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00:02All right. Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Neil Floyd. I'm the actor in the United States Attorney for the
00:07Western District of Washington. I'm joined by Pete Sorano from the Eastern District and April Miller, the Special Agent in
00:13Charge of Homeland Security Investigations.
00:16In my current role, I am often asked about voter fraud in Washington. In fact, as a longtime resident of
00:22Washington, I have wondered what is being done about voter fraud.
00:27Who is checking to make sure that the people registered to vote are United States citizens? Who is checking to
00:33see if non-citizens are voting in Washington?
00:37Sadly, the answer to those questions in Washington is no one. Without our help, the state of Washington does not
00:45have the capacity or the will to check if non-citizens are voting.
00:50However, under the leadership of President Trump, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice are determined to
00:56root out illegal voting.
00:58Through our investigation, we have confirmed with high confidence that non-citizens are voting in the state of Washington in
01:06federal and state elections.
01:07Thus far, we have identified over 400 non-citizens who have voted in Washington. And many of them have voted
01:15multiple times.
01:17That means we have identified over 1,500 ballots illegally cast. This is not the full number of non-citizens
01:25who have been voting in Washington. This is only the tip of the iceberg.
01:30With a small sample that we have collected so far, I am confident that we are looking at thousands of
01:36non-citizens who have been voting in Washington.
01:39Because of the limitations the state has placed on our investigation, we have only been able to uncover a fraction
01:45of the total number.
01:47Washington has refused to share the complete list of registered voters with identifying information. We are having to do this
01:55essentially one person at a time.
01:57So let me explain our methodology. DHS has obtained publicly available lists of registered voters in Washington. Those lists are
02:06compared with DHS information to identify registered voters who are not citizens.
02:13This is extremely labor-intensive and requires several layers of checks to confirm we have the right person. We then
02:21further investigate to see if that person actually cast ballots in Washington.
02:27If we had access to the full database maintained by Washington, this could be done much more efficiently. We could
02:33simply compare Washington's information to ours and it would yield immediate results.
02:39Unfortunately, Washington is fighting in court to keep us from getting access to the full database. We may never know
02:46the full extent of illegal voting in this state without access to the full database of registered voters.
02:53Today, we sent a letter to the Secretary of State and election officials in Washington with the information about the
02:59405 individuals we have identified as non-citizens who have been voting.
03:06We are asking for the states to set aside those ballots until we can confirm that they are legal voters.
03:13Now that the state is on notice, it is incumbent upon state officials to make sure they are counting only
03:19legal votes. This does not need to be a guessing game. If the state would cooperate with the Department of
03:27Justice and federal law enforcement, we could easily identify illegal voters and illegal voters in the state of Washington.
03:35Finally, for those who continue to claim that there is no evidence of widespread fraud in Washington, here is my
03:42response. It is not my job to uncover widespread voter fraud. It is my job to investigate and prosecute those
03:49who commit federal crimes in the western district of Washington.
03:52For those who continue to claim that there is no evidence of the state of Washington.
03:54Voting by non-citizens is a crime. Knowingly assisting those who are voting illegally is a crime. The right to
04:02vote is a sacred right that belongs to each citizen of this country. No one should be allowed to take
04:07that right from you. If you are a citizen of the United States, and you are eligible to vote, you
04:13should vote. Each time the state of Washington knowingly or unknowingly allows a non-citizen to vote, they are canceling
04:21out or stealing their votes.
04:22The vote of the vote of a United States citizen. If you are not a citizen of the United States,
04:27and you register to vote, or you vote illegally, we will find you. We will continue to investigate and we
04:34will criminally prosecute those who vote illegally.
04:37And those who assist others in voting illegally. Ultimately, the voters of Washington will decide how much fraud is too
04:45much fraud. I'll turn it over to Pete Serrano, personal additional comments.
