Four Months to the Midterms, and the Paper Is Still on the Table (And Markwayne Mullin Did This Today)

The 2020 order to seize voting machines was drafted, reviewed, and never signed. The president now calls that a mistake–and has just emptied the agency that certifies the machines.

Four Months to the Midterms, and the Paper Is Still on the Table

The 2020 order to seize voting machines was drafted, reviewed, and never signed. The president now calls that a mistake–and has just emptied the agency that certifies the machines.

The Jack Hopkins Now Newsletter #974: Friday, July 17th, 2026

Let me tell you about a piece of paper.

It was written in December of 2020. It is a few pages long. It is written in the flat, bloodless language that government lawyers use when they want something monstrous to sound like paperwork.

And…it would have sent soldiers to seize America’s voting machines.

Now before you roll your eyes and click away…before you file this under “guy on the internet is excited again”…I want you to understand something.

I am not speculating.

That document is not a rumor. It is not a leak from a guy who knows a guy. Politico obtained it in January of 2022 and published a picture of the whole thing. You can look at it. Government lawyers wrote it. It sat one signature away from being real.

It was never signed.

And this past January, the man it was written for was asked about it by a reporter from The New York Times.

Here is what he said.

“Well, I should have.”

Read it again.

Now here’s the part that should stop you cold

The reporter pressed him. Was the military actually a viable option for grabbing those machines?

And the President of the United States hesitated.

But listen very carefully to WHAT he hesitated about.

He did not say it would have been illegal.

He did not say it would have been wrong.

He did not say the Constitution forbids it, or that the courts would have stopped him, or that soldiers don’t belong anywhere near a ballot in a free country.

He said he wasn’t sure the National Guard was sophisticated enough to pull it off.

Good warriors, he allowed. But maybe not clever enough to catch Democrats cheating.

Do you see it?

Do you SEE what just happened in that sentence?

The question is no longer whether.

The question is how well.

What that piece of paper actually did

I want to walk you through this document, because the details matter and almost nobody has read them.

The order would have handed the Secretary of Defense the authority to send National Guard troops out to take custody of voting machines. Not just machines…equipment. Stored data. The very records federal law requires be preserved after an election.

Then it appointed a special counsel to start filing criminal charges based on whatever they dug up.

And then…this is the part I need you to hold onto…it gave the Defense Secretary sixty days to file an assessment of what they found.

Sixty days.

From late December 2020.

Go get a calendar. Count it out. That report comes due long after January 20th, when Trump was scheduled to walk out of the White House.

That was never a deadline for finding evidence.

That was a deadline for not finishing.

So why didn’t it happen?

Here’s where everybody gets the story wrong. And I mean everybody.

People think the system stopped it. The courts. The Constitution. Some brave institution with marble columns.

Wrong.

Bernie Kerik…the lead investigator on Trump’s own legal team…told the January 6 committee where the idea came from. A former Army colonel named Phil Waldron. The team carried it to Ken Cuccinelli over at Homeland Security. Then they carried it to Trump himself.

Both men said no.

And in Kerik’s words, it “died on the vine.”

That’s it. That’s the whole story of how America dodged it.

No judge. No statute. No general. No safeguard. No system.

Three or four guys in a room looked at a piece of paper and decided not to.

Now ask yourself the only question that matters:

Who’s in the room now?

Thursday night, July 16th, 2026, 9 PM, the East Room

He walked out flanked by his security chiefs. FBI Director Kash Patel. Acting intelligence director Bill Pulte. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.

He told the country that without honest elections…there’s nothing left. “No trust, no greatness.”

He announced he was declassifying intelligence…RIGHT NOW, TONIGHT… revealing shocking vulnerabilities in American voting.

CNN’s reporters actually read the documents.

You want to know what’s in them?

Vulnerabilities that have been public knowledge for years. The exact ones election officials across this country have been grinding away at for years. That’s it. That’s the bombshell.

He said the release wasn’t meant to shake anybody’s confidence in our elections.

It shook confidence in our elections.

Then he started giving orders. Homeland Security: go tell the states to purge their voter rolls. FBI, CIA, Justice Department: investigate the intelligence officials who say there’s no evidence. Fire them. Maybe charge them.

And the men standing behind him?

They stood there.

Now you’re going to tell me I’m being hysterical

Good. You should. I’d think less of you if you didn’t.

So let me hand you the ammunition myself. Every reason this can’t happen. And I’m going to give you the strong versions, not the weak ones:

“Elections are run by states and counties.” Correct. There is no federal machine to seize. Not one.

“Even the Insurrection Act wouldn’t cover it.” Also correct…that’s the Brennan Center’s read, and they’re the ones who actually know. The broadest domestic power a president has…still would not authorize troops to break the laws protecting election records.

