From 2020 election to retribution, how the Justice Department is advancing Trump's agenda

Amna Nawaz:

On several fronts today, the Department of Justice pressed forward on President Trump's top legal and political priorities. That includes relitigating the 2020 election by investigating voting records in Georgia and legally targeting lawmakers and groups seen as hostile to the president's agenda.

Our justice correspondent, Ali Rogin, joins me now with the latest.

Ali, it's good to see you.

Ali Rogin:

Thanks for having me.

Amna Nawaz:

So let's start now with the news from Fulton County, Georgia. All of this stems from an FBI raid of election records back in January. What do we need to know?

Ali Rogin:

That's right, Amna.

President Trump has long had grievances against the state of Georgia, which he wrongly insists that he won. Earlier this year, the FBI raided the offices of Fulton County to seize more than 600 boxes of election records from 2020. They say they want to investigate irregularities.

Fulton County then sued to get those voting records back. But, yesterday, a judge ruled that the FBI can keep the records and continue this investigation. This is a big boon for the administration's efforts to relitigate the 2020 election.

Amna Nawaz:

OK, moving on to a federal appeals court today that heard arguments over whether Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth can punish Democratic Senator Mark Kelly over his past comments that were critical of the administration.

Prior courts have sided with Kelly. Did the judges seem to do so today?

Ali Rogin:

They did.

And, of course, this is yet another front in the administration's efforts to extract retribution against the president's adversaries. This one is led by Secretary Hegseth. He tried to demote Senator Mark Kelly, who is a retired Navy captain, after Kelly appeared in a video reminding service members that they can and should refuse illegal orders.

Kelly then sued Secretary Hegseth. And the first federal judge to hear the case did indeed side with Kelly. The parties were back again today in front of a second appeals court. And the three-judge panel in that court also seemed skeptical of the administration's claims.

And, Amna, Senator Kelly spoke to reporters after the proceedings outside the courtroom.

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ):

We all understand that this is not about me. They're trying to send a message to other retired veterans and really to all of us. If you say something that the president or this administration does not like, they're going to come after you.

Amna Nawaz:

And Kelly's point there brings us to another case, Ali, this one against the Southern Poverty Law Center, specifically their past practice of paying confidential informants inside extremist groups. What's the latest there?

Ali Rogin:

Yes, the Southern Poverty Law Center investigates all sorts of extremist groups, but they have long drawn the ire of conservatives, who say they focus too much on the political right.

Last month, the DOJ announced that it had secured indictments of fraud against the SPLC for what they say is lying to its donors about where that money, about $3 million in donations, was going and that they -- in paying these informants, they also bankrolled the extremist activities.

The SPLC denies all of this and says that, while they no longer pay informants, those practices allowed them to share critical information with law enforcement. They also criticize acting Attorney General Todd Blanche for making comments in public suggesting that the SPLC did not share the information they got from informants with the government.

And now the SPLC is asking the court to unseal the closed grand jury proceedings that led to this indictment being returned to see if the DOJ misrepresented their practices there as well.

Amna Nawaz:

All right, our justice correspondent, Ali Rogin.

Ali, thank you so much.

Ali Rogin:

You bet.