04:51Thank you, Neil, and thank you all for your attendance. Pete Serrano, first assistant United States Attorney for the District
04:57of Washington. As someone who came in, having held public office for multiple years, you know, the electoral system is
05:05near and dear to my heart. It's something I've always had my questions about. And like Neil, I get the
05:10question almost daily. What's happening? Who's voting legally? Who's voting illegally? And the answer is, ultimately, we, the
05:18the three of the three of us up here, do not know. As Neil said, the Department of Justice, through
05:24Assistant Attorney General Harmy Dillon, had sought voter records and ballot records last year, at the end of the year.
05:32That litigation remains ongoing. And ultimately, to Neil's point, we have a better picture of what's happening in the state
05:39of Washington, and we're going to have access to that. Unfortunately, we don't. And so, enter our team at HSI,
05:46who's done that bang up job, looking at the
05:48records of the records that are publicly available, that are accessible to them, and comparing with people that are known
05:54to be non-citizens, compared to those who are voting. It's obviously a labor-intensive process. And again, I thank
06:00both partners, HSI, and anyone else supporting them, for their due diligence on this, because this really is a tremendous
06:07labor. It's a heavy lift. It's a heavy burden. And ultimately, as Neil said, when it comes to these issues,
06:15our job, our job is to prosecute. And when there are prosecutable issues that are brought to my office in
06:20Eastern District of Washington, I can assure you that my people, my team and I, will utilize our full force
06:27and efforts.
06:28If other issues are brought to us, you know, we've had some phenomenal other issues. We've had great drug busts,
06:35child pornography, and sex rings. You know, there's a lot that's ongoing.
06:40So, while this is one of the issues that the administration has as a priority issue, and it will remain
06:45that, there are a lot of other crimes that are being prosecuted in both of our districts.
06:50And I know Neil's teams have done a big job with those high priority issues, too. Ultimately, we're here to
06:57make our community safer and better. And that's, that's our end game of this. That's our real goal, is to
07:02make sure that, as Neil said, when you're voting, that your vote counts.
07:06On a one-for-one, not on a ratio of someone who shouldn't be voting. So, with that, I'll turn
07:12it over to April. Thank you.
07:20Good afternoon. My name is April Miller, and I am the Acting Special Agent in Charge for Homeland Security Investigations
07:26here in the Pacific Northwest.
07:29HSI is conducting a coordinated criminal investigative effort focused on allegations of voter fraud and related federal criminal violations.
07:37Voter fraud undermines public confidence in lawful voting, government processes, and the integrity of our institutions.
07:46We take these allegations seriously and investigate them within the scope of our federal criminal authorities.
07:54HSI's work focuses on identifying and investigating potential criminal conduct, including unlawful voting, fraudulent voter registration,
08:04false claims, false claims of United States citizenship, identity fraud, document fraud, immigration fraud, and related facilitation activity.
08:14HSI investigates allegations that individuals unlawfully registered to vote, unlawfully voted in federal or state elections,
08:23or used false statements, fraudulent documents, or deceptive identity information in connection with voting activity.
08:32Each matter is evaluated based on the available facts, evidence, and applicable law.
08:39To date, HSI has actioned more than 1,600 cases, resulting in more than 160 arrests.
08:47These figures reflect a substantial investigative effort to identify potential criminal violations
08:54and ensure allegations and ensure allegations are reviewed through appropriate law enforcement channels.
08:59We have identified a growing number of cases accepted for prosecution,
09:04underscoring the importance of thorough investigative work and close coordination with the Department of Justice
09:10and United States Attorney's Offices.
09:12When the evidence supports prosecution, HSI coordinates with the United States Attorney's Office with jurisdiction
09:19to conduct a prosecutorial review and consider potential criminal charges.
09:25That office then makes all prosecutorial decisions.
09:29We coordinate with appropriate law enforcement and government partners to support lawful criminal investigations
09:35and identify related fraud or criminal activity.
09:40HSI's role is to identify, investigate, and support the prosecution of criminal activity
09:47that may compromise the integrity of lawful voting, identification, immigration, and government processes.
09:54Individuals charged with crimes are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.
10:00So, thank you.
10:06All right, so I understand we're coming up an election, and two purposes for this press conference today.
10:10Number one is to let the public know that someone is looking into this.
10:14That may be a change, and I know that people often wonder if anyone's doing anything about it.
10:18We are doing something.
