Trump just orchestrated a 'dress rehearsal' to rig the midterms: lawyer

A lawyer warned on Monday that President Donald Trump appears to have cooked up a "bad faith" scheme to meddle in the midterm elections.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration dispatched FBI agents and the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, to the Fulton County, Georgia, election office to retrieve data about the 2020 general election. The raid was predicated on an affidavit from an FBI agent who claimed there was evidence that the election was unfairly conducted. In response, Trump administration officials collected more than 700 boxes of data, including the election ballots and the county's voter rolls, which courts had denied them access to.

Michael Popok, a lawyer and host of the "Legal AF" podcast, warned during a new episode on Monday that Trump may be using the scheme as a "dress rehearsal" for meddling in the midterm elections in other states.

"It may be a dress rehearsal for Donald Trump using a bad-faith FBI agent's affidavit to secure a bad-faith search warrant to grab 700 boxes of Fulton County's data and steal it from them, subject to what a federal judge has to say about it," Popok said. "But it's also a dress rehearsal for the Democrats on how to protect the right to vote."

Trump appears to be seeking ways to meddle in the upcoming midterm election as polls show Republicans are losing support. About 25% of Republicans also disapprove of Trump's job performance as president so far, and his approval rating has steadily declined each month he's been in office, according to polling.