Trump-appointed judge slams door on DOJ as court losses pile up days ahead of midterms

Another federal court has rejected the Trump administration's push to get state voter records, this time in Utah. Judge David Barlow, a Trump appointee, dismissed the Justice Department's lawsuit on Friday against Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, a Republican who oversees the state's elections. The setback is among more than 25 the administration has suffered in voter-roll cases, days before the midterms, according to Fox News.

Federal lawyers sought Utah's full registration database, covering each voter's name, birth date and address plus either a driver's license number or the last four digits of a Social Security number. They invoked the Civil Rights Act of 1960, which reaches records that "come into" an official's possession. Barlow sided with a Sixth Circuit ruling that an official hasn't received something she herself created and maintains. The department countered that the law exists to enforce federal election rules, so shielding the registration database would defeat its purpose.

A department spokeswoman told Fox News Digital the department will appeal, noting that the only appeals court to weigh in divided mostly along party lines and that five Sixth Circuit judges dissented from denying full-court review.

Summarized by PolitiKool from Fox News’s reporting. Read the full story at Fox News →