US Justice Dept sues to block possible Alaska election of Democrat to Senate

JUST IN: Trump says he ordered the Justice Department to sue to block certification of Alaska's Senate election results if the Republican narrowly loses to a Democrat.

Trump says he ordered the Justice Department to sue over an election his party hasn't lost yet.

The target is Alaska's Senate race. According to the president himself, the Justice Department has been told to block certification of the results if the Republican narrowly loses to a Democrat. Not after a count, not after evidence of fraud. If.

Think about the sequencing there. The lawsuit exists before the outcome does. The Justice Department is being positioned as a player in a race that hasn't been decided, and the president announced it out loud. Alaska hasn't sent a Democrat to the Senate in decades, which tells you how nervous someone is about this seat.

Certification is normally the boring part of an election. The fact that a sitting president is litigating it in advance, in public, is the whole story. Whatever Alaska's voters decide, Washington has already filed its objection.

This is Sara White, reporting for HIT.