As Election Day nears, recent events have prompted some FBI agents to express concern, according to seven people with knowledge of internal discussions among the ranks, that they may be ordered to seize voting machines or take other actions that disrupt election results.

Current and former FBI officials told MS NOW that in the wake of recent Trump administration actions that they believe were designed to sow doubt in the election process, some agents have expressed deep concern that they could be ordered to take legally questionable steps to investigate dubious claims of election fraud. The individuals requested anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations.

MS NOW has also learned that advocates for free and fair elections are preparing ways to give FBI agents advice if they fear they have been assigned a task that is illegal or unethical, according to two former law enforcement officials who have knowledge of the plans.

“I’m worried about that situation for sure,” a current FBI official said. “We have all the evidence we need to expect at least one U.S. attorney and one FBI agent to be willing to sign on to such actions, such as Georgia and Arizona.”

Federal law prohibits armed agents at polling places, but the current and former FBI officials who spoke to MS NOW are worried, after seeing incidents like ballot seizures in Fulton County, Georgia, that the Justice Department could seek to obtain warrants based on thin or specious allegations of voting irregularities — warrants that could, in theory, allow armed officers to legally swoop in and seize ballots or machines.

Such seizures could prevent voters from casting ballots and officials from counting them, and could interfere with the chain of custody normally required to ensure against tampering, experts say.

In opposing the administration’s demand for state voter rolls, the Democratic National Committee warned that the Justice Department’s demand in California “appears to be a plausible threat that DOJ will attempt to engage in warrant-based ballot seizure.”

The conservative-leaning ranks of FBI agents and progressive-leaning nonprofits and legal advocates aren’t normally aligned. But some agents share the fear of the administration interfering in vote counting because of the Trump administration’s legal attacks on state elections and the president’s rhetoric in advance of the Nov. 3 midterms.

The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment by MS NOW.

In an October lawsuit, Trump’s Justice Department insisted that California officials temporarily remove an estimated 20,000 voters from its rolls based on the unverified claim that they were “likely noncitizens.” But in partial reviews of the list, the state said in a court filing, it found many registered voters who appeared to be born in the U.S. — and thereby citizens — which made the administration’s claim “unreliable.”

Current and former FBI officials cited the FBI’s dramatic seizure of ballots in Fulton County, outside Atlanta, in January, after obtaining a warrant based largely on previously debunked allegations of fraud in the 2020 election.

In March the FBI also obtained electronic voting records and equipment from Arizona’s Republican-led review of the 2020 election in Maricopa County, Arizona, after a federal grand jury issued subpoenas to the state Senate.

Neither action has resulted in criminal charges. The fear is that a seizure of state election materials on the day of voting could cause irreparable harm by breaking the chain of custody of the ballots or leaving vote counts unreliable.

MS NOW reported in July that two Atlanta-based FBI intelligence analysts were fired for refusing to participate in the administration’s investigation into the 2020 election that spurred the Fulton County ballot seizure.

“I and others are worried that the FBI will be the administration’s arm into seizing voting machines or issuing warrants on questionable probable cause,” said Rob D’Amico, a former supervisory FBI agent and an MS NOW contributor.

“The Fulton County, Georgia, search warrant demonstrated how people who questioned such moves will be removed, and so many have already,” D’Amico said. “It is going to take people of high moral character to hold the line between doing what they’re told and doing what is right and lawful.”

Many state officials are preparing in advance for ways to block a repeat of the seizure in Fulton County.

A state attorney general — whose office declined to be named for strategic reasons — sent a letter to the chief judge or judges of their federal courts asking preemptively for the opportunity to reply before any warrants are issued for ballots or voting equipment. The letter reminds the court that these matters are not so urgent as to preclude judges from allowing the state to weigh in.

Two people who work closely with state election officials told MS NOW that election administrators for months have gamed out scenarios they never before considered, including what to do if federal agents show up at polling places, what to do if the top election official is taken into custody, and how to use mobile voting equipment to fill the void if a polling place is taken offline because of a raid by federal law enforcement.

