With moves in Alaska and California, the department has stepped up interventions in the midterm elections as the president’s instrument of unmediated executive power.
President Trump during a campaign rally in support of Senator Dan S. Sullivan in Wasilla, Alaska, this month. Mr. Trump urged the Justice Dept. to intervene in the Senate race.
The letters are the latest escalation in a legal battle between California and President Donald Trump's Department of Justice, which has recently focused on the state in its efforts to root out noncitizen voting ahead of the midterm elections.
The U.S. midterm elections come after aggressive efforts by both Democrats and Republicans to redraw district maps in their favor, a practice known as gerrymandering.