DOJ Makes Marc Elias a Target in the ‘Decoy Dan’ Probe. Senate Democrats’ Campaign Arm Got Subpoenaed

The Justice Department’s criminal investigation into the second Dan Sullivan on Alaska’s Senate ballot has reached the Democratic Party’s best-known election lawyer. Marc Elias is a target of the probe, CBS News reported Tuesday, citing a law enforcement official and a second source.

He is not alone. About 20 target and preservation letters have gone out so far, according to CBS, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the party’s national Senate arm, has received a grand jury subpoena. The New York Times, which first exposed the scheme last week, reported that at least one DSCC official is among those designated to get letters, and that investigators are looking at possible donor fraud and conspiracy charges.

All of it landed on Election Day, with Republican Sen. Dan S. Sullivan in a tight race against Democrat Mary Peltola and the other Dan Sullivan, Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., sitting a line above him on the ballot.

What a target letter means

A target letter is the government telling someone that prosecutors see him as a likely defendant. It is not a charge, and it is not a conviction. A preservation letter orders the recipient not to destroy records. A grand jury subpoena demands documents or testimony. Think of it as three levels of the same knock on the door.

CBS says the case is run by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Alaska with prosecutors from the criminal section of the Civil Rights Division. DOJ has not said publicly which crimes it is weighing. Last week White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller pointed to 18 U.S.C. § 241, the federal law against two or more people conspiring to interfere with someone’s rights, including the right to vote.

Attorney General Todd Blanche would not confirm the letters when Fox News asked him Tuesday afternoon. He didn’t back off the case either. “This is a situation where everybody agrees that there is a fraud on the ballot,” he said. “Everybody agrees that there is a man running that doesn’t want to run,” one who is “only running to confuse Alaskan voters.” He said DOJ has been fighting “tooth and nail” and won’t stop after Election Day.

How Elias got here

Elias, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign lawyer, now runs the Elias Law Group, the go-to firm for Democratic campaigns. Peltola’s own campaign committee has paid the firm for legal work: FEC filings processed so far show $27,263 in legal fees from 2023 through June 2025. His firm is also on the Alaska side of DOJ’s civil fight over certifying the race.

President Trump put Elias’s name on the scheme over the weekend. “It was done by Schumer. I mean, that really started with Schumer and the lawyer, Marc Elias. And I think they should be held criminally responsible for it,” he said.

Elias answered Tuesday morning on 𝕏: “It’s Election Day and Donald Trump is calling for the Democratic Party’s leading election lawyer, someone who has humiliated him and his lawyers in scores of cases, to be jailed. This is not normal and yet here we are.” His post didn’t deny any role in recruiting the second Sullivan.

Once CBS confirmed he was a target, his statement got hotter. “No one should be surprised that President Trump’s Department is targeting me and my law firm on Election Day,” he said, calling it “a sham investigation.” He added that his firm wants to help make sure Trump “and his party enjoy a well-deserved beating at the ballot box.” He still did not address the Sullivan recruitment.

Peltola’s campaign and the DSCC have both denied any connection to putting Daniel J. Sullivan on the ballot.

The road to the letters

This didn’t start Tuesday. The Times reported Oct. 28 that a Peltola staffer was told in the summer of 2025 to find every Dan Sullivan in Alaska, and that Peltola aides and DSCC staff worked on what they called a “ballot composition project.” This spring, a retired teacher from Petersburg named Dan J. Sullivan filed for the seat.

Two days after the Times story, U.S. Attorney Michael Heyman stood with the FBI in Anchorage and said agents had surged into Alaska. He denied timing anything to the election. “We’re not escalating anything except to the extent that a new article came out,” he said, adding the case had been going on “quietly for several months.”

DOJ’s separate civil case, which asked a court to hold off certifying the race if the confusion decided it, was dismissed Sunday. The judge found the department lacked standing. The criminal probe is a different track, and it is moving.

What the coverage leaves out

Democrats call this “ballot stacking,” an old trick of recruiting extra candidates to split the other side’s vote. Both parties have done it. But stacking means adding a candidate. This was a hunt for a man with the same name as the incumbent, on a ballot where the only thing separating the two is a middle initial and the word “incumbent.” That is the line prosecutors appear to be testing.

CBS also reports the letters may run against DOJ’s own guidelines on overt investigative steps right before an election. Blanche’s answer, in effect, is that the fraud is on the ballot Alaskans are filling out today, so waiting until after doesn’t help them.

What happens next

Polls in Alaska close at 8 p.m. local time. Sen. Sullivan told voters Tuesday that turnout is the way to “put a stop to Peltola’s scheme to confuse Alaskans.” Alaska also uses ranked-choice voting, so a close race may not be settled for days.

For Elias and the other recipients, a target letter usually brings an invitation to testify before a grand jury or talk through a lawyer. No one has been charged. If prosecutors bring a case, they will have to prove an agreement and an intent to interfere with Alaskans’ votes, not just a recruiting pitch over a beer.