On Tuesday, New York Attorney General Letitia James reminded voters — which also read as a warning to the Trump administration — that armed federal officers are not allowed at polling places under state and federal law.

“I’m concerned about any actions that introduce uncertainty in the chain of custody of machines or ballots such that it becomes impossible to verify the true count, or introduces such doubt that no one believes the result,” one former FBI official said.

Attorney General Todd Blanche recently declined to rule out taking postelection actions, and both he and FBI Director Kash Patel declined to publicly oppose sending federal agents to polling places. An 1865 law prohibits agents’ presence in all but the most extreme circumstances.

Last week, Blanche left open the possibility that the Justice Department might try to block states from certifying votes in the midterm elections.

He said he had no intention to “improperly interfere with elections” but said he couldn’t envision every possible scenario and predetermine that the department would not act.

“Of course, I’m not going to say that,” he said. “But am I planning my days around the election to be somewhere to not certify? Of course not.”

Blanche has also publicly questioned why sending immigration enforcement officers to polling places would be objectionable.

At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in September, Sen. Richard Blumenthal asked Patel whether deploying FBI agents to polling places on Election Day would violate the law.

Patel answered: “I don’t know that we can’t legally do it.”

Patel said agents and intelligence analysts would work from FBI field offices on election security but left open going to polling places if there were a violation of law.

One former senior FBI agent said he was concerned about federal agents showing up at polling places and creating an intimidating presence. The former agent said that in the past, “we were extremely careful about going nowhere near polling places, and even instructing agents to go unarmed to vote, just so there was never any whiff of federal activity near a polling place.”

Others said agents had expressed concern that they would be asked to take investigative steps that made them uncomfortable, either because they were legally questionable or were outside the scope of an FBI agent’s training.

“There is a fear of backlash from the current headhunting and being subjected to future investigations because of illegal things they will possibly be made to do this cycle,” another former official said.

The former senior FBI agent said he worried the administration’s goal would be simply to muddy and disrupt elections that don’t go their way.

“This administration is clearly willing to throw anything at the wall and see if it sticks,” he added. “And even if it’s unfounded, it will find life on social media. So, big picture, I’m concerned they’ll cast doubt of the results, tie states up in litigation and try to delay certification. All to avoid accountability, which, of course, is Trump and this administration’s fear. “

The Trump administration’s current flurry of investigations into alleged election fraud and public announcements about them appear to violate four decades of Justice Department policy. That policy has long barred taking overt investigative steps in suspected election fraud until after voting is finalized, with the goal of not unnecessarily interfering in or questioning the integrity of the election while voters are going to the polls.

The director of the Justice Department’s election crimes branch resigned his post in protest when Trump’s then-attorney general, Bill Barr, temporarily waived the policy in 2020. He returned to his post when the Biden administration reinstated the policy.

Lisa Rubin contributed to this reporting

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A group of former federal prosecutors and human rights lawyers is coming together to investigate political corruption and law enforcement violence that it says is being ignored by the Justice Department under President Donald Trump.

Organizers said the nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, dubbed the Rule of Law Project, would gather facts and present cases either to state or local prosecutors, or to a future Justice Department it said may operate in a less partisan manner than the current one.

Founder Brad Adams, who spent 20 years with the nongovernmental organization Human Rights Watch overseeing investigations of state violence, said the group was responding to a climate — citing recent stories alleging grift among politicians and incidents like shootings by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers — in which “senior officials openly engage in corruption and federal agents beat and kill innocent people with impunity.”

“The rule of law is on life support, but it’s all of our responsibility to make sure it doesn’t die,” he added.

Adams said the group would be funded by undisclosed private donors, and would operate in a strictly nonpartisan manner, probing corruption among members of both parties.

“The Rule of Law Project’s mission is to bring back the ideal that the law protects and binds everyone, that criminal conduct has consequences and that no one — regardless of office, badge or influence — may escape those consequences.”