“The courts have already reined him in.” True. They’ve curtailed his Guard deployments significantly.

“It’s self-defeating anyway.” Right again. Chain of custody. The second a soldier touches that machine…its evidentiary value is dead. They’d be destroying the thing they came for.

“The EAC firings actually make it harder.” And here’s the one nobody wants to admit …with no quorum…that commission can’t approve anything. Can’t change the voter form. Can’t touch voting-system standards. The paralysis cuts both ways.

There. Five real objections, honestly stated.

Now…let me tell you why I’m still writing this.

Because you’re arguing against the wrong scenario

You’re picturing tanks. Every county. Blackhawks over the high school gym.

Forget it. It’s never going to look like that…and as long as that’s what you’re watching for…you will not see the real thing coming.

Here’s what it actually looks like.

One county. ONE. Somewhere contested…somewhere close…somewhere the margin is thin enough to matter.

And…nobody calls it a seizure. They call it evidence preservation…which…and I want you to sit with this…is the exact phrase that draft order reached for back in 2020. The language already exists. Somebody already wrote it.

It happens in a night. It gets litigated for eight months. And…it cannot be undone.

Votebeat…sober, careful, no-drama Votebeat…says grabbing even a handful of machines could throw the whole thing into chaos. They also say any attempt would be a “five-alarm fire.”

And notice: it doesn’t have to change a result.

It only has to make the result arguable.

That’s the whole play. That’s all it costs.

Meanwhile…Steve Bannon is out there in public…not whispering, PUBLICLY… telling Trump to “call up the 82nd and 101st Airborne” for 2026 and blanket the polls.

The lawyers at Lawfare have spent this entire year writing that this collides with a century of precedent and still can’t be waved off as talk.

Here’s where we are

The Election Assistance Commission…the four-member bipartisan body that certifies this nation’s voting machines…has zero members. Not a skeleton crew. Zero. Trump emailed Thomas Hicks and Benjamin Hovland their terminations on the night of July 9th. Christy McCormick was asked to resign…and did.

He did it days after the Supreme Court, in Trump v. Slaughter…handed him expanded power to fire the leadership of independent agencies.

Replacements need Senate confirmation. Hovland’s took about nine months.

Chuck Schumer called it a “brazen attempt to seize control of our elections before a single vote is cast.”

The midterms are four months away.

That agency is not coming back before November.

Read that again. It will not be back before the election.

So let me leave you with this

In December of 2020, this country was protected by exactly one thing.

Not the Constitution. Not the courts. Not the system.

Men in a room who said no.

Since then, every single move has been about emptying rooms. The EAC…emptied. The Supreme Court…the power to empty more…granted. The FBI and CIA…handed the job of investigating the officials who keep saying the evidence isn’t there.

The paper still exists. The man it was written for says he regrets not signing it. His only complaint was that he wasn’t sure the soldiers were smart enough.

So…go find out who’s sitting in those chairs today.

Then go back and watch Thursday night…one more time. Watch the men standing behind him while he told the country its elections were rigged.

Watch what they did.

They stood there. They stood there.

BONUS: They Didn’t Wait Twelve Hours

I was going to end this letter where I ended it….with “They stood there.”

Then…today happened.

Less than a day after the speech

Trump finished talking Thursday night around nine.

By Friday morning, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin was standing in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building putting all fifty states and the District of Columbia on notice.

Here’s what he said…and I want you to read it slowly…because a cabinet secretary said this out loud…on camera…about the people who run your elections:

They will be held accountable. And the penalties…up to five years in prison…up to $250,000 in fines…would be extended to them.

To the election officials.

Not to fraudsters. To the county clerks and secretaries of state who don’t do what DHS tells them to do.

“We will find you, and we will charge you.”

What he’s actually demanding

Strip away the noise and it’s simple.

Mullin wants every state to run its voter rolls through a federal database that DHS controls.

Don’t want to? Fine.

Then you don’t get federal election money. He was explicit…you want the grant…you want reimbursement for running federal elections…you implement what DHS says. Machines secured to their satisfaction. Registration lists…in his word…scrubbed.

DHS has pulled this lever before. It has previously threatened to hold back FEMA counterterrorism grants over election security mandates.

And…here’s a detail worth sitting with: reporters at the press conference couldn’t establish which grants were actually at risk.

Think about that. The threat is real. The specifics are TBD.

That’s not sloppiness. That’s leverage. A threat you can’t measure…is a threat you can’t litigate.

The number

DHS says it has preliminarily identified more than 250,000 potential non-citizens on the rolls in four states.

