A former Department of Homeland Security official on Monday laid out what he described as the “forbidden” measures President Donald Trump is deploying to meddle with the midterm elections.

Paul Rosenzweig, who served at DHS under President George W. Bush, argued in an essay for The Atlantic that Trump is “violating the principle of executive neutrality” by wielding the power of the federal government in an effort to rig the election. The essay lands ahead of the November midterms, in which all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and roughly one-third of the Senate will be on the ballot, with majority control of Congress for the final two years of Trump’s term at stake.

“The principle that government ought to be administered for the benefit of all citizens, not on behalf of one political party, lies at the core of America’s democratic enterprise,” Rosenzweig writes. “The Trump administration couldn’t care less: It appears to see the federal government not as something to steward on behalf of all Americans, but as an opportunity — a set of levers it can pull on to protect its reign.”

He noted that during his tenure under Bush, “the idea that the secretaries of defense or homeland security or the attorney general would have ever appeared at a political rally was unimaginable,” because “their roles were too important to national security to risk being perceived as partisan operatives.” By contrast, he wrote, members of the Trump administration “are willing to use the public power at their disposal to do what they can to give Republicans an edge in this fall’s elections.”

Rosenzweig cited a range of examples: Trump and his officials campaigning for candidates from their public pulpits; pushing broadcast-news coverage in a more favorable direction; attempting to strong-arm the U.S. Postal Service into regulating mail-in balloting into oblivion; threatening to withhold FEMA relief funds from states that do not elect Republican candidates; releasing pro–Donald Trump propaganda funded by taxpayer dollars; and — “the most crass offense,” in his words — offering $5,000 checks to voters if Republicans win.

“Some of these tactics are in a legal gray area; others are plainly forbidden,” he wrote. “But all of them are violations of the precept that the party in power should not tilt the electoral scales toward itself.”

According to Rosenzweig, the most egregious conduct involves what he called officials’ “total disregard” for the Hatch Act. The 1939 law, formally titled An Act to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities, imposes limits on certain government employees to keep executive officials above partisan political activity: federal employees may not use their official authority to influence an election and may not “take an active part” in any political campaign. Penalties can include removal from office, and findings against Senate-confirmed presidential appointees are transmitted to the President for a disciplinary decision. Yet Trump himself and officials including Attorney General Todd Blanche, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy have been traveling around the country to campaign for Republicans in tight races.

“Who is supposed to do anything about any of this?” Rosenzweig writes. Enforcement responsibility falls to the Office of Special Counsel, an independent federal investigative agency whose head Trump fired early in his second term, then nominated as his replacement the host of a far-right podcast, whose past behavior and qualifications were “so poor that even the Senate Republicans could not support him.” Despite lacking a permanent leader, the OSC has managed to open a Hatch Act investigation into one figure of particular interest to the president: former Special Counsel Jack Smith. The investigation responds to a complaint alleging that Smith sought quick criminal-trial dates for Trump as a means of influencing the 2024 election. Both that inquiry and the agency’s still-unfilled top post are the concrete threads to watch on Hatch Act enforcement heading into Election Day.

Rosenzweig highlighted further examples of the administration using government power in its electoral efforts. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, who leads the agency that licenses U.S. broadcasters, has waged a campaign against media outlets, attacking late-night hosts like Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert, as well as networks accused of running anti-Trump programming. Rosenzweig also pointed to Trump’s attempts to federalize control of mail-in voting, asserting that the scheme was an effort “to convert the USPS’s neutrality into a political cudgel.”

All of it, Rosenzweig warned, could inflict lasting harm on U.S. democracy. “When politicians repurpose government action to help themselves maintain power, they are breaking a fundamental promise of governmental impartiality in providing services and benefits,” he concluded. “Trump’s assault on this principle of executive neutrality has not yet taken root in American culture. If it does, we will lose far more than control of the House or the Senate; we will lose the possibility that the will of the people can prevail.”