The developments in the Alaska scandal surrounding the curious Senate candidacy of Dan J. Sullivan have been fast and flowing this week, with each added layer making Democrat Senate nominee Mary Peltola, members of her campaign staff, and the Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) look so much worse.
It started with a blockbuster New York Times report. The paper "found, based on interviews and text messages, along with documents prepared for a potential lawsuit against the campaign, that not only did Ms. Peltola’s team work with people trying to recruit Mr. Sullivan to run for Senate, but the effort was much broader," the story revealed, while also noting it "also involved the Peltola campaign's lawyers, as well as senior aides at the DSCC."
A former high-level campaign staffer told The Times that "Peltola was not directly involved in the project, but she was 'definitely aware.'"
When Ms. Peltola was asked about the story later that day, she angrily tried to pivot to talking about Sen. Dan S. Sullivan (R-AK) while petulantly adding, "This is all stuff to sell newspapers. This is all stuff to get subscriptions. Nobody at The New York Times cares about affordability in Alaska. This is just another distraction." Discerning observers of her meltdown also noticed the fact that there was no denial uttered by Peltola on what had been alleged.
On top of what The Times uncovered, it was also reported that the DOJ was in the midst of an "aggressive criminal investigation" that has reportedly been going on "for several months" into the Decoy Dan scheme, with dozens of subpoenas already being issued as we speak:
BREAKING: DOJ has issued 30+ subpoenas in the last 24 hours as part of criminal investigation into how Dan J. Sullivan appeared on the Alaska ballot and what potential coordination there was w/ the Peltola campaign, DOJ sources tell colleague @davidspunt
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) October 29, 2026
Between all of that and the announcement that Alaska has reopened its own investigation into the matter, the next question is: where is apparent decoy, Dan J. Sullivan?
Allegedly, he is... nowhere to be found:
Alaskan Gov. Mike Dunleavy just told Fox that the decoy Dan J. Sullivan was asked to speak earlier to their investigators and he refused to do so. Now, no one seems to be able to find him as the Democrats ride out the scandal in the final five days...
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) October 29, 2026
Have the Democrats hurriedly squired him off to the remotest parts of the Great Land? Enquiring minds want to know.
Relatedly, we also learned this week that apparently the Alaska political press corps didn't seem to find it strange that Dan J. Sullivan never held any campaign events:
A local Alaska reporter just revealed that Dan J. Sullivan didn't do any campaign events. Wut. How in the world did local press not chase this guy down and confront him about any of this?!?
— Aishah Hasnie (@aishahhasnie) October 29, 2026
Memo to Alaska journos: when The New York Times of all places delivers the goods on a major political scandal that y'all failed to, some journalistic soul-searching might be in order. Seriously.