NEWS: Trump installs czar to oversee U.S. elections
Conspiracy theorist hired for top U.S. “election integrity” job, hinting at broader White House plans to hijack 2026 vote
Bottom Line Up Front:
The president’s appointment of a fringe election conspiracist to a newly created DHS post signals widening plans to use federal power to influence the 2026 midterms — far beyond gerrymandering.
WHAT HAPPENED
The Trump administration has quietly installed an alleged 2020 election denier, Heather Honey, as a czar overseeing U.S. “election integrity” at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, Honey has a long record of spreading discredited claims about election fraud and reportedly tried to purge overseas military ballots in 2024 based on bogus data. She is also a close ally of Cleta Mitchell, the right-wing legal operative at the center of Trump’s efforts to overturn 2020.
The job of “election integrity” czar doesn’t exist in U.S. law. But Trump created the position anyway. And his appointment of a conspiracy-peddling loyalist to the role signals that the White House is building the infrastructure inside the federal government to interfere with the 2026 elections from within.
Tellingly, Honey’s appointment was not publicly announced by the White House or anyone else in the administration. Instead it was discovered via the DHS website.
Meanwhile, Trump’s DOJ is sending letters to states demanding full access to voter registration databases, while DHS has slashed funding to bipartisan election security programs.
WHAT IT MEANS
I suspect that the new post has been created to remedy what Trump believed to be a major error in 2020 — letting his own lieutenants independently assess the security of the election. My former colleague Chris Krebs was famously fired by tweet for defying Trump’s claims that the vote was rigged. This time, the president wants someone who will obey, perhaps to tip the scales of the democratic process in his favor.
On CNN yesterday, I warned that Trump’s revenge campaign is distorting everyday American life:
“The businesses that you shop at. Trump is trying to intimidate them to change the way they do business. The schools you send your kids to. He’s trying to intimidate those academic leaders to change how they run those institutions. The media you consume. Just yesterday he threatened to pull the broadcast licenses of ABC and NBC — to pull them off the air. The cities you live in. He’s sending troops into those cities.”
Voting rights are next.
Already the administration has been conspiring with GOP governors to redraw elections maps to increase the odds of Republicans keeping a Congressional majority. Now the creation of an election-integrity chief inside the government confirms what many suspected — that Trump will pull all levers of power that he can to influence the midterms.
Let me be blunt. DHS was created after 9/11 to protect the country, not rig its elections. But I worry that’s what the president is trying to do.
WHAT’S NEXT
I shudder to think of the ways Trump could abuse DHS powers to affect the 2026 midterms.
For starters, they might try to misuse the Department’s intelligence arm to monitor domestic political activity under the pretext of national security. That includes targeting protests, activist groups, or even election officials. The Department’s cyber units could also be deployed to further pressure states to hand over voter information — data that could be twisted to justify mass purges or phony fraud claims.
Then there’s financial leverage: DHS distributes billions in federal grants, including to election offices. I suspect Trump’s team is already planning to withhold those funds from states that don’t toe the line (or reward those that do). And DHS’s formerly nonpartisan public awareness efforts could be flipped, turning the agency into a megaphone for election lies and conspiracy theories.
More worrisome than all of that is the fact that DHS is the nation’s largest federal law enforcement agency. Under Trump, agents could again be deployed in cities or even near polling places as a form of intimidation and coercion.
In normal times, I’d write off this kind of speculation as bad fiction, but we know better now. Trump continues to wink at us about his dictatorial desires, and this is how authoritarian governments operate. They don’t just rig elections. They rig the agencies meant to safeguard elections.
Let's be clear about exactly WHO is behind all this: the framers of Project 2025. A playbook for overthrowing a constitutional government and KEEPING control. Thiel, Vought, Miller, and others are the real forces behind these actions — not Trump. He isn't bright enough to carry this off all by himself. He is going to die soon, but they will remain. We need to start focusing on them and keeping them in the spotlight. The more they are exposed, the better. Vance will not have the "hold" on MAGA that Trump does, but he won't need it if the infrastructure is firmly in place. That's what they are building.
Your predictions are frightening. Keep warning us about the ways our elections will be rigged. I hope there are enough “Davids” in our society to bring down “Goliath”.