Apr. 6, 2026, 6:16 PM EDT

The identities of several members of the militia created by New York GOP gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman have reportedly been revealed.

Blakeman’s quest to stand up a force of armed and deputized citizens in his capacity as Nassau County executive — to help with purported “emergencies” — has garnered comparisons to Nazi brownshirts. The Long Island militia has also been likened to the Ku Klux Klan and slave patrols during the era of chattel slavery, both of which deployed militias filled with civilians to terrorize Black people.

A onetime umbrella-holder for Donald Trump and a devout MAGA loyalist, Blakeman has said he will never disagree with Trump in public. He also has said that his militia of “special deputies” — which could be unleashed at his whim — might be used to quell civil rights demonstrationssaying it would be available “if there was a riot.”

Democrats have sounded the alarm that some of the militia members were unqualified and, in some cases, had run into issues with the law themselves. Such fears were seemingly confirmed by a recent court filing by Democrats who are suing to thwart the militia, as reported by Newsday.

The list of deputies includes Zachary Cohen, a nephew of Blakeman’s who, according to Newsday, “has no law enforcement or military experience.”

Per Newsday:

According to the documents, Zachary Cohen obtained his pistol license in the spring of 2024 but is without law enforcement or military experience. His résumé indicated he manages his family’s real estate portfolio as president and CEO of AMZ Management in Rutherford, New Jersey.

Cohen writes in his cover letter: ‘I am extremely interested in serving my community and following in the footsteps of my Uncle Bruce Blakeman.’

Cohen could end up working alongside a former New York Police Department officer whose manhandling of a suspect led to a massive civil settlement by New York City in 1995. (The officer was acquitted of assault.)

In the application Donald Alesi submitted to join the volunteer program he touted his decorated service with the FBI and the NYPD’s narcotics division, recently released court documents show. Omitted are dozens of allegations and complaints throughout his time as an officer in the 1980s and 1990s, including having been one of two Brooklyn officers charged with assaulting the driver of a passenger van, leaving the man paralyzed from the neck down.

While Alesi and the other officer were acquitted in the criminal case, the city paid a $16.6 million civil settlement, according to news reports. Newsday found the information in a search of police misconduct records using Alesi’s name.

Newsday did not obtain comment from Cohen or Alesi. When asked for comment on the names being released, a Blakeman spokesperson told Newsday that the judge in the case had ties to Democrats and should recuse himself.

The list reportedly includes a bunch of other people whose expertise on matters of law enforcement is questionable — to say the least. For example, there are several registered gun owners listed, including a former team dentist for the NHL’s New York Islanders, a former member of Blakeman’s transition team and a tractor-trailer driver.

A dentist. A truck driver. A Blue Light News. Sounds like a fine group of people if you’re looking to haul cargo, write a press release or replace a cavity. But nothing about this bunch of gun-toting volunteers suggests they have any competency more useful in this case than their willingness to take orders at the behest of a Trump sycophant.

Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.

Apr. 6, 2026, 4:23 PM EDT

An official in charge of privacy issues at the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, which oversees voting rights laws, resigned last week as the Trump administration continues to pursue sensitive voter data for its voter suppression efforts.

NPR reported Friday on the resignation of Kilian Kagle, who worked in the division led by far-right lawyer Harmeet Dhillon:

Kilian Kagle was the chief FOIA officer and senior component official for privacy for DOJ’s Civil Rights Division before leaving his post in recent days. His resignation has not been previously reported. For nearly a year, the DOJ has been making unprecedented demands for sensitive voter data from most states — including voters’ driver’s license numbers, partial Social Security numbers, dates of birth and addresses — that some say violate privacy law.

In the past year, President Donald Trump has suggested that “we shouldn’t even have” midterm elections in 2026 and that Republicans should “take over” elections in parts of the country controlled by Democrats. And to help implement his autocratic ambitions, the president has installed election-denying zealots at the Justice Department, which has demanded sensitive voter information from states to feed into the administration’s error-prone SAVE voter eligibility tool. More than a dozen Republican-led states have complied with the demand, while other states’ attorneys general are suing in court — with good reason.

Kagle confirmed his departure to NPR but declined to comment. Neither Kagle nor the Justice Department responded to MS NOW’s request for comment.

Though he didn’t give a specific reason for his departure, Kagle joins scores of other former employees from the Civil Rights Division who have left as Dhillon has perverted it into an agency known for assaulting many of the rights it historically defended, including voting rights. In December, almost 300 now-former DOJ employees signed an open letter warning that Dhillon and her allies at the division were undermining civil rights and causing lasting harm to the department’s credibility.

They wrote:

Every election brought changes, but the fundamental mission of our work remained the same. That’s why most of us planned to stay at the Division following the 2024 election. But after witnessing this Administration destroy much of our work, we made the heartbreaking decision to leave — along with hundreds of colleagues, including about 75 percent of attorneys. Now, we must sound the alarm about the near destruction of DOJ’s once-revered crown jewel.

The first year of Trump’s second term has been a nightmare for privacy experts, who raised issues to NPR about the president’s efforts to acquire sensitive voter data.

Others have sounded the alarm elsewhere on other controversies, including the administration’s interest in high-tech surveillance tools that have been deployed by authoritarian governments.

Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.