May 17, 2026 — Timeline — Standing Record

May 17

Acting AG Blanche claimed a 'ton of evidence' shows the 2020 election was rigged and confirmed DOJ criminal probes into it

On Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures" on May 17, 2026, Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche asserted there is "a ton of evidence that the election was rigged," referring to the 2020 presidential race, while providing no evidence publicly. He confirmed that the Justice Department has multiple open criminal investigations tied to 2020-election claims, including in Arizona and in Fulton County, Georgia, and said the department is "focused on finding out whether the right people voted." Blanche did not promise a definitive finding, saying the work could yield charges, a report, or investigative results.

May 17

Trump White House backed taxpayer-funded 'Rededicate 250' worship service on National Mall

On May 17, 2026, the Trump White House backed an all-day evangelical worship service — "Rededicate 250: A National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise & Thanksgiving" — on the National Mall, funded through a mix of taxpayer dollars and private donations. President Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appeared by video, and House Speaker Mike Johnson addressed the crowd in person alongside religious leaders. Church-state separation advocates and constitutional-law scholars said the federal government's endorsement and partial funding of an explicitly Christian worship service on federal land raised First Amendment Establishment Clause concerns.

Religious favoritism in policy

May 17

Trump administration ran 67M+ voter registrations through the DHS SAVE database for noncitizen and deceased-voter checks ahead of the midterms

Associated Press reporting on May 17, 2026 (carried by PBS NewsHour, the Philadelphia Inquirer, HuffPost, and ABC News) documented that the Trump administration has run at least 67 million voter registrations — predominantly from Republican-controlled states — through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's expanded SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements) database since August 2025. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services confirmed about 60 million registrations checked in a roughly one-year window, with about 24,000 flagged as potential noncitizens; the DOJ Civil Rights Division separately said about 350,000 records were flagged as possibly deceased. The SAVE program was statutorily designed to prevent improper benefit payments to noncitizens — its use for voter- roll administration is an executive-driven expansion without a corresponding statutory mandate.