The Rule of Law Project will seek to investigate and document instances of official corruption and police violence across the United States that appear to have gone unexamined and unpunished, though without the subpoena power afforded to government investigators. It will gather evidence and witness statements and turn over “prosecution-ready case files” to state and local authorities, or a future Department of Justice the group said may be more willing to take on those cases.

“I do not think we can break the cycle in this country without criminal accountability,” Adams said, adding that he anticipateed working with Congressional investigators where appropriate.

State and local prosecutors have launched investigations into some cases of ICE violence, but have faced obstacles in obtaining evidence.

DOJ officials disputed the idea that they ignore potential criminal activity, saying the department assesses each case on the merits.

The lead investigator will be Mark Blumberg, who spent almost 30 years in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division investigating and prosecuting acts of official misconduct. For the last 20 years, Blumberg led DOJ efforts to enforce civil rights laws in elections. He also served on the FBI’s Shooting Investigation Review Group and Customs and Border Protection’s National Use of Force Review Board.

The group said he would lead a team of former federal prosecutors and investigators with decades of federal law enforcement experience.

“People need to trust that the game is not rigged against them, that the law applies to everyone,” Blumberg said. “If those in power aren’t held accountable for illegally enriching themselves and using violence against others without cause, that undermines any incentive for the rest of us to follow the law. Our public officials should model the best behavior for our country, not milk it dry for power and riches.”

Organizers said the Rule of Law Project would investigate officials who appear to have used their public office for private gain, including those who solicit or accept something of value in exchange for influencing their official duties, who improperly seek to influence executive and legislative actions, and whose official acts affect their personal financial interest.

A series of news stories over the past 20 months has documented questionable conduct by public officials or FBI corruption investigations that were closed by Trump officials.

For example, MS NOW was first to report that the FBI recorded Tom Homan accepting $50,000 cash in an undercover sting operation, an allegation Homan has denied. The case did not move forward.

More recently, ProPublica reported that the Trump Justice Department declined to move forward on FBI investigations of potential illegal cash for contract schemes involving Republican Sen. Susan Collins, the late Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham and Democratic Rep. James Clyburn. Collins and Clyburn deny wrongdoing. The FBI told ProPublica that it had found “nothing implicating Senator Collins” and that the stories about the lawmakers were based on “half-baked misleading claims from former FBI personnel and a convicted felon to spin a predetermined narrative.”

Other cases have come to light that typically might have drawn Justice Department scrutiny, including a recent New York Times report that former DOJ official Alina Habba received a $50 million compensation package from the daughter of a Venezuelan billionaire who sought and got a pardon from Trump. Habba denies wrongdoing and the DOJ has not indicated whether it will — or will not — investigate the matter.

The Rule of Law Project will also investigate excessive-force cases and improper conditions of confinement, with a specific focus on unlawful conduct by ICE and CBP, the group says. Investigators will also look into federal interference with protected liberties, including the right to vote.

After an ICE officer shot and killed Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Maine in July, officials said the FBI was not conducting a civil rights investigation.

The DOJ also declined to open a civil rights investigation into the January ICE shooting of Renée Good in Minneapolis.

“We only take cases that an independent Justice Department would have pursued in ordinary times,” Blumberg said. “That’s the standard I held myself to as a prosecutor. We’re not here to seek retribution or to settle scores. We’re here to ensure the law applies to the powerful the same way it applies to the rest of us.”

Since Watergate, the Department of Justice has operated independently of the White House in choosing which cases to investigate and prosecute. Days after he was sworn in, Attorney General Todd Blanche said he would not pledge to run the department independent of Trump and the White House.

“No, I’m not going to pledge that. And no attorney general should ever pledge that,” he told NBC in August.

Among the board members of the new group is Kenneth Roth, former executive director at Human Rights Watch.

“Since the current U.S. government won’t investigate allegations of ICE violence or official corruption, we will,” he said. “To lay the foundation for prosecutions when they become possible.”

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