MADISON, Wis. – Attorney General Josh Kaul today called on U.S. Attorney General William Barr to reverse his abrupt change to a 40-year-old U.S. Department of Justice policy that until this week had kept the department from interfering with election results. In a letter today to Attorney General Barr, Attorney General Kaul and a coalition of 23 total attorneys general voiced their “strong objection” to this policy reversal, which they said could “erode the public’s confidence in the election,” and called on him to “reverse your decision promptly.”

“This troubling last-minute policy change, which caused the director of the Election Crimes Branch of the U.S. Department of Justice to resign from his supervisory role, is wrong. For no apparent reason other than to indulge the outgoing president’s baseless attacks on the integrity of the election, AG Barr has further undermined USDOJ’s independence,” said Attorney General Kaul.

The American people have voted in record numbers in a safe and secure election and have clearly chosen a new president. Despite this, Attorney General Barr issued a new directive on November 9 that U.S. attorneys may now pursue allegations of voter fraud without adhering to long-established, important guardrails. Until now, the Department of Justice has recognized that the principal responsibility for overseeing elections lies with states and has “taken care to avoid affecting the outcome of elections or even the perception of political intrusion in the electoral process,” Attorney General Kaul and the coalition wrote.

Joining Attorney General Kaul in signing the letter are the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington.

Read the letter.