Politics
A Central Valley politician was charged with voter fraud. Right-wing conspiracies took over
As the polls closed in California on Super Tuesday, Jim Hicks stood watch in the parking lot of a community center while election officials wearing red vests retrieved ballots from a drop-off box.
He jiggled the handle of the metal container when they were done to ensure it was locked and peeked his head into the white van holding boxes of ballots that would be transferred to the San Joaquin County registrar of voters to be counted.
Jim Hicks, far right, stands watch at the Kennedy Park Community Center in Stockton as polls close March 5.
(MacKenzie Mays)
“We just need to have eyes on things after everything that’s been going on,” Hicks said as he rushed to his SUV to tail officials down dark farmland back roads to more drop boxes where ballots were waiting to be collected, all part of his duties as a self-appointed election observer.
Hicks, a real estate agent from Lodi, believes California’s universal vote-by-mail process is fraught with fraud risks, echoing unfounded messaging from the far right that election officials nationwide have worked to combat since Donald Trump and his allies began blaming his 2020 presidential loss on claims of fraud that have been shot down by numerous courts.
That paranoia is difficult to dismiss in this part of California’s Central Valley, though, after a local politician was arrested on allegations of a slew of crimes involving election fraud.
Erin Kane collects ballots for inspection at the office of the San Joaquin County registrar of voters.
(Jose Luis Villegas / For The Times)
Former Lodi City Council member Shakir Khan pleaded “no contest” in January to felony charges, including election fraud, after the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office said it found 41 sealed, completed ballots in his home and about 70 people registered to vote using his address, phone number or email.
The alleged scheme, which stems from Khan’s run for City Council in 2020, is just one piece of a complex criminal case in which he also faces charges for illegal gambling, money laundering, tax evasion and Employment Development Department fraud.
Officials seemed to foresee the potential fallout after the years-long investigation, reiterating that Khan, a 34-year-old “no party preference” voter who has lived among Lodi’s vineyards since he was a child, did not appear to have ties to any broader voter-fraud plot.
“I want to make it clear that this investigation has only uncovered criminal activity in our county here, in a local election,” San Joaquin County Sheriff Patrick Withrow said at a news conference last year announcing Khan’s arrest. “It has nothing to do with and has no impact on any state or federal elections that we know of.”
Still, the case has drawn the attention of national conservative commentators, supercharged a group of local right-wing activists, sowed voter distrust in an already chaotic political environment and pushed the county to spend thousands of dollars on election security measures such as new ballot boxes and cameras to monitor them.
For dedicated skeptics like Hicks, Khan’s case is proof that “more sophisticated operatives” are gaming elections and going unnoticed. Khan is merely “an amateur who got caught,” Hicks said, and there are “way more” like him.
“I believe that what happened to Mr. Khan only solidified what we already seriously suspected,” he said.
For Olivia Hale, San Joaquin County’s chief election official, the timing of a rare case like Khan’s — as voter fraud conspiracies have proliferated across the country — has been a nightmare.
“The narrative is continuing no matter what we do,” she said.
San Joaquin County Registrar of Voters Olivia Hale, right, gathers ballots while the staff continues counting March 11.
(Jose Luis Villegas / For The Times)
Khan’s case isn’t like many of the unfounded conspiracies promoted by the far right. There were no “fake” voters or dead people registered to vote, according to San Joaquin County deputies, who said Khan’s focus was winning his own election to the nonpartisan Lodi City Council, which oversees a population of about 67,000.
But the case alarmed officials and local Democrats and Republicans alike.
“Let today’s guilty plea send a message loud and clear, especially as we enter 2024: Any attempt to alter or undermine our electoral process and our democratic institutions in San Joaquin County will be dealt with immediately and to the fullest extent of the law,” Dist. Atty. Ron Freitas said at a press conference in January.
Former Lodi City Council member Shakir Khan, arrested for voter fraud.
(San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office)
While running for City Council in 2020, Khan pressured people to vote for him, sometimes registering them to vote, filling out ballots for them, forging their signatures and collecting their information without their knowledge of his intent to illegally vote on their behalf, according to the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office, which conducted the investigation that led to his arraignment last year.
Khan’s “no contest” plea does not include an admission of guilt, and he has in the past denied the allegations. Khan is not in jail and is awaiting sentencing.
His attorney did not return requests for comment from The Times.
Some of Khan’s alleged fraud victims were elderly and, like him, Pakistani immigrants, unfamiliar with the American voting process, according to police.
