Attorney General Pam Bondi has elevated North Carolina U.S. Attorney Dan Bishop to a leading role in the Justice Department’s election integrity efforts, placing a Trump-aligned prosecutor with a history of challenging the 2020 election at the center of a nationwide review.
“Dan Bishop, our U.S. Attorney in the Middle District of North Carolina, will play a key role in ensuring the integrity of American elections alongside our incredible team [in the Civil Rights Division] and across the Justice Department,” Bondi said in a post on X. “We are fully committed to ensuring free, fair, and secure elections for the American people.”
The announcement follows a Wall Street Journal report that President Donald Trump’s attorney general authorized Bishop to pursue election-related investigations nationwide, significantly expanding his authority beyond his home district.
A DOJ official confirmed to the Washington Examiner that Bishop’s role will not be limited to North Carolina, a state that backed Trump in both the 2020 and 2024 elections. Instead, the official said Bishop’s work will focus on election integrity matters “across [the] country.”
Bishop, a former Republican congressman who was one of 147 who voted against certifying former President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory, has also publicly expressed skepticism about that race.
During a Senate Budget Committee hearing last March tied to his original nomination to serve under Russell Vought at the Office of Management and Budget, Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) asked Bishop directly whether he believed the 2020 election was rigged.
“I joined Director Vought’s views of that question, yeah,” Bishop responded.
Bishop’s elevation to U.S. attorney followed a career spanning three decades as a litigator and a term in Congress from 2019 to 2025, where he aligned with the conservative House Freedom Caucus. He later served as deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget before being tapped for the federal prosecutor role.
Bishop will help oversee reviews of voter-roll data collected by the Justice Department, including efforts to determine whether illegal immigrants may have registered or cast ballots, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The broader effort has unfolded across multiple fronts. The DOJ has pursued litigation against at least 29 states over access to voter registration data and has supported federal investigations into election procedures in key jurisdictions.
In Georgia, FBI agents in January seized thousands of ballots and related election materials from Fulton County as part of an ongoing federal investigation into potential irregularities in the 2020 vote. That move triggered a lawsuit, with county officials seeking the return of the records.
DOJ leadership has framed the effort as part of a wider plan to bolster election security and public confidence in voting systems.
RNC BETS ON COURTS TO ENACT VOTER INTEGRITY MEASURES AS SAVE AMERICA ACT STALLS
It is not immediately clear when or whether the DOJ will release findings from its election integrity investigations ahead of the midterm elections.
The effort comes as Republican-backed election legislation, including the SAVE America Act, has stalled in the Senate, prompting the administration to lean more heavily on executive branch enforcement tools. Meanwhile, the Republican National Committee is engaged in over 100 legal cases across 30 states involving voter ID laws, election administration, noncitizen voting, and mail-in ballot rules.