Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin pledged to aggressively pursue voter fraud cases at the White House complex on Friday after President Donald Trump revived election theories in his primetime speech Thursday night.
Trump used the primetime address to the nation to elevate his yearslong push on the legitimacy of U.S. elections and dispute his 2020 loss — this time, to justify his push to pass a strict voter ID bill.
Mullin said if anyone votes illegally in the upcoming midterm elections, "we will hunt you down, we will find you and we will prosecute you."
In a White House briefing doubling down on Trump's primetime election claims, Mullin also threatened fines, penalties, or prison time for state election officials who refuse to hand over sensitive voter data to DHS.
He said states that don't elect to use DHS's recently updated tool for identifying noncitizen voters, will become "a priority" for investigations.
The comments come as a federal judge has blocked the use of DHS's updated system, citing voter privacy and the fact that it can result in the wrongful purging of eligible voters.