Within a minute of opening a news conference in Washington to announce charges against a Utah postal worker, officials in President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice on Tuesday pivoted to its fight with states — including Utah — over mail voting.

A federal grand jury indicted a Payson man last week who, while working for the U.S. Postal Service during the state’s June primary election, allegedly discarded hundreds of pieces of mail in a Utah County church parking lot dumpster. Mail ballots were among them.

The charges stem from an inquiry launched by the USPS inspector general’s office into nearly 300 ballots that never arrived in mailboxes of voters primarily living in Eagle Mountain.

When discussing the missing ballots with county commissioners ahead of election certification, Utah County Clerk Aaron Davidson said, “We don’t believe that [with] the disparity between the wins and losses … it would have affected any specific race."

Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter told reporters at the news conference, over 2,000 miles away in the nation’s capital, that an executive order issued by Trump restricting mail voting, and blocked by a district court, would have prevented the alleged crime.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the injunction last week.

“Who could be against properly tracking mail-in ballots?” McCotter said. “Unfortunately, but entirely predictably, that regulation was blocked by a judge in Massachusetts. ... The Trump administration, however, will continue taking aggressive actions to protect our elections.”

Utah’s top election official, Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, previously said she was prepared to sue USPS if federal courts allowed the order to take effect.

In an amicus brief she and other Republican election officials filed with the high court earlier this month opposing the rule, Henderson argued it would be impossible to implement in the remaining weeks before the November general election.

Henderson praised the DOJ’s actions against the postal worker in a statement posted to social media Tuesday.

“U.S. Attorney Melissa Holyoak correctly asserted that those Utahns’ right to vote was thrown away when their ballots were tossed in the trash. I’m grateful that the department takes cases of denying lawful voting just as seriously as alleged illegal voting,” Henderson wrote.

Tuesday’s announcement also comes amid the department’s legal fight with Utah and just over two weeks after the DOJ disclosed to Henderson in a letter that it is investigating her for refusing to hand over the state’s entire, unredacted voter database.

Several months earlier, the Trump administration sued Henderson in an effort to obtain voters’ sensitive personal data. Henderson maintains there is no federal legal basis for the demand, and that her accession would be a violation of state data privacy laws.

“We can’t solve this problem alone,” McCotter said from a podium. “We need states to stand with us. Unfortunately, several states have actually made it easier to cheat.”

The DOJ has filed similar lawsuits against 29 other states and Washington, D.C., according to a tracker maintained by the University of Wisconsin’s State Democracy Research Initiative.

So far, 25 district courts have thrown out the DOJ’s cases. No federal court — on the district or appellate levels — has ruled in the department’s favor.

The federal judge overseeing Utah’s case has not yet scheduled a hearing.

In a review of Utah’s primary election published last week, legislative auditors wrote they “did not observe significant fraud” in the state’s elections.

“So remember, folks, voting fraud is real,” McCotter concluded. “Under the leadership of President Trump and Attorney General Blanche, this department is committed to protecting the vote of American citizens.”