Trump’s erstwhile lawyer, Attorney General Todd Blanche, made the ignominious statement that he would never “improperly” interfere in the midterm elections. This happened on a Thursday.

But if Trump says interfere, then it can’t be improper. After all, Blanche works for Trump, and proper is whatever Trump says it is. On Friday, Blanche proved both this point and that t\his statement the day before, that he couldn’t preclude some theoretical future possibility that he would be compelled to interfere was a lie. That next day, Blanche’s Department interfered.

The Trump administration has asked a federal court to block certification of the Senate election in Alaska if the Republican incumbent narrowly loses, a highly unusual move that signaled an effort to potentially intervene in the outcome.

The gravamen of the suit filed by the DoJ was to enjoin certification of the winner of the senatorial election in Alaska should the winner not be incumbent senator Dan Sullivan because another Dan Sullivan was also on the ballot. The government argued that the second Dan Sullivan, Daniel J. Sullivan, Jr., was a sham candidate designed to confuse the voters and suck votes from the Republican incumbent.

The state courts had already addressed this challenge and held that Dan Sullivan² was entitled to run even if it made Dan Sullivan¹ sad. The state made the names and affiliations clear to avoid as much confusion as possible. Nonetheless, the suit was in the works while Blanche claimed otherwise. But of course, this was “proper” interference because Trump.

President Trump made clear on Friday that he had demanded the lawsuit, acknowledging how directly he has harnessed the Justice Department to carry out his wishes. “I’m the one that said do it,” he told reporters.

The Constitution puts the conduct of elections in the hands of the state, which has proven to be of no concern to Trump. The government argues that the National Voter Registration Act gives it authority to protect the integrity of elections, an open invitation in the eyes of the government to stick its nose into everything. It’s not.

The Constitution empowers states to administer congressional elections unless Congress enacts a statute to alter such rules. Citing the National Voter Registration Act, the lawsuit claimed the department can sue to force the state to fulfill a duty it claims the act imposes on state officials to “protect the integrity of the electoral process.”

But the lawsuit takes that vague phrase out of context. It is part of the act’s preamble, which explains the law’s purpose but does not itself carry any affirmative legal force. And nothing in the act governs the kind of ballot access and certification issues at play in the dispute over the two Sullivans.

With ten days until the midterms, the government’s ploy seems designed to, at best, obtain a temporary restraining order to prevent certification of the results so as to cause chaos and confusion. No serious person believes the suit has any merit, not that merit has much to do with either the Blanche DoJ or actions taken at Trump’s command.

This suit comes along with the Department of Justice’s threats of prosecution against election officials in California should a noncitizen vote, and the potential for Blanche, Ka$h Patel and Markwayne Mullin to send in federal agents, whether FBI or ICE to polling sites to “assure” the integrity of elections. Then there remains the potential seizure of ballots and ultimately the refusal to seat newly elected members of Congress should they not be the ones Trump endorsed.

But the filing of this baseless pre-emptive suit suggests that we’re about to be inundated with spurious efforts by Blanche to wreak legal havoc with the midterms, aside from the various other illegal shenanigans expected. Of course, if Trump commands it, then it can’t, by Blanche’s reasoning, be “improper” interference because if Trump commands it, then proper it must be.