California’s voting system didn’t immediately flag the ballots tied to Khan because the people being registered were real citizens with legitimate information, according to Hale, who was appointed in 2022 as the San Joaquin County registrar of voters.
Since Khan’s arrest, Hale has worked to assuage a seemingly endless list of concerns about fraud from a small group of regulars at county meetings and some Republican elected officials sympathetic to their demands.
She has beefed up the ballot signature verification process; zoned in on multiple voters registered to single addresses, in cases such as intergenerational homes; and opened her office to anyone with concerns about so-called ballot harvesting, a process — legal in California but allegedly abused by Khan — that allows voters to give their ballots to other people to turn in.
Hale worked with the county sheriff’s office to launch a voter fraud hotline and utilizes an election advisory committee created by the San Joaquin Board of Supervisors to “reform the public’s perception of the integrity of the electoral process.”
She does so even as she is staunch in her confidence in the county’s voting process, reiterating that there is no evidence that Khan’s case was anything other than an isolated event that was stopped because of the system’s checks and balances. Some of the accusations circulating in her community are “nonsense,” she said, but she welcomes skepticism and accountability as part of healthy government.
“I have an obligation to every single voter in San Joaquin County,” she said. “I believe so much in what we do in elections and how safe and secure it is, and how hard we work to keep it going in the right direction at every cost.”
For people like Molly Watkins, a self-described “farm wife” from the rural city of Linden, the county’s efforts are not enough.
Watkins was at a warehouse near the Stockton airport late into election night this month, watching officials in color-coded vests identifying them as “inspectors” and “supervisors” sift through yellow bins of bagged ballots. She was convinced, though, that her monitoring wouldn’t do much good.
“This is all smoke and mirrors,” she said as she kept an eye on the movement of ballots. Steps away, Hale gave a tour to a group of similarly concerned residents. “There is no transparency in the system.”
In 2021, California became the eighth state to permanently move to mail-in ballots following COVID-19 shutdowns — a move celebrated by Democrats, as research shows it increased voter turnout in 2020, especially in low-income neighborhoods.
But Republicans nationwide have alleged that the process is inferior to voting in person and less secure.
Watkins, who ominously refers to “the deep state,” has attended numerous local meetings since Khan’s arrest to demand changes to the election system. She wants the county to fight state law and do away with ballot drop boxes altogether. She mistrusts voting machine technology and is pushing county officials to revert to a system in which ballots are counted by hand.
Louis Campbell puts ballots into baskets after they are sorted by precincts.
(Jose Luis Villegas / For The Times)
Unlike in Shasta County, where a similar movement is playing out, San Joaquin is not a Republican stronghold, and voters here elected President Biden over Trump in 2020.
Election fraud is rare, but skepticism of the Democratic process can be a good thing, said Kim Alexander, executive director of the California Voter Foundation, a nonpartisan election watchdog group.
Alexander has seen a shift in her decades of election work and said that while “false narratives” about fraud shouldn’t drive the conversation, California officials should not ignore them.
“There is a stubborn minority of voters that are subscribing to election fraud conspiracy theories who are very vocal, and even though I don’t think the general public agrees with those theories, they still resonate,” she said. “It’s definitely taken a toll on voter confidence across the board.”
Alexander said the Khan case isn’t proof of greater fraud but proof that anyone who attempts it will be punished.
“It is one example of an election crime that’s being prosecuted. It doesn’t mean that it’s rampant; it means that the process is working,” she said. “That sends a message to anybody else who might try to cheat the process that it’s a losing proposition.”
San Joaquin County Supervisor Steve Ding, a Republican, says ballot boxes are “rife for mischief.” But he admits the issue has spiraled out of control in his community, saying “everybody needs to take a breath” and “back off” Hale, who has faced personal attacks as the elections chief.
“It’s cast a shadow,” Ding said of the Khan case. “Unfortunately, it’s become a partisan issue rather than a good government issue. It’s no longer about whether it works or doesn’t. People have drawn sides.”
At a San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors meeting last week, people rose for public comment to voice concerns about the March 5 primary election, alleging that Hale was rigging votes to help someone who attends her church get elected to the Stockton City Council.
Hale denies the claims and pointed out that the candidate in question is not projected to win the race.
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The Justice Department is turning to former Trump attorney Joeseph diGenova to spearhead a probe into ex-CIA Director John Brennan and others over the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation, as the department reshuffles leadership of the sprawling inquiry.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has tapped diGenova to serve as counsel overseeing the matter, according to a New York Times report, putting a former Trump attorney in a key role in the high-profile probe. A federal grand jury seated in Miami has been impaneled since late last year.
