The only thing that should be surprising about The New York Times’ bombshell report on the Democrats’ “Decoy Dan” scheme is that the Dem-friendly newspaper a) reported on it and b) actually published it.
Republicans — particularly the campaign of Alaska Sen. Dan S. Sullivan — have for months been telling everyone — that Dan J. Sullivan was a ballot plant compliments of Rep. Mary Peltola, the Democrat opponent of the incumbent Sullivan.
The New York Times piece claims Peltola wasn’t directly involved in the effort to recruit a same-name candidate to draw votes from her main opponent, but she was “definitely aware.” Her campaign, according to the story, was very much involved in dealing with a slimy Democratic Party operative who apparently played point man in the scheme and a powerful cadre of national Democrats behind it.
The players, according to The Times, included the law firm led by perhaps the slipperiest of snakes in the leftist lawfare movement — the man at the center of the Russia collusion hoax.
Marc Elias, who peddled the infamous Steele Dossier in the hoax, again stands in the shadows of another scandal, with one of his law firm’s attorneys named in The New York Times piece. That attorney and the firm could soon be under congressional investigation.
‘Conspiracy to Create Confusion’
Peltola is the only Democrat on the Senate ballot. “Decoy Dan” originally was listed as a Republican, but he has since changed his political affiliation to “undeclared.” Another Senate race recruit, Gerald Heikes, is listed as a Republican. The muddled ballot is by design, a former Peltola campaign official and others told The Times.
The plan, it appears, is to stack the ballot, a coordinated effort to create confusion among voters — ultimately to draw votes away from a Senate ally of President Donald Trump and to help Democrats take back control of the Senate.
Peltola’s campaign has denied any involvement, a claim that is becoming increasingly hard to believe in the wake of The Times report. The Democrat has called the story a “distraction” and a “diversion” from the important issues of the election.
Dan J. Sullivan has claimed he isn’t trying to fool anyone and that he got into the race because he was frustrated with the two-term Republican senator.
Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy has ordered an investigation into Peltola’s campaign, and the Department of Justice has launched its own criminal and civil probes, issuing dozens of subpoenas. Sen. Ron, Johnson, R-Wis., who chairs the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, has sent notice to Democrats reportedly involved in the scheme telling them to preserve their communications, a first step in a possible investigation.
“The New York Times report on the conspiracy to create confusion in Alaska’s U.S. Senate race details outrageous and possibly criminal behavior on the part of Democrat operatives,” Johnson said in a statement released Thursday evening. “The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has sent a number of records preservation letters to help ensure evidence of wrongdoing is not destroyed.”
Johnson is also looking at Elias and his Elias Law Group. The firm is the left’s leading lawfare attack dog, waging a scorched earth campaign against Trump and his allies. According to The New York Times, the Elias Law Group represents Peltola’s campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Top DSCC aides were involved in the ballot-stacking scheme, emails obtained by the news outlet appear to show, although DSCC officials deny being in on it.
Elias Law Group attorney Jacquelyn Lopez, mentioned in text messages from campaign staff and a consultant, did not return The Federalist’s request for comment. Lopez is one of the recipients of Johnson’s records preservation letter.
“Jacquelyn Lopez, an attorney with the Elias Law Group, the firm that represents both the committee and the Peltola campaign, was part of this effort” to possibly create a “MAGA party” to challenge the incumbent Sullivan, The Times reported, citing Elisa Rios, Peltola’s former campaign manager and longtime aide. In a text message reportedly viewed by the reporter, an unnamed campaign consultant asked Rios: “Do we need to follow up with Jackie about maga party stuff?” In another message, a campaign official wrote that “Jackie is calling” the operative who reportedly led the candidate recruiting effort.
“Even as the Peltola campaign and D.S.C.C. officials denied participation in the operation, the texts and documents reviewed by The Times show it involved the party’s Senate committee and its top law firm,” The Times reported.
Before The New York Times piece dropped, Elias told MS Now hack and former Biden White House press secretary Jen Psaki that Trump is “trying to decide who wins elections” in Alaska.
“Like, if you’re not his preferred candidate, you don’t get to be certified the winner,” Elias said of the Trump administration’s lawsuit seeking to block certification of Alaska’s Senate election if the incumbent loses by a narrow margin and the loss can be attributed to the “Decoy Dan” scheme.
‘Deeply Cynical’
Elias, once known as “the fixer” for getting corrupt Democrats out of legal jams, has had his fingerprints on some of the dirtiest political tricks this century.
Elias, who served as failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s former campaign attorney, played a central role in the Russia collusion hoax. He hired opposition research firm Fusion GPS and ex-FBI informant Christopher Steele to manufacture the infamous dossier falsely linking Trump and his 2016 presidential campaign to the Kremlin. The scheme was aimed at crippling Trump’s first term in office.
Clinton and the Democratic National Committee were hit with a $100,000-plus fine for misrepresenting payments to Fusion GPS through Elias’ old law firm, Perkins Coie, as legal payments. The funds instead went to opposition research, the original complaint alleged.
Elias and Perkins Coie parted ways in 2023 over what the firm described as “strategic disagreements.” Scandal generally is reputationally disagreeable, and Elias has been at the center of myriad scandals.
In 2021, Elias was sanctioned by a federal appeals court for “unreasonably and vexatiously” drawing out a legal challenge to Texas’s ban on straight-ticket voting, The Washington Free Beacon reported at the time. The judge knocked Elias for making “misleading” statements.
Also in 2021, Elias was accused of a serious conflict of interest in representing Iowa Democrat Rita Hart, who ultimately lost Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District race, one of the closest in U.S. House of Representatives history. Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks won the race by just 6 votes, but Hart and her attorney fought to have the victory overturned, Miller-Meeks unseated, and the Democrat named the winner. In other words, Democrats wanted to overturn the results of an election. But Elias and Perkins Coie represented three of the six Democrats on the House Administration Committee, which was in charge of deciding the case.
Interestingly, the same super lawyer who attacked Trump for challenging the results of the 2020 presidential election sought a recount in Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District via the Democrat-led committee in the U.S. House.
The legal battle, one of many election law cases Elias has lost in an attempt to manipulate the process, typified the lawfare practitioner’s anything-for-the-win philosophy.
“Their [team Elias] factual and legal theories were deeply cynical,” Alan Ostergren, Miller-Meeks’ attorney at the time, told National Review. “They are perfectly content to suppress a vote from a Republican.”
Elias and his leftist friends made no secret about their lawfare plans for the 2026 midterms in the days following the Republicans’ crushing victory in the 2024 presidential election. Elias promised to use more “ruthless” tactics to stop Trump, according to a report by RealClear Investigations.
“Democrats need to oppose, and not simply resist, a second Trump presidency,” the lawyer said following the election.
“All legal tactics must be on the table,” Elias added in a blog post. “We must be comfortable using every legal tool available to challenge Trumpism in court.”
Apparently, Peltola and her band of ballot stackers put “Decoy Dan” on the tactics table.
“Peltola is attempting to rig the ballot and disenfranchise voters,” Republican National Committee Joe Gruters said in a statement to The Federalist.”This outright fraudulent behavior borders on criminal activity and proves Peltola is a Lower 48 scam artist who intentionally misled Alaskans in pursuit of power.”
