THE COURT OF PUBLIC OPINION
Pop quiz. A White House task force is told to find election fraud. It doesn’t produce any. What does it do next?
It switches courtrooms.
That’s the Saturday morning finding from the Washington Post: the task force President Trump charged with uncovering evidence of election fraud “hasn’t produced any.” Instead, the Post reports, it has shifted to releasing records the administration is using to help build a public case against the officials who investigated him, from Robert Mueller’s Russia probe to Jack Smith’s classified documents case. The files still sit on the White House site under the heading Election Integrity.
The man running it, pro-Trump journalist John Solomon, explained the strategy to the Post himself: “They’re worried about the court of law, and what the president has created here is something that can serve the court of public opinion.”
THE COURT OF PUBLIC OPINION has no rules of evidence, no cross-examination, no statute of limitations, and no acquittals. That’s the whole appeal. And this week, both parties showed how much they’d love to sit on the bench.
Watch: Face the Nation: Jack Smith’s full Senate Judiciary testimony, Sept. 29. Hearing record: Senate Judiciary Committee.
Election integrity, now with Burisma
Here is what has landed under the “election integrity” banner, per the Post: handwritten notes and a summary of Michael Flynn’s 2017 FBI interview; the file on a brief look at Jeff Sessions that Mueller’s team quickly closed; records, released Oct. 5, showing the FBI tracked the numbers on calls to and from Susie Wiles in 2023 with a court-approved pen register (numbers, not content); and, on Friday, State Department emails about Hunter Biden and Burisma from Trump’s first impeachment. The White House page menu lists “Spying on Susie Wiles” and “Burisma Corruption” a few links down from “Noncitizens on State Voter Rolls.”
The tally so far, Solomon told the Post: 113 documents, 832 pages, 14 batches. Back in July, Solomon acknowledged to MS Now that acting Director of National Intelligence Bill Pulte and other intelligence officials had found “zero evidence” that votes were changed in 2020, 2022, or 2024, the Washington Examiner reported. He said the task force was “still researching.”
Legal experts and former law enforcement officials told the Post the records show investigators following normal, court-authorized procedures. On the claim that monitoring Wiles’ calls trampled her right to a lawyer, former federal judge Paul Cassell, now a University of Utah law professor, said: “To say this violates the Sixth Amendment would be going too far.”
John Solomon speaking at CPAC in 2014. He now leads the White House task force that has released 113 documents under the “election integrity” banner and told the Washington Post it can “serve the court of public opinion.” Credit: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
The neutral arbiter
Solomon says the task force is separate from the Justice Department’s Florida “grand conspiracy” probe and isn’t working with prosecutors. Two people familiar with that probe told the Post some prosecutors see Solomon as better equipped to pry intelligence files loose quickly. An administration official said of the Flynn release: “This could be considered an overt act and an ongoing conspiracy.” The Florida case has produced many subpoenas and no indictments. Its chief, Joe diGenova, resigned last month and Kurt Olsen left the team, the Post reports. We covered that exit in The Ethical Problem. Before firing Attorney General Pam Bondi in April, Trump repeatedly vented about her failure to prosecute his opponents.
Solomon’s preferred epitaph: “My goal in this is not to do anything except to be a neutral arbiter of releasing information to the public.” The neutral arbiter helped craft Trump’s primetime election address in July and kept covering election integrity on his podcast and TV show while serving as a special government employee, according to the Washington Examiner. George Washington University ethics scholar Peter Loge: “You’re not just inviting the fox into the hen house. You’re giving the fox Old Bay sauce and a YouTube channel.”
Two official re-examinations of the Russia probe already happened. The Justice Department inspector general found no evidence of anti-Trump bias. Special counsel John Durham accused the FBI of moving too quickly and came away with one guilty plea and two acquittals. A batch of files at a background briefing is not a third review. It’s a press kit.
Meanwhile, in the other courtroom
Democrats, before you share the Post story with a smug emoji, read Wednesday’s memo from Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley. Citing whistleblower disclosures and subpoena returns, Grassley says Jack Smith’s office and the Biden Justice Department obtained spreadsheets covering at least 639,000 people, with more than 148,000 rows identified as donors, generally small-dollar, some as low as $1. The fields he lists: names, birth dates, home addresses, emails, Republican registration, occupation and employer (sample entries: retired, pool tech, logger, janitor, doorman), and the last four digits of credit cards. The records run from 2005 to 2021. They also cover buyers of red MAGA hats, with shipping addresses, according to the memo, which Fox News reported first.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, in his 2017 official portrait. His Oct. 14 memo says Jack Smith’s team held data on at least 639,000 Republican donors, voters and supporters, including MAGA hat buyers. Credit: United States Congress, public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Caveats matter, so here they are. That is Grassley’s account, and the underlying subpoena returns are not public. Asked at his Sept. 29 hearing whether his team gathered donor data, Smith said: “Yes. We acquired financial information. As I sit here right now, I cannot recite to you every subpoena we issued. I can tell you why we issued subpoenas. And it was to conduct a criminal investigation of one of the most serious crimes that’s ever happened in our nation’s history. I had a duty to collect facts.” Our take on that hearing: Jack Smith’s Strongest Witnesses Were Republicans.
