By Jacob Knutson
The Department of Justice (DOJ) informed a federal court that Homeland Security agents have used Social Security data in the Trump administration’s expansive search for voting fraud ahead of the midterm elections.
The disclosure, which the department included in filings Monday to U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan, partially confirms allegations an anonymous federal official made in a bombshell whistleblower report this week.
The whistleblower claimed that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officers used personal data to illegally access people’s voter registration files through state election websites as part of the department’s broad effort to find noncitizens on state voter rolls.
But the DOJ filing also appeared to be an attempt by the department to get ahead of information in the whistleblower report suggesting DHS had violated a court injunction preventing its agents from using the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database, which the agency had improperly turned into a citizenship-checking tool.
In its notice to Sooknanan, DOJ attorneys said DHS recently “reactivated” a link between DHS and the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) databases and used SSA data “to verify information and help determine whether illegal voting may have occurred.”
The DOJ did not specify precisely what officers do with the SSA data. However, the whistleblower specifically alleged that Social Security numbers were among the personally...
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