The U.S. Justice Department delivered a thumb drive containing a list of 20,000 names to Los Angeles County election officials with a 48-hour deadline to investigate them.
Posted by The NPR Politics Podcast, Checked
- Sources
- 6 support1 context
- Said
- 1 time·
- Confidence
- 93%
The NPR Politics PodcastOct 26, 2026
Multiple tier-1 sources confirm the core of the claim: the Justice Department delivered a password-protected thumb drive with a list of about 20,000 names to Los Angeles County election officials and gave California a 48-hour deadline to review it or face legal action.
What was said
… Just, just walk us through what you've been seeing. Yeah, so there's really two big lawsuits that have taken up a lot of the oxygen in the elections world the last two weeks. The first one was actually in California, I think it was 10 or 11 days ago now, uh, which started with the Department of Justice delivering a thumb drive with a sticky note with a thumb drive's password on it uh to Los Angeles County election officials there and saying, there's 20,000 names on this list. You have 48 hours to investigate them, or you risk legal action. Uh Local officials declined to investigate that, and if, initially, they declined to even insert the thumb drive into their computers, uh, because they were worried it was a security risk. Um, I mean, the first rule of IT is never take a thumb drive. …
The NPR Politics Podcast · · from the transcriptPost →What we found
Supports. AP reports that the Justice Department said California officials failed to meet a 48-hour deadline to review a password-protected thumb drive containing a list of 20,000 names.[1][5]
Supports. Reuters reports the department gave California 48 hours to review a list of alleged noncitizen voters or face legal action, and The Hill reports the DOJ sent the letter and USB drive to state and local officials, which included a handwritten password.[2][3]
Supports. The LA Times reports the letter arrived in Los Angeles County with a thumb drive and handwritten password note, and NPR reports the Justice Department delivered the thumb drive to Los Angeles County containing the roughly 20,000-person list.[4][6]
Context. Sources dispute the list's reliability: NPR reports an initial local review found some people on it were recorded as U.S.-born, and the secretary of state said no evidence was provided for the noncitizen claim. This goes to the list's accuracy, not to the delivery or the deadline.[1][4][7]
Context. The extracted claim matches the passage: the post describes the thumb drive delivery to LA County officials, the 20,000 names, and the 48-hour deadline. The post's 'legal action' warning is dropped in the claim, which does not change the verdict.
Sources
7 sources: 2 fact-checkers, 1 tier 1, 1 tier 2, 3 not rated
- 1Trump administration sues California over voter rolls | AP Newsapnews.com · fact-checker · cited for: supports, context
- 2Trump threatens California officials with imprisonment over stance on mail ballotsreuters.com · fact-checker · cited for: supports
- 3DOJ sues California after pushing state to match voter list with USB ...thehill.com · tier 1 · cited for: supports
- 4Some on DOJ's 20,000 'likely' noncitizen list in California appear to be U.S.-bornnpr.org · tier 2 · cited for: supports, context
- 5Trump administration sues CA to block state from counting alleged noncitizen mail-in ballotsabc7.com · not rated · cited for: supports
- 6Big assertions, sharp exchanges, little clarity define DOJ ...latimes.com · not rated · cited for: supports
- 7Trump admin sues California to block state from counting alleged noncitizen mail-in ballotsktla.com · not rated · cited for: context
Where this claim was made
Said in 1 published post
Related claims
- The Department of Justice delivered a thumb drive to Los Angeles County containing the names of 20,000 people on California's voter rolls who the federal government says are likely non-citizens.True
- The Department of Justice delivered a thumb drive containing 20,000 names to election officials.True
- The Department of Justice provided the Los Angeles County Registrar's office with a password-protected thumb drive containing a list of names the federal government believes are likely non-citizens who were sent a vote-by-mail ballot.True
- The Department of Justice and U.S. Attorney Bill Isaley sent a letter and a thumb drive to Los Angeles County Registrar of Voters Dean Logan and California Secretary of State Shirley Weber alleging there are 20,000 illegal ballots in Los Angeles County.True
- The Trump administration sent a thumb drive to Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan's office containing a list of likely non-citizen registered voters and a sticky note with a password.True