President Donald Trump’s administration wants the last four digits of every voter’s Social Security number—as part of its sweeping efforts to compile a federal voting database, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

Michael Gates, deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice’s recently overhauled civil rights division, told top state elections officials in a private meeting that he planned to request information from all 50 states. Specifically, he wanted the last four digits of voters’ SSNs, so they could be cross-referenced with a database of noncitizens at the Department of Homeland Security.

The administration could use the database to investigate claims of noncitizen voting, an obsession of Trump and other Republicans who claimed the 2020 election had been stolen through massive voter fraud.

In reality, the only ones concocting a scheme to fake votes in that election were in Donald Trump’s camp.

The issue of noncitizen voting remains small to nonexistent. In 2016, noncitizen votes accounted for just 0.0001 percent of the votes cast, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. One might notice that Trump’s complaints about noncitizen voting evaporated after his victory last November. However, Trump seems to have revived his obsession ahead of the midterm elections.

The DOJ has already sent requests to 16 Republican-led states and at least 17 Democrat-led states or swing states, including Pennsylvania, Nevada, New York, and Wisconsin. Some states, like North Carolina, were approached by the DOJ and DHS with an offer to simply use the federal SAVE database to run their voter list.

But such a sweeping request for personal information may not be legal, according to Justin Levitt, a former Justice Department official and election law expert at Loyola Marymount University’s law school. He said that it could potentially violate the 1974 Privacy Act, which requires agencies to be careful in their handling of sensitive information.

Across the country, both Democratic and Republican leaders have refused to hand over information. California’s Secretary of State Shirley Weber said her office was “not obligated to follow along” with Trump’s efforts to “conscript states to carry out nonstatutory policy priorities of the president.” Al Schmidt, the Republican secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania said the requests “represent a concerning attempt to expand the federal government’s role in our country’s electoral process.”

Earlier this month, a South Carolina local judge blocked the DOJ’s request for the “full name, date of birth, residential address, his or her state driver’s license number, or the last four digits of the registrant’s social security number” of every South Carolina voter, after one woman sued, saying it would violate citizens’ constitutional privacy rights.

The project, led by election deniers, has also raised serious concerns that the Trump administration could use the database to fuel claims of voter fraud in future elections.

“The biggest structural concern is using this information in an irresponsible manner to fuel the narrative that something is amiss in any election in which the preferred outcome is not the actual outcome,” Sophia Lin Lakin, the director of the Voting Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, told the Times.

GOP lawmakers are tying themselves in knots to defend President Donald Trump after his unsettling, sexually suggestive 2003 birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein was released Monday. The damning document appeared in a scrapbook that the House Oversight Committee subpoenaed from the deceased sex criminal’s estate.

Below are some of the most pitiful reactions and denials from congressional Republicans.

1. “We’ve seen autopens they’ve used in the Biden administration”—Tim Burchett

Representative Tim Burchett of Tennessee, shown the letter by CNN’s Manu Raju, denied its veracity and weaved a fanciful narrative.

“I mean, anybody can do a signature. We’ve seen autopens they’ve used in the Biden administration,” he said, adding, “I’ve never known Trump to be much of an artist either”—even though, as Raju noted, there is actually a history of Trump making sketches.

“So you think really someone might have just forged this somehow?” Raju asked.

“Yeah,” Burchett replied. “I mean, ‘somehow’? It’s so easy to do.”

The Tennessee congressman suggested the document was created by the Biden administration, despite it having come from Epstein’s estate. “They’ve had all this stuff for four years, and now they’re bringing it out? I just don’t buy it,” he said.

Asked how the Biden administration could possibly be behind the letter—given that it was contained in a 2003 book subpoenaed from Epstein’s estate—Burchett replied, “I mean, was I there in 2003 when they got it? Were you? No. That’s the problem. You got to look at the chain of command on this stuff.”

2. “It’s not his signature”—Byron Donalds

Representative Byron Donalds of Florida joined the chorus of conservatives claiming that Trump’s first name at the bottom of the letter is different from the president’s current autograph. (Analyses, however, show the 2003 sign-off to be a perfect match with contemporaneous examples of Trump’s signature.)

“From what I see, it’s not his signature,” Donalds told reporters. “I’ve seen Donald Trump sign a million things.”

“This doesn’t look like his signature to you?” a reporter asked.

“Nope!” he replied.

Donalds is, indeed, quite familiar with Trump’s signature—or, at least, its current iteration. In July, when Trump was seeking to rally the GOP around his signature tax and spending plan, Donalds was among a gaggle of Republicans to visit the White House and leave with signed MAGA merchandise. (Burchett was there too, and posted a video online afterward in which Donalds encouraged him to show off his signed goodies.)

3. “Been a little busy today”—Mike Johnson

House Speaker Mike Johnson reacted to the letter by reflexively deferring to the president’s word.

First asked about the message on Monday, Johnson said: “Been a little busy today. I haven’t dialed in on that. I’m told that it’s fake.”

Asked again on Tuesday, Johnson said that he had not seen the drawing: “I’ve heard about it. But no,” he told reporters, per PBS reporter Lisa Desjardins. “And the White House say[s] it’s not true. So.”

Never mind that Trump has been caught in lie after lie about Epstein.

4. “I take the president at his word”—James Comer

House Oversight Chair James Comer on Monday deflected questions about Trump’s letter, accusing Democrats of attempting to score political points.

“The Democrats, they find one thing in there and they promote it and try to get a narrative. This investigation’s about providing justice and accountability for the victims,” Comer told reporters,........

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