10:20Secondly, it's to let people know that if you're not a citizen, you're not eligible to vote.
10:25That's a point of confusion here in Washington.
10:27Ballots are sent out to thousands, millions of people, and many of them are not eligible to vote.
10:35We have done interviews.
10:36We have talked to the people that we've been able to contact so far.
10:39We will continue to do that.
10:41One of the things that we have discovered is that people are telling us,
10:44I got a ballot in the mail.
10:46I thought I was eligible to vote.
10:48If you're not a citizen of the United States, you're not eligible to vote, even if you receive a ballot
10:54in the mail.
10:54So I think it's fair to put the public on notice and provide that warning before we go into an
10:59election season.
11:01It would have been nice if we had done it before many of the ballots had already been sent out,
11:04but this is where we are based on our investigation so far.
11:07And with that, I'll take any questions.
11:08I have a question for you.
11:10The databases that the federal government has used to verify citizenship of voters in the past have come under fire
11:15for flagging U.S. citizens as potential non-citizens.
11:19What is your response to that?
11:20So this is a really major point of confusion and I want to clarify it.
11:26There are two sides of the ledger.
11:27One side is, is this person that we have identified not a citizen?
11:33We're the federal government.
11:34We know the answer to that question.
11:36That's not a hard one.
11:37People are looking at what is going in to decide whether or not this person is a citizen.
11:42We know.
11:42It has USCIS.
11:44We have the immigration records.
11:45We know.
11:45The other side of the ledger is who is voting.
11:48And that's what we're having a hard time getting access to.
11:51So the disparity comes when you try and check and see that the name that is on the vote of
11:56registration to the limited information that we have.
11:59If we had the name, the social security number, the address, all the identifying information, it would make it much
12:04easier.
12:05But let's say on this side of the ledger I've got John Doe.
12:08And I know that John Doe was here illegal.
12:11Well, there might be a lot of John Doe's.
12:12So the disparity is trying to merit those two lists and make sure that the one that's on the voter
12:18registration is actually the one that we know is not a citizen.
12:21So we're 100% confident in the ones we know are not a citizen.
12:24Making sure that the same ones that are on the voter registration part actually requires multiple levels of checks and
12:31checking other databases to make sure we've got the right.
12:34Can I explain it? Any other questions?
12:37Along this line, can you, and so per those 405, you are confident that all 405 both voted and are
12:44not citizens?
12:45Correct. You know that for sure.
12:49We've checked their voter registration, we've spoken to many of them, and we are confident that they are the same
12:56ones that are on the voter registration.
12:58I have to allow for the fact that we don't know everything the state knows.
13:02But at this point, with the highest level of confidence I have, these are people that are registered to vote,
13:09have voted, and are not citizens.
13:12Now, in terms of proof, are they the ones that filled out the ballot? Did someone else register them?
13:18Those are all questions that we still have to answer in the future.
13:21Because many of them are telling us, yeah, I never filled out a ballot.
13:23So, without full access to what Washington has, it's difficult for me to show that the person that we know
13:29is not a citizen is actually the one that filled out the ballot inside of them.
13:34Have you filed charges against any of these people?
13:36For the reasons I just stated, we have not. I do anticipate that we will be filing charges.
13:41But this comes into a matter of, you know, my job isn't, this is, I'm not out to punish some
13:51guy that made a mistake.
13:52That's not what we're trying to do.
13:54And, you know, that gets reported in the press that they're out just to try and discourage people from voting
14:01or punish people.
14:01Really, what I'm trying to find out are the organizations, the people, the systems that set up illegal voting in
14:08the state of Washington.
14:09That may require me to go after some people individually to gather more information.
14:14And a lot of these people that we've identified have not only registered to vote and voted, but they've also
14:21made false claims by applying for legal status with USCIS.
14:27So, when you apply for your naturalization, you apply for the green card, you have to fill out an attestation
14:33and you get asked, have you ever voted in the United States?
14:35But the answer to that question is no, they may have complicated it by, again, lying to federal officials about
14:42whether they voted.
14:42Which is another reason that I wanted to highlight this.
14:45Because there are people out there.