The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
DOJ ACTIVELY PREPARING TO ISSUE GRAND JURY SUBPOENAS RELATING TO JOHN BRENNAN INVESTIGATION: SOURCES
Joseph diGenova represented President Donald Trump during special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call/Getty Images)
DiGenova, a former U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., who represented Trump during special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, has repeatedly accused Brennan of misconduct tied to the origins of the Russia probe—allegations that have not resulted in criminal charges.
He also said in a 2018 appearance on Fox News that Brennan colluded with the FBI and DOJ to frame Trump.
The origins of the Russia investigation have been the subject of ongoing scrutiny by Trump allies, who have argued that intelligence and law enforcement officials improperly launched the probe.
BRENNAN INDICTMENT COULD COME WITHIN ‘WEEKS’ AS PROSECUTORS REQUEST OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPTS
Joseph diGenova has previously said that ex-CIA chief John Brennan colluded with the FBI and DOJ to frame Trump. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call/Getty Images)
DiGenova’s appointment follows the ouster of Maria Medetis Long, a national security prosecutor in the South Florida U.S. attorney’s office. She had been overseeing the inquiry, including a false statements probe related to Brennan and broader conspiracy-related investigations.
As the investigation continues, federal investigators have issued subpoenas seeking information related to intelligence assessments of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
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John Brennan has denied any wrongdoing related to the Russia investigation. (William B. Plowman/NBC/NBC NewsWire via Getty Images; Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Brennan has previously denied wrongdoing related to the Russia investigation and has defended the intelligence community’s assessment that Moscow interfered in the 2016 election.
Politics
Supreme Court weighs phone searches to find criminals amid complaints of ‘digital dragnets’
WASHINGTON — A man carrying a gun and a cellphone entered a federal credit union in a small town in central Virginia in May 2019 and demanded cash.
He left with $195,000 in a bag and no clue to his identity. But his smartphone was keeping track of him.
What happened next could yield a landmark ruling from the Supreme Court on the 4th Amendment and its restrictions against “unreasonable searches.” The court will hear arguments on the issue on April 27.
Typically, police use tips or leads to find suspects, then seek a search warrant from a judge to enter a house or other private area to seize the evidence that can prove a crime.
Civil libertarians say the new “digital dragnets” work in reverse.
“It’s grab the data and search first. Suspicion later. That’s opposite of how our system has worked, and it’s really dangerous,” said Jake Laperruque, an attorney for the Center for Democracy & Technology.
But these new data scans can be effective in finding criminals.
Lacking leads in the Virginia bank robbery, a police detective turned to what one judge in the case called a “groundbreaking investigative tool … enabling the relentless collection of eerily precise location data.”
Cellphones can be tracked through towers, and Google stored this location history data for hundreds of millions of users. The detective sent Google a demand for information known as a “geofence warrant,” referring to a virtual fence around a particular geographic area at a specific time.
The officer sought phones that were within 150 yards of the bank during the hour of the robbery. He used that data to locate Okello Chatrie, then obtained a search warrant of his home where the cash and the holdup notes were found.
Chatrie entered a conditional guilty plea, but the Supreme Court will hear his appeal next week.
The justices agreed to decide whether geofence warrants violate the 4th Amendment.
The outcome may go beyond location tracking. At issue more broadly is the legal status of the vast amount of privately stored data that can be easily scanned.
This may include words or phrases found in Google searches or in emails. For example, investigators may want to know who searched for a particular address in the weeks before an arson or a murder took place there or who searched for information on making a particular type of bomb.
Judges are deeply divided on how this fits with the 4th Amendment.
Two years ago, the conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in New Orleans ruled “geofence warrants are general warrants categorically prohibited by the 4th Amendment.”
Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the court’s liberals in a 4th Amendment privacy case in 2018.
(Alex Wong / Getty Images)
Historians of the 4th Amendment say the constitutional ban on “unreasonable searches and seizures” arose from the anger in the American colonies over British officers using general warrants to search homes and stores even when they had no reason to suspect any particular person of wrongdoing.
The National Assn. of Criminal Defense Lawyers relies on that contention in opposing geofence warrants.
Its lawyers argued the government obtained Chatrie’s “private location information … with an unconstitutional general warrant that compelled Google to conduct a fishing expedition through millions of Google accounts, without any basis for believing that any one of them would contain incriminating evidence.”
Meanwhile, the more liberal 4th Circuit in Virginia divided 7-7 to reject Chatrie’s appeal. Several judges explained the law was not clear, and the police officer had done nothing wrong.
