The Justice Department's top civil rights official says New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill already knew her state had tens of thousands of potential noncitizens on its voter rolls when she signed a statement branding President Trump a liar over election integrity, and now the DOJ is suing to get answers.

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who leads the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, told Fox News Digital that Sherrill's public attacks on Trump's July 16 primetime address were made in bad faith. Dhillon said the governor was aware, before she co-signed a multi-governor rebuke, that her own administration was about to disclose a major voter registration failure involving noncitizens added to New Jersey's rolls through the state's motor-voter system.

Department of Homeland Security data released the same day as Trump's speech showed more than 35,000 potential noncitizens sitting on the Garden State's voter rolls. Within days, Sherrill joined 23 other Democratic governors, in a statement formally led by Kentucky Gov. Andrew Beshear, accusing the president of lying about election integrity and trying to "undermine democracy."

Dhillon says Sherrill signed the governors' letter knowing her own state had a problem

Dhillon's accusation centers on timing. She contends that Sherrill had advance knowledge of the forthcoming disclosure about noncitizen registrations yet chose to publicly dismiss the president's concerns anyway.

Dhillon put it bluntly:

"When the president came out with his Primetime speech last Thursday, I believe in the sequencing of events that has been laid out, she already knew that this revelation was forthcoming."

She did not stop there.

"She knew it, and she still went online and called the president a liar and said he was exaggerating, Shame on you, governor."

Sherrill's spokesman, Sean Higgins, did not directly address Dhillon's claim about prior knowledge. Asked by Fox News Digital about the accusation, Higgins pointed reporters to comments Sherrill made after touring a grocery store in Essex County, New Jersey, where she had signed unrelated legislation.

At that appearance, Sherrill framed the controversy as a federal overreach problem rather than a state accountability problem:

"We're running an independent investigation right now to get to the bottom of exactly how this happened and what's going on, but it is not a surprise to me that the federal government that the Trump administration wants to immediately weaponize this against people as opposed to focusing on making sure that we're running free and fair elections."

That answer does not confirm or deny whether Sherrill knew about the noncitizen registration data before she signed the governors' statement. It sidesteps the question entirely.

A software failure added thousands of noncitizens to New Jersey's rolls

The underlying facts are not in dispute. The Washington Examiner reported that approximately 6,600 noncitizens were inadvertently added to New Jersey's voter rolls because of a software malfunction at the state's Motor Vehicle Commission between June 2023 and June 2024. Roughly 400 of those noncitizens actually cast ballots before the error was discovered and corrected.

Sherrill herself criticized her Democratic predecessor, former Gov. Phil Murphy, for keeping the error quiet. She said "no one in the previous administration brought this to light, demanded accountability, or took action when it happened years ago." That admission, a sitting Democratic governor confirming noncitizens are on the voter rolls, undercut the same party's insistence that the problem does not exist.

The DHS figure of 35,000-plus potential noncitizens is far larger than the 6,600 confirmed by the state's own review. Whether the broader number reflects additional registration errors, different timeframes, or a wider methodology has not been clarified in public statements from either the federal government or Sherrill's office.

Sherrill refuses to hand over voter data as DOJ files suit

Dhillon issued a letter to Sherrill demanding voter registration data, giving the governor five business days to comply. Sherrill told WCBS she would not turn over the records.

The DOJ then sued New Jersey Lt. Gov. Dale Caldwell over the state's refusal to cooperate on election integrity matters. Dhillon warned that noncitizens who voted face serious consequences.

"They are subject to both prosecution as well as removal from the United States," Dhillon said in announcing the investigation.

New Jersey is not alone in resisting. Pennsylvania, New York, and several other states have also refused DOJ requests for voter registration data, citing federal law and state privacy protections. The Justice Department has warned election officials in all 50 states that they could face prosecution over noncitizen voting failures, a signal that the administration views this as a national problem, not just a New Jersey one.

Dhillon framed the standoff as a choice between cooperation and litigation:

"It's a bipartisan problem, actually. And I'm really looking forward to helping everyone who will work with us fix this problem. And if they won't work with, we'll sue them and we'll still fix the problem."

Democratic governors called Trump a liar, then the data landed

The joint statement Sherrill co-signed declared: "It's deeply alarming that President Trump continues to try to undermine free and fair elections. No amount of lies and conspiracy theories can change the fact that our country's elections have repeatedly been proven to be safe and secure." The governors added: "Ours is a winning message, which is why he is trying to undermine democracy."

That language is difficult to square with Sherrill's own acknowledgment that noncitizens were registered and voted in her state. She blamed the Murphy administration for the cover-up and launched an independent investigation, but she also refused to give the federal government the data it requested to pursue the same problem she says she wants solved.

Dhillon noted the contradiction directly. Every illegal vote, she said, cancels out the vote of a lawful New Jersey citizen:

"Every single person who voted illegally canceled out the vote of a New Jersey voter; that is shameful."

She argued that Sherrill's posture, attacking the president while stonewalling the investigation, is the opposite of what her oath requires:

"And instead of pointing fingers at the president, which is what Governor Sherrill did... she should be raising her hand to work with the federal government to clean this up ASAP because that's the vow she took when she ran for office and she got sworn in as the governor of her state is to protect her citizens, and her citizens have a right to vote."

Noncitizen voting is not a theoretical concern. Federal authorities have charged a lawful permanent resident from Australia for illegally voting in two federal elections, and the FBI has deployed agents to investigate voter fraud in Los Angeles. The pattern is consistent: when officials look, they find problems.

Sherrill's two-track response raises more questions than it answers

Sherrill is running two arguments at once. On one track, she admits the problem is real, blames her predecessor, and says she is investigating. On the other, she refuses to cooperate with the federal government's parallel effort, calls the DOJ's approach "weaponization," and signs a letter with two dozen governors insisting elections are safe and secure.

Both positions cannot be true at the same time. If the voter rolls are clean, there is nothing to weaponize. If they are not, and Sherrill herself says they are not, then blocking the federal investigation looks less like principled resistance and more like damage control.

Meanwhile, legal battles over voter verification continue in federal court, with some judges blocking the administration's efforts even as evidence of registration failures piles up state by state.

Dhillon's "shame on you" was pointed, but the real shame belongs to any official, governor or otherwise, who admits a problem exists and then blocks the people trying to fix it. New Jersey voters deserve to know their ballots count. Right now, their governor is making that harder, not easier.