14:48It's not just a matter of they might accidentally or unknowingly vote illegally.
14:54It could also impact their ability to get a green card or to become a citizen.
15:00Because if you make that mistake now, once you go in for an interview, guess what?
15:05For the first time since I've been involved in immigration for, I don't know, 16, 17 years now, they're checking.
15:13So when you go to USCIS and you fill out the application to become a citizen and say I've never
15:17voted, guess what?
15:19It's not that hard to go to votewa.gov, type in the person's name and date of birth and figure
15:26out if they actually voted in the past.
15:28The reality is they hadn't really been doing that much.
15:32Now what?
15:33So you mentioned that HSI used publicly available lists of voters in Washington.
15:43Perplexly, what was the source of that?
15:45Well, one of those is the votewa.gov that we can actually check these people individually one at a time.
15:51The other lists that they're getting about who is registered to vote, a lot of that stuff is publicly available
15:58and I don't know.
15:59And I'm not, if I did, I wouldn't tell you the exact list that we're looking at.
16:02But again, that's on this side of the ledger of us trying to decipher what the state of Washington won't
16:10give us.
16:11Trying to figure out who's actually registered to vote with some identifying information.
16:15The other side of the ledger about whether they're citizens or not, we're 100% confident.
16:26So the time limit is what we would like to see.
16:29I will tell you that the first purpose of us putting them on notice is now it is incumbent upon
16:37the state to take action.
16:38At this point, we sit back and watch.
16:40I mean, if the state is doing what they say they do in all the press releases and trying to
16:45ensure fair and safe and accurate elections, they'll take some action.
16:51If they don't, then we will continue to provide them notice of those individuals that are non-citizens.
16:57And ultimately, we may have to take additional action, but I don't know if that would be a system.
17:11I'm not going to comment about any legal processes or subpoenas that we're doing because we're prohibited from discussing certain
17:18materials that may be related to grand jury or other.
17:21But I will tell you that if it requires a legal process for us to get the information that we
17:28need for, just like in any criminal case,
17:31any time we're doing an investigation, we'll use whatever legal process we have available to gather the information for a
17:37criminal investigation.
17:38Why is he so opposed to any criminal case?
17:49So, you know, I'm not going to, I can't state, I can't state for certain why.
17:55I can tell you that some of the things that we typically run into would be this giant shield that
18:02every one of the state uses called the Keep Washington Working Act,
18:05where they claim that they're not allowed to share any information that can be used for immigration purposes.
18:10Rest assured, this is not for immigration purposes. This is trying to ensure accurate and safe, free elections.
18:19Trying to make sure that legal votes are the ones that are counted.
18:23But invariably, when you call any state official and say, we would like you to give us some information so
18:30we can check to see if these people are citizens so they can vote,
18:32it's always the Keep Washington Working Act that they use.
18:36And by the way, that was originally designed to be, we're not going to use resources, we're not going to
18:42use manpower to help and assist with immigration enforcement.
18:46Now it's being used to basically stick your head in the sand for anything that has a word beginning with
18:52I so they can shield themselves from any responsibility.
18:57If they're going to say they have fair and free elections, then they need to follow through on it and
19:02not use that as a shield.
19:03And by the way, we're not offering to do anything other than help them.
19:09We want to give them our information and we want to be able to make sure that what we're giving
19:14them is accurate.
19:15Let's share information. Let's get to this common goal together.
19:21If they're not willing to do that, then we have to do it alone.
19:23The 400, for how many years, how many elections can you do that?
19:28Seconds. Some of them have voted dozens of times, some of them only once.
19:34But by the time you add up, and frankly, I got tired of counting how many actual votes it adds
19:41up.
19:41But we have essentially a spreadsheet that says it's over 1,500 votes that they cast.
19:47Now, when I say that, I mean that's actual balance.
19:49If you count how many people they voted for on that ballot, I can't even contemplate how many votes that
19:56would be.
19:57So what comes next? What percentage of the total voter rolls has HSI been able to go through to get
20:03these 400 so we can get some sense of sort of how big the problem is?
20:09Like how much have you reviewed and what comes next?
