Embedded Advocacy: How Norm Eisen's States United Democracy Center Fueled State-Level Lawfare Against 2020 Election Skeptics

Internal government records, open records requests, and court rulings have illuminated a pattern of coordination between Democratic state attorneys general and Norm Eisen's States United Democracy Center (SUDC), a nonprofit that positioned itself as a defender of democracy while supplying legal memos, strategy, and even deputized prosecutors targeting Trump supporters involved in alternate elector efforts after the 2020 election.

In Minnesota, Attorney General Keith Ellison formally appointed SUDC Senior Vice President Christine Sun and the organization as 'Special Attorneys' to serve at his pleasure, granting them official authority while requiring compliance with state transparency rules. Similar arrangements surfaced in Arizona, where AG Kris Mayes accepted pro bono assistance from SUDC. A July 2023 47-page memorandum from the group, later inadvertently disclosed in search warrant applications, provided detailed analysis of potential criminal charges against Arizona alternate electors—including forgery, fraud, and conspiracy—along with anticipated defenses. An Arizona appeals court later ruled that Mayes' office illegally withheld communications detailing this collaboration with SUDC.

Records from Michigan and Nevada further document common-interest agreements and strategic exchanges between SUDC personnel and state officials amid election-related investigations. These materials, obtained via public records laws, reveal SUDC functioning less as an external advisor and more as an extension of partisan prosecutorial teams.

The deeper pattern is one of institutional fusion: SUDC traces roots to progressive networks tied to the Democratic Attorneys General Association. Tax filings show payments to Marc Elias' firm, a key architect of Democratic election litigation. Eisen himself, an Obama-era ambassador, House impeachment counsel, Brookings fellow, and co-author of public calls to 'convict Trump,' embodies the revolving door between advocacy, academia, and Democratic legal infrastructure. His model prosecution memos and amicus briefs have shaped narratives later adopted by prosecutors in Georgia, Arizona, and federal cases.

This coordination exemplifies 'lawfare'—the weaponization of legal institutions by aligned nonprofits to target political adversaries under the banner of rule-of-law protection. Rarely examined is how such arrangements erode prosecutorial independence, blur lines between donor-funded activism and state power, and create unaccountable parallel justice systems. Critics argue it reflects selective enforcement: aggressive pursuit of Trump-adjacent actors on novel legal theories while downplaying irregularities raised by 2020 challengers.

In a post-2024 landscape where roles have reversed, these disclosures highlight the durability of such networks. They suggest a broader 'democracy defense' complex that operationalizes state AG offices, grand juries, and regulatory pressure against populist challenges. Court-mandated releases of these memos provide rare transparency into mechanisms that heterodox observers have long described as institutional capture, where the language of safeguarding elections masks partisan enforcement. Without reforms to special attorney appointments and stricter separation between NGOs and prosecutors, such patterns risk normalizing two-tiered justice.