The intrusiveness is pretty obvious: President Donald J. Trump wants the state of South Carolina to surrender your private voter data to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). And Gov. Henry McMaster wants the DOJ to have it, too — birthdates, Social Security and driver’s license numbers and more.
None of this should make you feel good. At all.
To be clear, we’re not talking about the DOJ you’ve known all your life — you know, the one bound by rules, regulations, procedures and the rule of this thing called law.
No, we’re talking about the all-new Trump DOJ — one overseen by the faintly comic but unmistakably menacing menagerie of podcasters and poltroons now at the highest levels of the formerly independent agency.
Think that’s overstated? Remember: Kash Patel, author of a 2023 book about using state power to punish Trump’s enemies, is now director of the FBI. Dan Bongino, a right-wing podcaster, is deputy director. Scores of career employees have been fired or demoted for conducting investigations Trump didn’t like.
That McMaster — a once-proud Reaganite conservative turned nattering nabob of nat-con nonsense — supports this steaming pile of statist overreach no doubt disappoints the still disappointable.
But we shouldn’t be surprised. McMaster, a decent man in a sometimes indecent business, made his deal with Trump when he endorsed the aspiring autocrat in 2016. A year later, he was governor.
And so it was that McMaster found himself ordering his lawyers into a Richland County courtroom last week not simply to oppose a South Carolinian’s plea to keep her data safe, but to deny that citizen her day in court. Don’t hear this case, the governor’s attorneys told the judge. Just dismiss it now, so we can get back to doing the president’s bidding.
As of press time this week, it’s unclear how the court will rule on McMaster’s request. Or on a motion from the citizen’s attorneys to block the state from sending the data before the case is decided. But here’s what we do know:
- We know the DOJ data demand is unprecedented — but not why it’s necessary. In an initial letter, the agency mentioned enforcing federal laws requiring well-maintained voter rolls. But how will a one-time snapshot tell the DOJ whether the rolls are being properly maintained?
- We know the Trump administration has demanded data from all 50 states for what amounts to a national voter database — and a hacker’s dream. As one Trump critic observed, why not just send our data directly to Russia and cut out the middleman?
- We know when Stateline.org asked the DOJ why it wanted the data, a spokesperson mentioned a “collaboration” with the Department of Homeland Security involving “illegal aliens.” OK. So which is it — voter roll maintenance or immigration enforcement?
Can Trump’s DOJ really be trusted with voter data of people who don’t support Trump, especially in an environment in which the president is publicly scolding his attorney general for not moving quickly enough to prosecute his political enemies — something undreamed of by any president in the past (other than perhaps Richard Nixon).
It’s time for McMaster to listen to the better angels of his nature. Trump’s ludicrous Justice Department request doesn’t need our governor’s protection. South Carolina’s citizens do.
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