20:12So it depends on where we're getting the source initially.
20:15I can tell you initially a lot of this information came from exactly what I explained.
20:19People applying with USCIS to get some other benefit, we flagged it because somebody checked.
20:27As has been widely reported, they have interviewed some people crossing the border because they have information.
20:33There's also, you know, any time we encounter someone, now they're starting to check on immigration enforcement.
20:41Excuse me, on voter registration and voting.
20:44So, for example, someone gets arrested and detained down in Tacoma.
20:50They might be checking down there to see if that person's ever been registered and voted.
20:53So what we're looking at is a very tiny population of people that we have made contact with recently.
21:02As we expand to that population, we're going to get exponentially more people.
21:09And to be clear, we haven't even touched the people that we're not contacting.
21:14The people that are here illegally that we don't know about, they just crossed the border,
21:18if they haven't ever made contact with law enforcement in the past few months,
21:23then we haven't even checked those.
21:25Much less, it would be easier if we had the entire voter roll and it was accurate,
21:30and we checked their list against our information.
21:34Right now what we're doing is we're taking our information and trying to see if it's on their list,
21:40and that's a very difficult process.
21:42Is the DOJ, HSI, are you taking note of how these 1021 citizens are voting?
21:48Are they typically voting blue?
21:50No, absolutely not.
21:51And first of all, I don't have access to that information, and I don't care.
21:54I mean, how they vote is immaterial to me.
21:57Whether they vote and whether they deprive the United States citizen of their right to vote isn't voting.
22:03I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off.
22:05That was an easy one to do.
22:07Can I ask something on a little bit different note?
22:11Steve Hobbs said that there's a CISA briefing on cybersecurity for overseas threats hadn't happened yet.
22:19This was on Thursday when he was interviewed.
22:21He said that your Homeland Security was trying to offer that.
22:24Can you comment on that?
22:26You don't have to.
22:27I mean, we're trying to keep this on topic today,
22:29and I don't want to do anything that she wasn't prepared for today.
22:32So I don't actually know the answer to the question.
22:36I'm not familiar with the comments that he made,
22:38and I would want to become familiar with that as with April before I start to comment on Steve Hobbs.
22:43You noted how close we are to the election here.
22:48This has been made pretty clear in the California case before the Ninth Circuit,
22:57changing processes to try to sequester these ballots this late in the game.
23:02According, you know, in the case in California,
23:04they're saying that could cause catastrophic effects on citizen voters,
23:12people who are properly registered who could have their ballots held or not counted,
23:18or just cause other sort of chaos in the system.
23:22I mean, why don't we think that would be the case here?
23:30So why don't I think that this would cause disruption among the current system?
23:33Yeah.
23:34First of all, although it's a lot, 405 is not 20,000.
23:39Secondly, it's because I constantly hear reporting,
23:43although they have not spoken to me,
23:46that if someone is not allowed to vote when they receive the ballot,
23:51they filter those out.
23:53The state is already claiming to have the capacity to filter out people
23:58that are not eligible to vote before the votes are counted.
24:01All we're doing is ask them just to add this to your list.
24:04And by the way, we're not saying don't count the votes.
24:06We're just saying this is the information we have.
24:10If I were not the acting United States Attorney for the Western District of Washington,
24:15and I were you, an average citizen, and I said I have a list of 405 people that I know
24:22are here,
24:23they are not citizens, and I know they voted, or I suspect they voted.
24:28And you gave that in as a tip.
24:30Wouldn't you expect that the state would do something about that?
24:34So when it's coming from the actual officials who have the actual information,
24:39the fact that they're sticking their head in the sand and refusing to do anything about it is,
24:45first of all, let me say, they haven't officially done that yet.
24:47But if they were to do that, that would be offensive.
24:51This letter mentions, you know, the legal obligations that county elected officials are under,
24:56and also the chair of your office doesn't make criminal work rules to state counterparts.
25:01I mean, it's impossible that the whole challenge election knows
25:04that the fiscal attorneys could process some of the names on this list.
25:08I'm not going to speculate about what happened with any particular individuals.
25:11What I can tell you is what the law says.
