POWER MOVE

Trump Relative Sounds Alarm Over His Election Plot

The president is desperate to hang on to power, she said.

President Donald Trump’s estranged niece has accused the president of attempting to rig the November 3 midterm elections.

“The Trump regime is making it plain that it will do anything in its power to steal this election from the American people,” Mary Trump, the daughter of the president’s late brother Fred Trump Jr., wrote in her latest column.

In the piece, titled “SCAM: Donald’s Plan to Rig the Midterms”, she tore into her aging uncle over what she described as his efforts to police next week’s vote.

She said her 80-year-old uncle is desperate to cling to power because the stakes are “not simply political” but also financial.

Mary Trump alleged that his family has made billions through business and cryptocurrency ventures, while wealthy allies and donors have benefited from an administration driven by their financial interests.

“That is why hanging onto power matters so much to him. Losing it means losing access to the machinery that makes this illicit, deeply unfair arrangement possible, along with the grotesque accumulation of massive and obscene wealth that comes with it.”

She savaged Trump for his July announcement that he had declassified a slew of documents he claimed revealed vulnerabilities in the elections.

“This evidence shows that the election system we have dangerously exposes levels never thought possible,” the president announced at the time.

“Yes, levels never seen before, I have no doubt,” Mary Trump fired back in her column. “What we are being told is that Donald knows he cannot win without cheating, and that he cannot acquire the kind of wealth that might someday make him feel whole without rigging the system.”

“When he claims elections are fraudulent, what he really means is any election that Democrats win.”

Mary Trump accused the administration of turning federal institutions meant to safeguard civil liberties, including voting rights, into tools to investigate voters, challenge their eligibility, and block certain ballots from being counted.

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“This is happening even though the Constitution makes clear that states run their own elections and that the federal government plays a minimal role in how they are conducted,” she wrote.

She raised concerns about a DHS program called the Unlawful Voter Initiative, under which federal employees were reassigned to probe suspected ineligible voters. According to Mary Trump, employees received less than two hours of training and were expected to review 40 people a day—leaving roughly 12 minutes for each supposedly thorough investigation.

She pointed to the Justice Department’s demands for voter registration records from states nationwide and its efforts to block thousands of ballots in California pending citizenship checks.

On October 15, the department sued California after the state declined to investigate more than 20,000 registered voters it had flagged as likely noncitizens. The DOJ gave California just 48 hours to review the list.

California’s attorneys said the DOJ also threatened to criminally prosecute election workers if they processed the affected ballots as usual.

“The DOJ relied on a law prohibiting noncitizens from voting, not on any authority allowing officials to withhold the ballots of registered voters based on suspicion,” Mary Trump wrote.

“This is all about the federal government interfering in our elections and making it harder for people to vote, especially the people it does not want voting.”

Mary Trump also cited an October 20 Washington Post report that about 10 current and former national security officials had been privately advising governors, election administrators and members of Congress on potential interference by the Trump administration in the midterms.

“That should send a chill down your spine.”

She urged voters to “act like your rights depend on it, because they do.”

“This is a five alarm fire, and it is indeed the most important election of our lifetimes,” Mary Trump added. “Please vote. Raise your voices. Vote for democracy, vote for the Constitution, vote for your civil liberties, vote for the rule of law, and vote for a future America in which we are all equal.”

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.

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Isabel van BrugenFreelance Writer

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