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Heather Honey, a well-known denier of Donald Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election, has been appointed senior position in the Department of Homeland Security, where she will help oversee the country’s electoral infrastructure.
Honey is a pupil of Creta Mitchell, a lawyer who Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election results. In 2024, Propublica reported that Honey played a key role in Mitchell’s behind the scenes efforts to change Georgia’s election rules to help Republican officials compete for possible loss of Trump in that year’s presidential election. Honey also promoted election conspiracy theory, including Trump, whom he quoted in a speech to his followers, before storming the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
While states do their ground work to run elections, DHS supports them with over-capacity tasks, including protecting IT infrastructure and voter databases from foreign intrusions. The agency, with bipartisan support, took on this role in the aftermath of Russian intervention in the 2016 election.
Voting and state election officials experts warned that Honey’s appointment as DHS’s deputy director of election integrity could erode trust between state and federal officials and encourage states not to share information with agencies.
“We’re witnessing a dangerous trend: promotion of known bad faith actors like Heather Honey,” Arizona Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fonz, quoted Honey in a statement “a well-documented history to spread the lies of elections exposed in court.”
Fontes called his involvement with DHS “deeply troublesome,” saying, “when agents provide a platform to individuals who have worked actively to erode public trust, it becomes difficult to see DHS as a trusted partner in election security.”
A DHS spokesperson did not answer questions from Propublica about Honey’s appointment or the exact nature of her responsibility. Honey did not respond to calls or emails. The White House also did not respond to requests for comment. Her name is listed online in the organization’s leadership structure, and her appointment was first reported by the website’s Democracy Docket.
In the first Trump administration, the federal government established programs designed to protect US elections from foreign interference, including cybersecurity and infrastructure security agencies, which are DHS divisions. But Trump has exacerbated the initiative and other initiatives after publicly rebutting his claim that the 2020 election was stolen.
Since the start of President Trump, the administration has hampered these programs and cut down hundreds of CISA employees. Director Chris Krebs is currently under federal investigation, DHS said. Krebs told CNN the investigation appears to be an act of political retaliation. The Department of Justice has also rolled back programs aimed at combating foreign impact campaigns. Attorney General Pam Bondy wrote in a memorandum that the Department of Justice program was dissolved to “free resources to address more pressing priorities and ending of further weaponization risks and prosecutor’s discretionary abuse.”
David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation Research, a nonprofit focused on building trust in American elections, said the cuts dismantled “almost everything” of DHS’ ability to protect election infrastructure. He said state election officials fear that Honey’s appointment, combined with program cuts, shows the Trump administration’s intention to eliminate a fair election breakwater in the United States.
“Election conspiracy theorists’ employment, without election knowledge or expertise, is the pinnacle of this reversal,” Becker said. “DHS appears to be now poised as the main amplifier of false election plots pushed by the enemy.”
Two sources familiar with Honey’s employment at DHS said she started working at an agency last week. The organizational chart dated August 18th identifies her on the department’s website as the leader of the agency’s Strategy, Policy and Planning Office. Her position is not the version of the website archived in July, and former administration officials said there was no such work in the past.
It is not yet clear that Honey will oversee, but a former DHS official said that the assistant secretary is usually the top expert in the agency in the subject area. They are often involved in drafting executive orders and creating policies. They also serve as liaisons for the White House and the National Security Council.
Since Honey began, Trump has announced “moving mail through executive orders to remove mail,” but has since said the administration will pursue these targets through legislative measures. The DHS also threatened to cut off a grant of roughly $28 million to help prepare for terrorism and disasters if it does not change voting rules to comply with administration priorities, NPR reports.
Honey’s obligations likely include helping the government organize its policy responses if foreign officials infiltrate the country’s electoral system, former officials said. To do this and assess the security of election infrastructure, someone in her position will have access to classified information, including government election-related information.
Experts have expressed concern about Honey’s portfolio given their history of spreading misinformation.
“Heather Honey’s past misleading claims about the number of votes in Pennsylvania promoted, among other things, false conspiracy theories about stolen elections,” said Larry Norden, election expert at the NYU Law and Policy Group’s Center for Justice.
Before being wiped out by the “Stop theft” movement, Honey had no experience as a federal government or election manager and worked as a private investigator in Pennsylvania.
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After the 2020 election, she became a Republican-backed audit contractor for evidence of fraud in a vote cast in Maricopa County, Arizona. Honey helped draft the final report, according to an email between employees working on a review that would reaffirm Biden’s victory.
Since then, Honey has led at least three organizations dedicated to transforming the election system in ways defended by conservatives, including tightening the eligibility requirements for people to participate in the voter role. Members of Honey’s Pennsylvania Fair Election, a state branch of Mitchell’s National Election Integrity Network, are challenging thousands of residents to qualify for voter roles.
Honey is also involved in many other efforts to transform elections across the country, including the successful push for many states with Republican leaders to withdraw bipartisan interstate partnerships and share data and win many states to make votes safer.
Is there any information I can share about Heather Honey and the election work that is taking place in the Department of Homeland Security, especially? Contact reporter Doug Bock Clark [email protected] Or the signal at 678-243-0784. If you’re worried about confidentiality, check out our advice on the safest ways to share tips.
Christopher Bin and William Turton contributed to the report.
