President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice — in a seven-page letter to Republican Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson last week threatening “criminal penalties” — said it would like to “assist” Utah “in complying” with federal election laws barring noncitizens from casting a ballot.

Utah said federal officials can best help it run elections by respecting the state’s constitutional right to do so without obstruction.

“The State of Utah complies with both state and federal election law,” state Election Director Ryan Cowley wrote in a response Tuesday. “The federal government can best assist the State of Utah by allowing us to perform our required duties without unjustified interference, as intended by Article I, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution.”

The letter came as Utah fights a lawsuit filed by the administration seeking to compel it to hand over the state’s entire, unredacted voter database — a demand Henderson argues has no legal basis and violates Utah law.

All 50 states received similar versions of Dhillon’s letter, The New York Times reported. The letters are the latest effort in Trump’s ongoing campaign to seize control of elections from states and push unsubstantiated claims of widespread election fraud.

“Any election officer, including the chief election officer of the state, who knowingly retains noncitizens on the state’s [statewide voter registration list] or facilitates noncitizens in receiving and casting ballots could be subject to criminal liability,” the Justice Department wrote last week.

The Justice Department is also currently suing 30 states and Washington, D.C., to obtain sensitive voter records. Those include voters’ personal data, such as birthdates, partial Social Security numbers and driver license numbers.

Cowley’s three-paragraph response requested the Justice Department “direct all future communications to counsel” as the lawsuit continues.

“This is truly bizarre behavior by the federal agency that is supposed to be protecting civil rights,” Henderson wrote in a social media post about the letter last week.

Henderson’s office completed a comprehensive audit of Utah’s voter database in May, and found the vast majority — 99.72% — were verifiable U.S. citizens. Of the 2,069,640 voter records it reviewed, officials found 27 alleged noncitizens and 25 “probable noncitizens.”

Henderson told reporters in May that the review shows noncitizens are not voting en masse and that states are capable of managing their own voter databases.

“It does beg the question of: What is the purpose of the federal government trying to get their hands on all this private data?” Henderson said at the time.