yes, you read that correctly.    In a lawsuit filed Friday in Florida, five Proud Boys leaders — including its chairman, Enrique Tarrio — claim their constitutional rights were violated when they were prosecuted for their roles in the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Tarrio and the three other leaders — Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs and Zachary Rehl, were convicted in 2023 of seditious conspiracy and other charges related to the Jan. 6 riot. A fourth leader, Dominic Pezzola, was acquitted of seditious conspiracy but charged with a host of other felonies for his actions during the riot. All five men were pardoned by President Donald Trump when he returned to the White House in January.

A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill," which includes massive cuts to Medicaid, is now heading to the Senate. Tell your Senators to reject these cuts and save Medicaid.

The Proud Boys’ involvement in the planning and execution of the Jan. 6 riot — from which at least seven people died — is well documented. But their lawsuit nonetheless reads like they were the victims of a mass conspiracy.    “What follows is a parade of horribles,” the lawsuit reads. “Egregious and systemic abuse of the legal system and the United States Constitution to punish and oppress political allies of President Trump, by any and all means necessary, legal, or illegal. Through the use of evidence tampering, witness intimidation, violations of attorney-client privilege, and placing spies to report on trial strategy, the government got its fondest wish of imprisoning the J6 Defendants, the modern equivalent of placing one’s enemies' heads on a spike outside the town wall as a warning to any who would think to challenge the status quo.”   It would all be laughable if there wasn’t a real possibility that one hundred million taxpayer dollars will be paid to the Proud Boys. Since Trump’s return to power, he’s successfully transformed the DOJ from the federal agency upholding the rule of law to “little more than a cog in the authoritarian machine doing Donald Trump’s bidding,” as Democracy Docket founder Marc Elias recently wrote. Should the DOJ fight the lawsuit, it could show the limits to Trump’s willingness to reward his allies. But knowing Trump, that likely won’t happen.    And what’s more concerning, should the Proud Boys’ lawsuit succeed and they get paid, it could open the flood-gates for various Trump allies and Jan. 6 rioters who were previously prosecuted by the DOJ to file similar lawsuits.    “I believe attorneys are going to do back flips trying to get J6ers on board with a lot of lawsuits,” Tarrio told the Wall Street Journal in an interview.    Apart from the Jan. 6 pardons, Trump’s DOJ agreed last week to pay $5 million to the family of Ashli Babbitt — who was shot by Capitol Police while trying to break into the Capitol during the attack — to settle a wrongful death lawsuit. With more than 1,270 people convicted for their actions on Jan. 6, this could lead to a ton of lawsuits, with American taxpayers footing the bill.