Attorney general: Hired guns not coming to polls

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Attorney General Keith Ellison’s office has the signed assurance of a Tennessee security firm that it will not recruit hired guns to man Minnesota polling places.

Further, the AG’s office said Friday, the company, Atlas Aegis, L.L.C., has admitted that its statements to that effect were wrong.

The announcement came three days after Attorney General Ellison’s office launched an investigation into the firm. Atlas Aegis had publicly stated it planned to recruit ex-military personnel to protect Minnesota polls from perceived antifa and Black Lives Matter movement supporters.

The statements were seen as an effort to intimidate voters.

“I’m holding Atlas Aegis to account for their misstatements about recruiting security for polling places in Minnesota that potentially frightened Minnesota voters,” Ellison said in an Oct. 23 press release. “They won’t be doing it again and will not be anywhere in Minnesota before, during or after Election Day.”

As least as portrayed by the AG’s office, there seems to have been a certain amount of bumbling on the part of Atlas Aegis.

According to the AG’s press statement, the company and its chairman, Anthony Caudle, heard through industry contacts about a third, unidentified Minnesota company—referred to in the agreement as the “prime security contractor”—which was interested in hiring security to protect some private property. That job was to take place around the time of the Nov. 3 election.

Atlas Aegis’ industry contacts never suggested the job encompassed polling places, the AG’s office said. The company simply misunderstood the scope of work, Ellison’s office said.

“Of its own accord,” the AG’s office said, “without the prompting or knowledge of its industry contacts or the prime security contractor, it advertised that the scope of work included security ‘to protect election polls.’”

Under the terms of the signed assurance of discontinuance letter, the company:

• Will not provide any protective agent services in Minnesota through Jan. 1, 2022.
• Will not seek to intimidate voters, in Minnesota or elsewhere, during the election.
• Will communicate to every listserv, job board or individual who received its original solicitation, stating that it was wrong to suggest the work included “protecting” Minnesota polling places.

The letter is signed by Minnesota Solicitor General Liz Kramer and Atlas Aegis CEO Barry Wallace. It states that Atlas Aegis is unaware of any other individuals or groups who are planning to provide private “security” at polling places or election sites in Minnesota.

If the company violates its agreement, it is liable for a $50,000 penalty, the AG’s office said. It could also face a contempt citation.

Clear signals

The issue became a national controversy on Oct. 9, when Caudle told the Washington Post that armed security would be dispatched to Minnesota “to make sure that the antifas don’t try to destroy the election sites.”

U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., was among those who spoke out against the company’s solicitations, calling them “clear voter intimidation.”

However, by midweek last week, Ellison was signaling there might be more smoke than fire associated with the company’s stated intentions.

“When the story broke,” Ellison said in an interview Wednesday, “we took it very seriously. As we have investigated it, we’re not certain that threat we feared is going to be real.”

The AG’s investigation was announced on Oct. 20. That same day, Judge Thomas A. Gilligan granted Ellison’s motion for an ex parte order, demanding that Atlas Aegis respond to Ellison’s civil investigative demand “as soon as practicable.”

The probe sought to determine whether the company violated state and federal laws prohibiting voter intimidation or interference, and whether it broke state and U.S. constitutional laws against deployment of private armed forces.

Atlas Aegis is not licensed to perform security work in Minnesota, but said it would work through a locally licensed security company that is. It took out ads soliciting former special operations military personnel for paid 15- to 30-day “armed security” jobs in Minnesota, where hires would be assigned to “protect elections polls” and other places from “looting and destruction.”

The League of Women Voters and the Council on Islamic Relations (CAIR) jointly sued the company and its chairman, Caudle, in Minnesota U.S. District Court on Oct. 20, seeking an order to cease recruitment and halt the plan.

Those groups celebrated the news of the AG’s settlement last week, and even took partial credit for helping bring it about. “We are proud of the critical role we have played in helping to secure this important victory for the right to vote and for our democracy,” the groups said in a joint statement.

However, Ellison said his investigation was already under way when the League of Women Voters/CAIR suit was filed. “We’ve been working on this long before they filed their action,” he said. “I will represent that we are not coordinating with anyone.”

On Oct. 22, the StarTribune reported that another company, Florida-based 5326 Consultants, made similar solicitations for armed poll watchers. But the StarTribune said that company has abandoned its efforts.

In the signed agreement letter, however, 5326 Consultants are identified as one of the two Atlas Aegis industry contacts that communicated about the Minnesota security opportunity; the other was Bismarck, N.D.-based 10-Code. Neither of those companies, nor the prime security contractor, ever suggested the job involved polling places, the signed letter states.

“Atlas Aegis added that language completely of its own accord,” the agreement letter says.