On December 12, 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) made headlines by filing lawsuits against four states—Colorado, Hawaii, Massachusetts, and Nevada—for failing to hand over their voter registration lists. This legal action, announced by the department’s Civil Rights Division, was accompanied by another lawsuit targeting Fulton County, Georgia, for records related to the 2020 election. The DOJ cited federal laws that empower the attorney general to demand statewide voter registration lists and to ensure that states maintain effective voter registration and list maintenance programs.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon did not mince words in the DOJ’s statement. “States have the statutory duty to preserve and protect their constituents from vote dilution,” she declared. “If states will not fulfill their duty to protect the integrity of the ballot, we will.” According to Reuters, this move is part of a broader campaign by the Civil Rights Division, which has sent requests for voter registration-related information to at least 24 states this year alone, demanding complete lists of registered voters from at least 22 of them. To date, the DOJ has filed 18 lawsuits against states for noncompliance with these requests.
The legal standoff has ignited fierce debate among state officials and privacy advocates. Massachusetts Secretary of State William F. Galvin was quick to criticize the DOJ’s approach, claiming the department had provided “no meaningful justification” for its sweeping data request. Galvin accused the administration of “demonstrated a pattern of using citizens’ private information to go on outrageous fishing expeditions in an attempt to settle petty grievances.” His concerns were echoed by Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, who flatly refused to hand over the requested unredacted voter data, which included full names, birthdays, addresses, and state driver’s license numbers. “We will not hand over Coloradans’ sensitive voting information to Donald Trump,” Griswold stated, underscoring the tension between state and federal authorities.
The backdrop to these lawsuits is a climate of deep mistrust and political polarization surrounding U.S. elections, especially in the wake of the 2020 presidential contest. The DOJ’s actions have been interpreted by some as an effort to bolster election integrity, while others see them as a partisan maneuver to collect sensitive data for unclear purposes. According to Reuters, the DOJ was in talks as recently as September 2025 with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) about transferring sensitive voter roll data for use in criminal and immigration-related investigations—a move that has only heightened privacy concerns among legal experts and civil liberties groups.
The controversy over voter data is just one facet of a wider series of legal and political battles linked to the aftermath of the 2020 election. As reported by Talking Points Memo (TPM), the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division has also sued Fulton County, Georgia, to obtain “all used and void ballots, stubs of all ballots, signature envelopes, and corresponding envelope digital files from the 2020 General Election.” Fulton County has so far resisted these entreaties, underscoring the ongoing tug-of-war over election records and transparency.
But perhaps the most sensational development came with the arrest of Brian Cole Jr. in connection with the pipe bombs planted at both national party headquarters on the eve of Congress’s certification of the 2020 presidential election. According to TPM, Cole acknowledged in a four-hour interview with investigators that he had placed the bombs. He reportedly expressed support for Donald Trump and embraced conspiracy theories about Trump’s 2020 election loss—the so-called “Big Lie.” Cole has not yet entered a plea, and his lawyer has declined to comment on the case.
The story of how the FBI finally cracked the case is as remarkable as it is troubling. For four years, a trove of cellphone data provided by T-Mobile US sat untouched because investigators couldn’t figure out how to read it. It took a tech-savvy law enforcement officer to write new software that finally deciphered the data, leading to Cole’s arrest at his home in Northern Virginia. This technological breakthrough was essential to solving a case that had long been the subject of conspiracy theories and speculation.
Yet, in a twist that has raised eyebrows, the Trump Justice Department’s response to Cole’s arrest has been surprisingly subdued. Normally, an administration would tout such a breakthrough loudly, especially in a case of national significance. But as TPM notes, “the alleged pipe bomber’s affinities—for Trump and the 2020 Big Lie—may be playing a part in the Trump administration acting very much out of character by being … subdued about the case.” Even the original charging documents were thin on details about Cole’s motive, and the usual leaks of damaging information to the press have been virtually nonexistent. It’s the proverbial dog that didn’t bark.
These developments are taking place against a broader backdrop of legal controversies and political maneuvering related to the 2020 election and its aftermath. For instance, Colorado recently dismissed President Trump’s purported pardon of former Mesa County clerk Tina Peters for her conviction on state charges. Peters’s attorney, Peter Ticktin, has advanced the untested theory that the president’s pardon power extends to state-level offenses, portraying Peters as a political prisoner who could be a witness to investigations into false claims about the stolen election.
Meanwhile, the DOJ has been roiled by internal dissent. The Los Angeles Times reported that nine career DOJ attorneys resigned under pressure from higher-ups to investigate alleged anti-Semitism on University of California campuses—a situation that echoes broader concerns about politicization within federal law enforcement during the Trump administration.
Legal battles have also spilled into other areas, from the prosecution of former FBI Director James Comey to disputes over ICE enforcement in courthouses. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, for example, recently blocked a contempt inquiry by U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in a case involving emergency orders on deportations, with the stay granted by two Trump appointees. And in the realm of immigration enforcement, the New York Times revealed that the Transportation Security Administration has been sharing lists of travelers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, allowing ICE to detain people at airports—a previously undisclosed practice that has alarmed civil liberties advocates.
All of these threads point to a nation still grappling with the fallout from the 2020 election, where legal, political, and technological battles continue to shape the landscape. The DOJ’s aggressive pursuit of voter data, the arrest of a Trump-supporting pipe bomber, and the ongoing disputes over election records and pardons all underscore how the events of that fateful year continue to reverberate, leaving no easy answers and plenty of unresolved questions.
As the legal wrangling continues and the stakes remain high, Americans are left to watch as their democracy is tested in ways both familiar and unprecedented, with each new lawsuit and revelation adding another layer to the complex tapestry of U.S. political life.