“There was no search here,” Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson wrote in a concurring opinion that defended the use of this tracking data.
He pointed to Supreme Court rulings in the 1970s declaring that check records held by a bank or dialing records held by a phone company were not private and could be searched by investigators without a warrant.
Chatrie had agreed to having his location records held by Google. If financial records for several months are not private, the judge wrote, “surely this request for a two-hour snapshot of one’s public movements” is not private either.
Google changed its policy in 2023 and no longer stores location history data for all of its users. But cellphone carriers continue to receive warrants that seek tracking data.
Wilkinson, a prominent conservative from the Reagan era, also argued it would be a mistake for the courts to “frustrate law enforcement’s ability to keep pace with tech-savvy criminals” or cause “more cold cases to go unsolved. Think of a murder where the culprit leaves behind his encrypted phone and nothing else. No fingerprints, no witnesses, no murder weapon. But because the killer allowed Google to track his location, a geofence warrant can crack the case,” he wrote.
Judges in Los Angeles upheld the use of a geofence warrant to find and convict two men for a robbery and murder in a bank parking lot in Paramount.
The victim, Adbadalla Thabet, collected cash from gas stations in Downey, Bellflower, Compton and Lynwood early in the morning before driving to the bank.
After he was robbed and shot, a Los Angeles County sheriff’s detective found video surveillance that showed he had been followed by two cars whose license plates could not be seen.
The detective then sought a geofence warrant from a Superior Court judge that asked Google for location data for six designated spots on the morning of the murder.
That led to the identification of Daniel Meza and Walter Meneses, who pleaded guilty to the crimes. A California Court of Appeal rejected their 4th Amendment claim in 2023, even though the judges said they had legal doubts about the “novelty of the particular surveillance technique at issue.”
The Supreme Court has also been split on how to apply the 4th Amendment to new types of surveillance.
By a 5-4 vote, the court in 2018 ruled the FBI should have obtained a search warrant before it required a cellphone company to turn over 127 days of records for Timothy Carpenter, a suspect in a series of store robberies in Michigan.
The data confirmed Carpenter was nearby when four of the stores were robbed.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts, joined by four liberal justices, said this lengthy surveillance violated privacy rights protected by the 4th Amendment.
The “seismic shifts in technology” could permit total surveillance of the public, Roberts wrote, and “we decline to grant the state unrestricted access” to these databases.
But he described the Carpenter decision as “narrow” because it turned on the many weeks of surveillance data.
In dissent, four conservatives questioned how tracking someone’s driving violates their privacy. Surveillance cameras and license plate readers are commonly used by investigators and have rarely been challenged.
Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer relies on that argument in his defense of Chatrie’s conviction. “An individual has no reasonable expectation of privacy in movements that anyone could see,” he wrote.
The justices will issue a decision by the end of June.
Politics
Trump renews bridge, power plant threat against Iran in push for deal, mocks ‘tough guy’ IRGC
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President Donald Trump mocked the Islamic Revolutionary Guard on Sunday morning for staking claim to a Strait of Hormuz “blockade” the U.S. military had already put in place.
“Iran recently announced that they were closing the Strait, which is strange, because our BLOCKADE has already closed it,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “They’re helping us without knowing, and they are the ones that lose with the closed passage, $500 Million Dollars a day! The United States loses nothing.
“In fact, many Ships are headed, right now, to the U.S., Texas, Louisiana, and Alaska, to load up, compliments of the IRGC, always wanting to be ‘the tough guy!’”
Trump declared Saturday’s IRGC fire was “a total violation” of the ceasefire.
“Iran decided to fire bullets yesterday in the Strait of Hormuz — A Total Violation of our Ceasefire Agreement!” his post began.
“Many of them were aimed at a French Ship, and a Freighter from the United Kingdom. That wasn’t nice, was it? My Representatives are going to Islamabad, Pakistan — They will be there tomorrow evening, for Negotiations.”
Trump remains hopeful about diplomacy, but is not ruling out a return to force, where he once warned about ending “civilation” in Iran as they know it.
“We’re offering a very fair and reasonable DEAL, and I hope they take it because, if they don’t, the United States is going to knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran,” Trump’s stern warning continued.
“NO MORE MR. NICE GUY!
“They’ll come down fast, they’ll come down easy and, if they don’t take the DEAL, it will be my Honor to do what has to be done, which should have been done to Iran, by other Presidents, for the last 47 years. IT’S TIME FOR THE IRAN KILLING MACHINE TO END!”
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