25:13It is illegal under Section 611 for non-citizens to vote.
25:18Anyone that assists someone in voting illegally would be also guilty of that crime under the aid of the abetting
25:24period,
25:25just like any other crime.
25:26So if you conspire, if you made an abet, someone else in committing a crime,
25:31then you could be guilty of the crimes for that as well.
25:35And I guess what I want to say about this is the most frustrating part,
25:40and the one thing that I want the public to know is that the system that we have right now
25:46is set up to make this extremely difficult, if not impossible, for there to be any enforcement
25:54with respect to illegal voting in the state of Washington.
25:57They send out the ballots to people. They say they're checking.
26:01I don't know what they're doing to check, so maybe this is the test to see if they're checking,
26:06because we've provided them credible information that these people are not eligible to vote.
26:10And then on the back end, let's say that we know someone voted illegally.
26:16Proving it in a court of law becomes extremely difficult, because you have to rely on, you know,
26:23what someone is telling you, you have to get handwriting analysis perhaps in order to be able to make sure
26:28that the signature is verified, or just the blind nature of the system makes it very difficult to do.
26:37And by the way, this state has very little incentive to do anything about it,
26:42because even if I were to prove that those 405 people voted illegally, those votes were counted.
26:50And once they're counted, you can't unring that bell.
26:54So the more information we can give them in advance of an election, the more we have the opportunity to
26:59stop it before it happens.
27:01Are you also checking other potential illegal voting, like double voting or diseased person, stuff like that?
27:09We're getting there. And yes, that is my goal and my hope, and that's the other thing.
27:12I, you know, I spoke to someone earlier today and said, you know, we're only looking at one category of
27:19illegal voting at this point.
27:20But multiple voting, people that frankly have passed away in their voting, those are all categories we'd like to get
27:28to.
27:28And everybody in this room and watching on TV knows that they have someone close to them, a family member,
27:35who has received a ballot or you've received a ballot for a relative that's moved out of the state, someone
27:42that's died.
27:43I'll share an example. My mom, bless her heart, love her to death.
27:48She now has severe memory issues. She's got dementia. She lives in an assisted living facility here in Washington.
27:55My stepfather received a copy of her ballot. And, you know, in spite of serving, you know, in the state
28:03Senate and the House of Representatives here,
28:05she still gets a ballot and she's not going to be able to vote. Ever.
28:10She doesn't have the capacity to do that anymore. She's nonverbal. So, uh, he called the state elections office and
28:17said,
28:17what can I do to get her taken off the list? So, you know, continue to receive ballots and perhaps
28:23it fall into her own hands.
28:25The response from the state was, we are legally prohibited from removing someone from the state election rolls
28:32unless that person calls and provides information that they have transferred, that they want to be taken off.
28:38Well, my mom's not going to do that. Or they provide a death certificate.
28:44So, how many years are we going to continue to get a ballot for her after she died?
28:48How many years am I going to continue to get a ballot now and just hope that someone doesn't intercept
28:52it in the mail and fill it out for her?
28:54We live in a state where people are dropping ballots into dumpsters and we're reading press reports about it.
28:59We've got to start somewhere. This is where we're starting because this is the most reliable information we have
29:05and we're hoping to work and cooperate with the state so that we can make better elections here in Washington.
29:11So everyone, will there be any HHSI agents out during election day or checking?
29:18So, federal law enforcement are out all the time. But, you know, checking someone to see if they're eligible to
29:25vote? No, that's not going to happen. I mean, but they, I mean, no.
29:30Can you talk about the DOJ election observers that were announced? Is that being run through your office?
29:34So, every election has happened so far. Not just this one. DOJ has always sent out monitors to just to
29:43try and keep an eye on elections to see if there's anything they can do to improve the system.
29:47or to answer questions, or to answer questions, to help with cooperation, and this is no exception.
29:54This year, there will be several election monitors that are set out. In fact, I think Pete is one of
30:00them.
30:01Will that be law enforcement or can you give us an idea of who those employees are?
30:05DOJ employees, but it's not the only question.
30:09Okay. Thank you, President.
30:10Thank you, guys.