'Deeply Disturbing': Trump’s Bid To Run Elections Collides With ICE’s Rampage In Minnesota

Officials are warning that states need to be prepared for what happens next.

After a Border Patrol officer shot and killed Alex Pretti on the streets of Minneapolis on Saturday, Attorney General Pam Bondi presented Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz with a chance to, in her words, “restore the rule of law” and “end the chaos in Minnesota.”

The letter Bondi sent to Walz, a Democrat, read like a ransom note. Among the demands? That the state immediately turn over its entire voter file to the Department of Justice to “confirm that Minnesota’s voter registration practices comply with federal law.”

That request was “deeply disturbing,” Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, a Democrat, told HuffPost.

“The request about handing over voter rolls has nothing to do whatsoever with what’s going on in Minnesota,” Simon said.

The letter is the most concrete link between three of the driving authoritarian urges of President Donald Trump’s second term, tying together his desire for a mass deportation campaign with little respect for the rule of law; his push to punish dissent and protesters like Pretti, who was observing ICE activity when he was shot; and his desire to seize control of the nation’s decentralized election system or, as he has quipped, “cancel the election.”