On Oct. 23, less than two weeks before the presidential election, the Times reported that the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section sent a “warning letter” to America PAC, Musk’s political group, that a $1 million giveaway for newly registered voters might violate the law. Both the letter and the leak appear to violate DOJ policies, FEC chairman Sean Cooksey argued in a letter to DOJ inspector general Michael Horowitz.

Cooksey alleges that the DOJ’s letter to America PAC was meant to influence the outcome of the November election. In his letter, Cooksey writes that the DOJ “violated the Justice Manual’s prohibition against impermissible considerations for Department actions,” which include “timing investigative steps or criminal charges, for the purpose of affecting any election.”

Cooksey also questions whether the DOJ even had the right to send the letter, which never plainly states that Musk’s giveaway violated the law. “It is not apparent that the Department allows for its attorneys to issue ‘warning letters’ in this form,” Cooksey wrote.

Musk hasn’t been charged by the DOJ for any wrongdoing related to America PAC, which supported President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign. There’s no indication that the DOJ is actively investigating Musk’s PAC, either. Philadelphia district attorney Larry Krasner (D.) sued the group last month and claimed the giveaway violated state election law. A state judge on November 4 allowed America PAC’s giveaway to proceed, stating that the scheme was not an “illegal lottery.” […]

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A September Politico piece, for example, noted that Trump won Clark County, which includes Springfield, with more than 60 percent of the vote in 2020. It stated that Trump’s rhetoric had turned off “even some Trump-backing Republicans” and served “as a distraction from a more coherent message on immigration.” A Newsweek piece went so far as to suggest that backlash over Trump’s comments “could influence the results of November’s race between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris in Florida, a state which has a Haitian American population of around 500,000.”

It’s true that Trump has historically carried Clark County, winning it with 57 percent of the vote in 2016 and 61 percent of the vote in 2020. But Springfield, the county’s largest city, is no bastion of conservatism—in fact, it usually goes the opposite way. Hillary Clinton carried Springfield by roughly 2,800 votes in 2016, a Washington Free Beacon review of election results found. Four years later, Joe Biden won the city by a slightly lower margin, roughly 1,800 votes. Vice President-elect J.D. Vance didn’t fare much better during his 2022 Senate campaign, losing Springfield by 1,300 votes to Democrat Tim Ryan.

That changed last week when Trump carried Springfield by a razor-thin margin of roughly 150 votes out of more than 20,000 cast. The flip helped drive up Trump’s margin in Clark County to its highest level: Trump won 64 percent of the county vote this time around, the highest margin for a Republican presidential candidate in at least four decades. […]

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The White House and the Department of Energy paused permitting for liquefied natural gas export projects in January—a policy critics said would cost the U.S. economy billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs—to allow time for a federal study on those projects’ environmental, economic, and national security impacts. That study, according to federal officials, wouldn’t be completed until early 2025, effectively throwing the brakes on dozens of major fossil fuel projects.

According to a letter that Republican leaders on the House Oversight Committee sent to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on Wednesday, however, there is evidence the Department of Energy already conducted such a study months before announcing the policy. And, the lawmakers added, the agency has sought to stonewall information requests to obtain that study.

The saga is the latest instance of the Biden-Harris administration facing accusations of playing fast and loose with federal rules to push its anti-fossil-fuel agenda. The administration’s efforts to phase out gas-powered cars in favor of electric vehicles, limit fossil fuel leasing, and crack down on traditional power plants, for example, have all faced legal challenges from states and businesses.

The Republicans’ claim stems from a June information request filed by the government watchdog group Government Accountability & Oversight, that asked for any federal study on natural gas exports conducted last year and transmitted to the Department of Energy. The group eventually filed a lawsuit against the Department of Energy, accusing it of stalling the request. […]

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