Now flip the jersey. In April 2025, Trump ordered the Justice Department to investigate ActBlue, the Democrats’ small-dollar platform. ActBlue’s statement called it “blatantly unlawful” and said the administration “continues to weaponize the instruments of federal power,” NBC News reported. Democratic groups including the DNC said the memo was “designed to undermine democratic participation.” Fair enough. Now imagine Trump’s Justice Department holding the employers and card digits of 148,000 ActBlue donors and explaining, “We acquired financial information.” If that answer wouldn’t satisfy you about your donors, it shouldn’t satisfy you about theirs.
And the loudest Democratic strategist’s plan for after November is not fewer subpoenas. James Carville, on his Politicon show this month, to everyone in Trump’s orbit: “Subpoenas are gonna be flying everywhere.” Also: “You better leak.” (Mediaite via Yahoo News). That is not a reform agenda. It’s the same court of public opinion with a new judge and a January start date.
James Carville in 2011. On his Politicon show this month he told people in Trump’s orbit that “subpoenas are gonna be flying everywhere” if Democrats win in November. Credit: JD Lasica, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
Both costumes
Red promised to end weaponization, then built a declassification pipeline aimed at its own investigators, labeled it “election integrity,” handed it to a journalist, and paired it with a Florida probe that hasn’t indicted anyone. Blue called Trump’s ActBlue probe an attack on democratic participation, and owes the same scrutiny to a special counsel whose subpoena returns, per Grassley, swept in pool techs, loggers, and hat buyers. One side wants the court of public opinion because it hasn’t won in the court of law. The other wants it back in January.
Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette of the Project on Government Oversight was talking about ethics loopholes both recent administrations used, but he nailed the whole week: “You care a lot about it if it’s the other team, so to speak, and then you care less about it if it’s your team.”
Here is the rule to laminate. If you have a case, bring it to a court of law and let a judge and jury test it. If you hold donor data you don’t need, destroy it, whether the donor gave $1 through WinRed or $1 through ActBlue. And if you’re releasing files in batches at background briefings 17 days before an election, call it what it is: a campaign.
We dug into both parties’ small-dollar machines in Integrity for Thee, Recurring for Me. Want to see who funds the senators running these hearings? Start with our Follow the Money state map and the PACTracker.
Ask your senators one question: would you accept this exact rule if the other party held the subpoena pen and the declassification stamp next year?
Receipts
- Washington Post (Isaac Arnsdorf, Perry Stein), Oct. 17, 2026. Task force “hasn’t produced” fraud evidence; shift to releasing records on Trump’s investigators; Solomon “court of public opinion” and “neutral arbiter” quotes; 113 documents, 832 pages, 14 batches; Flynn, Sessions, Wiles pen register, Burisma releases; Cassell quote; diGenova and Olsen exits; Bondi fired in April; IG and Durham findings.
- White House: Election Integrity page. Menu lists Flynn interview notes, Plasmic Echo, “Spying on Susie Wiles,” and “Burisma Corruption” alongside voter-roll files.
- Washington Examiner (Christian Datoc), July 23, 2026. Solomon special government employee role; “zero evidence” votes changed, per Solomon to MS Now; helped craft July address; Loge and Hedtler-Gaudette quotes.
- Grassley memo, Oct. 14, 2026 (PDF via Daily Signal) and Senate Judiciary Committee release. 639,000 individuals; 148,000 donor rows; fields listed; 2005 to 2021; MAGA hat buyers and shipping addresses.
- Fox News (Alex Miller, Bill Melugin), Oct. 14, 2026. First report on the memo; Smith’s Sept. 29 “We acquired financial information” answer.
- Face the Nation: Jack Smith Senate Judiciary testimony, full video and Senate Judiciary hearing page. Watch links.
- White House memorandum, April 24, 2025. Trump orders DOJ probe of online fundraising platforms, naming ActBlue.
- NBC News, April 24, 2025 and AP. ActBlue “blatantly unlawful” and “weaponize” statement; Democratic groups’ “undermine democratic participation” statement.
- Mediaite via Yahoo News (Zachary Leeman), Oct. 9, 2026. Carville on Politicon: “Subpoenas are gonna be flying everywhere”; “You better leak.”
- Earlier Hypocrisy Democracy: The Ethical Problem; Jack Smith’s Strongest Witnesses Were Republicans; Integrity for Thee, Recurring for Me. Reader tools: Follow the Money state map; PACTracker.
Upgrade
Free readers see this section as Upgrade to paid. Paid readers pick 1 meme sticker from the Etsy shop HypocrisyDemocracy, plus quarterly sticker packs, discounts and bonus content.
If you haven’t subscribed, now’s a good time. Everything here stays free, always. But pieces like this take days of research, writing, and fact checking, and if you’d like to support that work, paid subscriptions are there. Thank you for your support!
Thanks for reading, sharing, and commenting.
Subscribe. Donate. hypocrisydemocracy.net. Hypocrisydemocracy@pm.me.
Originally published on Substack.
