An open records inquiry by the Foundation for Government Accountability may prove the White House violated the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) by directly coordinating agency efforts with a vote-rigging scheme. The Biden administration has tried to hide these efforts from the public, but internal emails obtained by FGA show Justin Levitt and others in the White House directed federal agencies to work with a vast network of far-left and Democrat activists to help ensure Biden’s reelection.
The coordination, which began almost immediately after Biden was sworn into office, included efforts to get ballots to individuals with “immigration and citizenship issues” as well as those “incarcerated in federal custody.”
In my 25 years working to improve confidence in our elections, one thing has never changed: Democrats will falsely charge Republicans with suppressing the vote. This is because election chaos and false allegations of voter suppression have no downside for Democrats and will be rewarded. There is no better example than Levitt, the former top adviser to President Biden on voting.
Early in his presidency, Joe Biden appointed Levitt as the White House election czar. Often behind the scenes, Levitt has made a career out of cries of voter suppression, and he has made his name as the attorney for arguably the worst election-rigging group in history.
Formerly the senior policy adviser for democracy and voting rights to the White House, Levitt got his big break in 2004-2005 when he served as in-house counsel to America Coming Together (ACT). ACT was to serve as the left’s one-stop-shop for get-out-the-vote and all things voting — the group to organize all the other leftist groups. Under Levitt’s counsel, ACT became one of the most corrupt voting groups in history.
In Ohio alone — the most fought-over state in the 2004 presidential race — ACT engaged in multiple election manipulation schemes designed to tilt the election in favor of Democrat nominee John Kerry.
News reports from 2004 detailed widespread allegations of fraud against the group. In Ohio’s Lake and Summit counties alone, local news reports found that “[m]ore than 1,000 voter registration forms and absentee ballot requests” may have been fraudulent and noted that “investigations of irregularities are broadening.”
As one official summed it up: “’We’ve seen voter fraud before, but never on this level.”’
To make matters worse, ACT used convicted felons to procure these registrations.
It wasn’t just voter fraud. It was also voter suppression. In Marion County, the Ohio Republican Party sought a restraining order against ACT for allegedly sending GOP voters messages directing them to the wrong polling place. Ultimately, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) fined Levitt’s group $775,000 — the third largest fine in FEC history and the largest ever for a group of its type at the time — for multiple violations of federal campaign finance laws.
As a lawyer in charge of keeping ACT out of trouble, you would think this outrageous vote-rigging scheme would hurt Levitt’s career. Nope. It led to promotions.
Levitt then became a key leader for the Brennan Center, a leftist think tank that considers itself a leading voice on elections and campaign finance. If the left cared about election administration or campaign finance law, they never would have hired the lawyer who oversaw what the FEC found were record-breaking exploitation of elections. But his upward rise in the left’s anti-democracy movement continued until he was eventually rewarded with the ultimate voting job — advising the president of the United States.
At the White House, he used his background to supercharge the Biden administration’s efforts to leverage federal agencies and rig the 2024 election for Democrats. Executive Order 14019 directs every federal agency to work with leftist extremist groups to register and mobilize voters. Sounds like a federal government version of ACT. Levitt was a great person to bring in to defend this arguably illegal effort with his experience in manipulating voter registration at ACT.
The APA, adopted in 1946, requires federal agencies to have independent discretion from a large, centralized government. It came in the wake of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, which created many new federal agencies, causing Congress to seek to protect the rights of individuals from abuses of administrative power.
But now, Biden’s executive order on elections is in place while the courts deal with it. Just as the FEC fined ACT years later, the courts are likely to eventually strike down or substantially limit Biden’s executive order. But it will likely be long after the election has been manipulated.
In addition, Levitt almost certainly played a leading role in crafting the unhinged remarks that President Biden gave attacking Georgia’s Election Integrity Act in 2021. Biden infamously claimed the new law was “Jim Crow in the 21st century” and predicted it would lead to chaos and suppress minority votes.
The new laws did neither. Georgia’s first election after the adoption of the package of election reforms saw record turnout. The remarks were so false that even The Washington Post Fact Checker gave them “four Pinocchios” — their worst rating reserved for “whoppers.”
Levitt may be gone from the White House, his work there complete, but the incentives remain for those on the left to cry voter suppression while undermining democracy. Until it is guaranteed such proven manipulators will never again be given power or influence, most voters will not have confidence in our elections.
Michael Thielen is president and executive director of the Republican National Lawyers Association.
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