by Steven Richards
Elias' firm, which represents both Peltola's campaign and the DSCC, received criminal target letters from the Department of Justice on Election Day as legal experts warn that the campaign's own lawyers may become fact witnesses. Elias first gained notoriety for helping to create the Steele Dossier on behalf of Hillary Clinton.
A key Russiagate lawyer known for his bare-knuckle election and legal tactics has landed at the center of the alleged Democrat plot in the Alaska Senate race to recruit a decoy candidate to siphon votes from their Republican opponent.
Marc Elias departed from the Perkins Coie law firm in 2021 and set up his own firm, catering to Democratic Party candidates. About the same time, the Justice Department was investigating its role in the Steele Dossier and its Trump-Russia collusion allegations, and he could face questions about the role his law firm played in representing multiple participants in the alleged scheme to recruit the candidate known as “Decoy Dan” in the Alaska race and whether there was any illegal coordination under federal election law.
Elias and his firm, Elias Law Group, were named in the explosive pre-election New York Times report on how campaign officials for Alaska's Democratic senatorial candidate Mary Peltola coordinated with Democratic operatives and aides at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to recruit the decoy, Daniel J. Sullivan, whose name is nearly identical to incumbent GOP Senator Dan S. Sullivan.
Still too close to call
The Senate race, which remains too close to call as election officials count ballots in the state’s more complicated ranked-choice voting system, has become the center of legal challenges and a possible criminal investigation related to the purported decoy candidacy.
The Justice Department escalated its probe into the purported scheme on Election Day, reportedly warning roughly 20 Democrats in writing that they may be investigative targets. Marc Elias as well as at least one Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee official were notified. A target letter signals that prosecutors view the recipient as a likely defendant, but it does not guarantee charges will be filed.
Last weekend, before the election, President Donald Trump said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and Elias should be held “criminally responsible” for “voter fraud at the highest level” for the alleged scheme.
The Elias Law Group represents both Peltola’s campaign and the DSCC. One of its attorneys, Jacquelyn Lopez, allegedly took part in the effort, which at one point explored creating a “MAGA party” to further split the Republican vote in the state, the Times reported. Texts reviewed by the paper show a campaign consultant asked former Peltola campaign manager Elisa Rios whether they should “follow up with Jackie about maga party stuff,” and a campaign official noted that “Jackie is calling” the operative who led the recruiting.
Lopez also received a records-preservation letter from Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., who chairs the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
According to Federal Elections Commission records reviewed by Just the News, the Elias Law Group was paid roughly $117,000 in 2026 by Alaskans for Mary, Peltola's principle campaign committee, while Elias was also working for the DSCC.
As part of the alleged scheme uncovered by the Times, Peltola's then campaign manager, Elisa Rios, coordinated with a Democratic operative named Jerid Kurtz, the co-owner of Wingspan Strategies LLC, a political and public relations consulting firm organized in Wyoming in March 2025, as part of a Peltola campaign initiative dubbed internally as the "ballot composition project" to hunter down alternate Dan Sullivans to run in the race. The Times reported that Kurtz successfully recruited Dan S. Sullivan to run against their GOP opponent. Rios and Kurtz were reportedly introduced by DSCC aides.
Decoy Sullivan motivated by hatred for Trump
Kurtz “told us when he found him,” Rios told the Times. Kurtz said that the decoy Dan "said he hated Trump, and if it was going to help Mary, he liked Mary. He didn’t have any interest in being a politician, but if this could help.”
49th State PAC, which was formed in August by Peltola allies following Alaska's open primary, paid Kurtz's Wingspan Strategies LLC nearly $30,000 in management consulting fees, according to FEC records.
Elias confirmed that the top leadership at his firm received letters from the Justice Department and defended his firm, framing the probe as retaliation for their work for Democratic campaigns.
“Elias Law Group attorneys proudly count themselves among this President’s political enemies, and we are proud to represent Democratic campaigns and progressive organizations that fight back against him every single day,” Elias wrote in a statement. “We will not be intimidated by a sham investigation.”
Peltola’s campaign and the DSCC have denied any involvement with Dan J. Sullivan’s candidacy. Rios later contacted The New York Times asking editors to retract her statements about the race, but the paper said her statements aligned with its other reporting and included them.
Recruiting a same-name candidate is not itself illegal, but the scheme could expose those involved to other legal violations, like potentially false campaign filings or statements as well as involvement in an effort to deprive citizens of constitutional rights.
Potential underlying criminality of false campaign filings
George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley argued that those involved in the alleged scheme, including lawyers, may be exposed through campaign filings and statements, which must be truthful.
“You have what are clearly false statements that some have made, according to The New York Times. And all of those people are going to have to lawyer up, including the lawyers,” Turley said. “At this point, I think Peltola’s lawyers, those campaign lawyers who allegedly played a role in this, have to remove themselves. They are now potential targets or witnesses.”
Article III Project attorney Will Chamberlain previously told Fox News Digital the scheme could violate 18 U.S.C. §241, which makes it a felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, for two or more people to conspire to deprive citizens of a constitutional right — here, the right to vote for the candidate of their choice.
The FBI has also reportedly interviewed former Alaska state Rep. David Eastman, a Wasilla Republican who said he met in April with an operative he later identified as Jerid Kurtz, the recruiter named by the Times as a key player in convincing the decoy Dan Sullivan to run.
Elias helped manifest the infamous Steele Dossier
Elias has drawn federal scrutiny before. As general counsel to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, he hired the opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which in turn paid former British spy Christopher Steele $168,000 to compile the dossier alleging Trump-Russia ties, Just the News previously reported.
The arrangement was apparently structured to keep the work shielded. “Elias told Fusion GPS to report only to him, so Fusion GPS’s communications could be solely with a lawyer and thus covered by attorney-client privilege,” the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded in its August 2020 report. Elias told Congress in 2017 that he saw “some” of the dossier but “not all of it,” and Clinton campaign officials testified that he briefed them on its findings during the race.
Special Counsel John Durham’s final report later found the FBI could not corroborate “a single substantive allegation” in the dossier. Durham indicted Elias’ former Perkins Coie partner Michael Sussmann and Steele’s primary source, Igor Danchenko, but both were later acquitted.
In 2022, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) fined the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign more than $100,000 for misreporting payments to Perkins Coie for Fusion’s research as legal services. The FEC dismissed the allegations against Elias himself.
The dossier episode has followed him since. In a March 2025 executive order targeting law firms, Trump singled out Elias by name, accusing him of being “deeply involved in the creation of a false ‘dossier’ by a foreign national designed to provide a fraudulent basis for Federal law enforcement to investigate a Presidential candidate.” A federal judge blocked the executive order. Elias’ firm has also lost several major election cases in recent years.
Just the News also previously reported that the American Accountability Foundation sent federal prosecutors in Alaska a 114-page referral in October alleging possible illegal coordination between groups tied to the decoy campaign and Majority Forward, a nonprofit affiliated with Schumer’s Senate Majority PAC. The PAC has denied any contact with Dan J. Sullivan. The director of Majority Forward, Christopher Koob, is also the designated agent of Peltola-aligned 49th State PAC, which paid Kurtz's firm.
Steven Richards
Source: https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/russiagate-lawyer-marc-elias-lands-center-doj-probe-alaska-decoy-dan
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