'Filed in error': Trump admin admits DOJ filed wrong document in voting fraud case meant for another state entirely

The Trump administration, by mode of the U.S. Department of Justice, has made a important mistake, a tribunal filing connected Friday attests.

Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Harmeet K. Dhillon and respective prosecutors successful the part filed a question to retreat a papers filed successful mistake successful New Hampshire national court.

The two-page question to withdraw "respectfully" asks the tribunal successful a September 2025 Granite State predetermination fraud case to "withdraw its filing" which is simply a notice of supplementary authority filed aboriginal Friday.

"The Notice was filed successful mistake and was not intended for filing successful this matter," the question reads. "The United States respectfully requests that the Court retreat [the erroneous filing] from the docket."

The mea culpa besides notes that the DOJ filed its "intended filing" instantly aft filing their question to withdraw.

The misplaced supplemental authorization announcement was really related to a Minnesota voting fraud case – which the DOJ filed against the Land of 10,000 Lakes, arsenic good arsenic the Minnesota caput of state, connected the nonstop aforesaid time the New Hampshire lawsuit was filed past year.

This is not the archetypal clip the 2nd Trump medication has had to alert a tribunal to a filing error.

And, successful fact, the types of errors person been rather different.

In early October 2025, the DOJ filed a 28-page effect successful opposition to a question for a impermanent restraining bid successful a lawsuit astir the firing of national workers during the government shutdown. A large woody of that enactment was done with small attraction to detail.

On astatine slightest 19 occasions, the papers is pockmarked with assorted iterations of the phrase: "Error! Bookmark not defined." In galore instances, the operation is rendered successful each caps. The mistake connection is autochthonal to Microsoft Word and means a idiosyncratic has updated a tract with a breached nexus to a bookmark. Or, successful different words, a alteration was made attempting to constituent to a nexus that nary longer exists.

The DOJ aboriginal filed a 3-page errata – a ceremonial papers admitting to, and correcting, definite mistakes.

"In finalizing their Opposition, Defendants inadvertently encountered errors successful the Table of Contents required by Local Rules, including a method mistake preventing due show of the leafage numbers," the errata reads. "Defendants apologize for the error, and respectfully taxable the accompanying correction to their Memorandum successful Opposition to Plaintiffs' Motion for Temporary Restraining Order."

Then, successful late October 2025, the DOJ admitted to a superior factual mistake successful a filing for a ineligible conflict implicit the national usage of authorities National Guard troops to constabulary American cities.

In a letter motion addressed to the clerk of tribunal for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, the U.S. Department of Justice admitted that aggregate anterior representations astir national deployments to Portland, Oregon, were "incorrect" and expressed "regret" for making galore specified "errors" successful assorted tribunal filings.

"Defendants bash privation to close a factual discrepancy discovered successful the people of responding to plaintiffs' letter," DOJ wrote successful that error-correcting effort. "We are informed by our clients that this 115 fig was the fig of deployments and that immoderate individuals were deployed aggregate times. Based connected DHS's reappraisal of the deployment data, the fig of idiosyncratic FPS officers deployed during the clip play appears to beryllium 86 officers."