California: 190,832. New Jersey: 35,152. Nevada: 15,903. Pennsylvania: 14,576.

Mullin sent letters to all four secretaries of state…Shirley Weber, Dale Caldwell, Francisco Aguilar, Al Schmidt. “Election security is national security”, he said.

Now…let me show you how to read a number like that.

Every word in DHS’s own release is a door left open. Preliminary reviews. Potential non-citizens. There may be as many as.

Those aren’t findings. Those are database hits.

Anyone who has ever run a name-matching query against a federal file knows what comes back: juniors matched to seniors…naturalized citizens whose records never got updated…common surnames colliding by the thousand.

That’s why the press release says “may be” and the press conference says 250,000.

But here’s the thing that should end the conversation.

Look at who got the Pennsylvania letter.

Al Schmidt is Pennsylvania’s Secretary of State.

He is a Republican. He is the official who uncovered one of the largest instances of noncitizen voting in recent years…an actual case…with actual numbers…that he found and disclosed himself.

He found hundreds.

DHS just informed him there are 14,576.

The man who went looking harder than anyone…and had every political reason to find a big number found hundreds. A preliminary federal database scan found fifty times more. One of those two things involved checking.

And Schmidt…who did the checking…has said publicly that fears of widespread fraud are overblown.

Now here’s why this belongs in this letter

Go back to the top. Go back to that piece of paper.

Everybody remembers the Pentagon draft. The one Politico published. National Guard…seize the machines…Defense Secretary.

Almost nobody remembers there was a second one.

CBS News obtained it. Dated December 17, 2020…one day after the Pentagon version. Same purpose. Different agency.

It empowered the Department of Homeland Security.

And…in December 2020…Rudy Giuliani got Ken Cuccinelli on the phone…Cuccinelli was DHS’s number two…and asked whether Homeland Security had the authority to seize voting machines.

Cuccinelli said no. DHS did NOThave the power.

That’s the answer that killed it.

Six years later…DHS is telling all fifty states to hand over their voter rolls or lose their funding and possibly their freedom.

Nobody had to seize a machine.

Nobody had to call up the 82nd Airborne.

They just found the agency that says yes.

The objection, because you’ve earned it

You’ll notice what Mullin did not do.

He didn’t send troops. He didn’t seize equipment. He didn’t touch a ballot. He asked states to check their rolls against a database…which…stated that flatly…is a thing DHS has some colorable argument for wanting.

States can refuse. Several will. This is going to court…fast…and the constitutional ground is not friendly to him: states run elections, Congress regulates them, and the president does neither.

The funding threat may be mostly bluff. Nobody could even name the grants.

All true. Take it seriously.

And…then ask yourself the only question that’s ever mattered in this story:

Who said no?

In 2020…it was Barr. Rosen. Cuccinelli. Cipollone. Four men…one after another… telling a president he couldn’t do the thing he wanted to do.

Today it’s Mullin…at a podium, promising to prosecute the people who say no.

He’s not the obstacle anymore.

He’s the instrument.

#HoldFast

Back soon.

-Jack

Jack Hopkins

P.S. I want to be honest with you about the weakest thing in this letter…because if I don’t say it…somebody else will. Standing silently behind a president at a speech proves almost nothing. It isn’t evidence. A director doesn’t heckle. Private objections leave no fingerprints. I know.

But…that’s the point. Silence is cheap…and it tells you nothing…which is exactly why you have to stop watching the podium and start watching the paperwork. Do those FBI investigations actually open? Does the DHS purge order hit a courtroom…and does it survive? Who commands the Guard in the states where it’ll be close…and does anybody try to federalize it?

In 2020, the thing that saved us was somebody’s conscience.

Hope is not a plan. Never was.

P.P.S. Twelve hours. That’s the entire gap between “here are some shocking vulnerabilities” and “run your rolls through my database or go to prison.” If you were wondering whether Thursday’s speech was about intelligence, Friday answered it.

Watch the four states. California, New Jersey, Nevada, Pennsylvania. Watch which ones comply…which ones sue…and how fast a judge gets to it.

And watch Al Schmidt. A Republican secretary of state…who already went looking for noncitizen voters…found them…reported them honestly…and said the panic was overblown…has just been handed a number fifty times his own and told to act on it.

What he does next tells you more than anything said from a podium this week.

Sources

The January admission

• “Well, I should have” — Roll Call, Jan. 27, 2026 — Nathan L. Gonzales, “5 concerning things Trump has said about the 2026 elections.” Contains the quote and the Guard remark.

• Democracy Docket, Jan. 12, 2026 — “Trump: ‘I should have’ seized ballots in 2020 election.” Notes Trump addressed feasibility rather than legality. Also has his answer on accepting midterm results.

