Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola has denied she knew anything about an alleged “scheme” that led to two men named Dan Sullivan standing in the Alaska Senate race.
The denial comes as the Trump administration continues to escalate a criminal investigation into the matter, including a request for election officials to separate ballots that rank retired teacher Dan J Sullivan.
Senator Dan S Sullivan, the incumbent Republican running for re-election, and allies have accused the Democrats of trying to confuse voters.
The Alaska race is considered by analysts to be one of the tightest in the upcoming US midterm elections, which will decide which party controls Congress.
Alaska’s Republican Governor Mike Dunleavy ordered an official inquiry earlier this week into the alleged scheme.
Heyman did not immediately provide details of specific crimes his office would investigate.
Both Dan Sullivans have been running for the open Senate seat for some time. Still, controversy erupted earlier this week when The New York Times reported that Peltola’s team worked with people who tried to recruit spoiler candidates in the Senate race.
The Times’s report alleged that people connected to Peltola’s campaign, as well as senior aides at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), worked to try to recruit Dan J Sullivan, a retired teacher who lives in a remote fishing village, to stand in the Senate race.
The paper said it had seen text messages and interviewed 12 people who participated in or were told of the plan, or were would-be candidates who the team also tried to recruit. The BBC has not independently verified the reporting.
The Peltola campaign has denied those reports and Sullivan has denied any links to her campaign.
But those denials have not stopped the justice department (DOJ) and Republicans from attacking Peltola.
Getty ImagesThe DOJ has begun issuing subpoenas targeting Democratic officials allegedly connected to the recruitment effort, according to CBS News, the BBC’s US news partner.
No charges had been filed as of Friday evening.
“There is both a civil investigation and a criminal investigation that are ongoing,” Michael Heyman, the US attorney for the district of Alaska, said at a Friday afternoon press conference.
Later that day, lawyers for the Trump administration asked a federal judge to issue an order before Monday that would direct state election officials “to preserve and segregate” all ballots that rank Dan J Sullivan.
Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system means that voters could select both Sullivans if they are unsure at the ballot box.
Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward argued in court documents that the move would be to investigate whether such ranking “was the product of voter confusion, should such an investigation become necessary”.
“These modest precautionary measures will be impossible after Election Day, so there is good cause for expedited consideration,” he said.
But the state’s Republican attorney general – the top prosecutor in the state – asked the court to toss the lawsuit and said the request from the Trump administration was “inappropriate and not even possible given Alaskan voters’ vital right to ballot secrecy”.
The filing said there was “no reason for this Court to entertain this meritless lawsuit any longer”.
What legal experts say about ‘spoiler candidates’
Scott Kendall, an attorney who worked with Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski in her 2010 and 2016 campaigns, told the BBC he was sceptical the actions described in the New York Times story broke the law.
Alaska law does not have specific good-faith requirements for candidates, Kendall explained – noting that spoiler candidates sometimes emerged in their contests.
“I freely admit there could be more facts, but I’m not going to speculate they exist,” he said.
The spectre of a federal crimes could come into play if there was potential evidence of campaign finance violations, Kendall, as well as other legal experts, told the BBC. But such evidence has not yet emerged.
Kendall believed the primary risk to Peltola from the allegations is “absolute reputational harm”.
The Trump administration filed a federal lawsuit last week aimed at preventing the certification of the result if the Trump-backed Sullivan loses, arguing the presence of both of them on the ballot could confuse voters.
On Wednesday, the justice department amended its lawsuit to include the reporting by the Times, citing significant sections of the story as well as Governor Mike Dunleavy’s announcement of an investigation.
A federal judge has expedited consideration and will weigh motions to dismiss brought by Alaska election officials and backed by the Peltola campaign and voting rights groups.
The legal action comes days before voters across the US head to the polls. This race in Alaska is among the closest-watched in the country, as it could be the deciding factor in who controls the Senate.
The non-partisan Cook Political Report currently classifies the race as a toss-up.
As the final weekend of campaigning approaches, President Donald Trump will appear at back-to-back rallies in Kansas and Iowa on Sunday.
The in-person appearances were previously cancelled, but a source familiar with planning told the BBC that they were rescheduled to accommodate remote appearances by Trump at tele-rallies.