• Yahoo/Daily Beast aggregation, Jan. 12, 2026 — Reports the Times interview was conducted Jan. 7 and written up Sunday, Jan. 11, by Alan Feuer and Ashley Ahn. Contains the full sophistication quote.

The draft order(s)

• Politico — the full text — “Read the never-issued Trump order that would have seized voting machines.” Dated Dec. 16, 2020; published by Politico for the first time in Jan. 2022. Notes the Dec. 18 Oval Office meeting with Sidney Powell, Michael Flynn, Emily Newman, and Patrick Byrne.

• NBC News, Jan. 2022 — Best summary of what the order did: National Guard seizure, special counsel to bring proceedings, 60-day assessment landing after Jan. 20, 2021.

• CNN, Jan. 21, 2022 — Confirms the draft empowered the defense secretary to federalize Guard units.

• Forbes, Jan. 21, 2022 — Three pages; the 60-day deadline fell weeks after Trump’s term ended.

• Newsweek, Jan. 21, 2022 — The order’s own asserted basis for seizure.

• CBS News — the second draft order — A Dec. 17, 2020 version empowering DHS instead of DoD.

• NPR, Jan. 23, 2022 — Bennie Thompson confirms the Jan. 6 committee investigated it; quotes the order’s operative language.

• The Guardian, Feb. 2022 — Trump personally reviewed a Powell draft on Dec. 18 and verbally agreed to appoint her special counsel. Read this one before you file.

Who said no

• CBS News — Kerik testimony — Idea originated with Phil Waldron; “died on the vine” after Cuccinelli and Trump dismissed it. Also the “preserve evidence” framing.

• Jan. 6 hearing — Rosen testimony — Acting AG Jeffrey Rosen testifies Trump pressed DOJ to seize machines; Rosen said no factual basis and no legal authority. Trump then called Cuccinelli from the room.

• Barr testimony — Barr refused for lack of probable cause. Cipollone “vehemently opposed” the Powell special-counsel order.

• Cipollone, Jan. 6 committee interview — Called federal seizure of election machines a terrible idea for the country.

• NYT via AOL, Feb. 2022 — Trump personally asked Giuliani to call DHS; asked Barr directly. Cuccinelli said he lacked the authority.

Thursday night, July 16, 2026

• CNN live coverage — Full attendee list: Mullin, McMahon, Loeffler, Rollins, Patel, Pulte, Navarro, Miller, Cheung, Leavitt, Harp. Coons reaction.

• CNN — 5 takeaways — Frames the speech as a preview of how Trump might undermine 2026.

• NPR, July 16, 2026 — 25 minutes, many baseless claims. Critically: quotes the declassified March 2021 IC report finding no indications any foreign actor attempted to alter any technical aspect of the 2020 vote.

• ABC News — Trump ordered DOJ to prosecute; the speech’s actual ask was passage of the SAVE America Act.

• Fox News live blog — “No trust, no greatness” in context.

• OAN — Friendly coverage; useful for the administration’s own framing.

• Epoch Times — takeaways — Documents span Jan. 2020–June 2026.

• Factually — fact check — No new independently verifiable evidence of flipped votes or altered outcomes.

The Election Assistance Commission

• Votebeat, July 9, 2026 — The firings; what freezes without a quorum; White House justification citing Slaughter.

• Votebeat, July 13, 2026 — Hovland interview. Fired by two-sentence email while stranded at an airport.

• Roll Call, July 10, 2026

• NPR, July 9, 2026

• NBC News, July 9, 2026

• MS NOW, July 9, 2026 — Schumer and Warner reactions.

• Democracy Docket — The counterargument. Most of the EAC’s 2026 work is already done; the executive director may retain authority to act even without a quorum.

The legal wall

• Lawfare — “The Military and Elections, Part I: The Legal Wall” — Orpett, Roberts, Voss. Source for the Bannon quote. Also: Hegseth declined to say whether he’d refuse an order to deploy troops to polling places, and falsely claimed Biden did it in 15 states.

• Votebeat, Jan. 20, 2026 — “Five-alarm fire.” Chain-of-custody problem.

• Bucks County Beacon (Votebeat syndication) — Quotes the actual statute: federal law bars troops at any place where an election is held absent armed enemies of the United States, and bars military interference with election officers.

• Votebeat — 37 election experts surveyed, April 17, 2026 — The most important link on this page. Over three-quarters said it was likely Trump would ask for post-election seizure of equipment; a slight majority said likely during. Experts said post-election is likelier because results are known. Also contains the rebuttal: officials and courts would stop it.