William Barr Breaks With Election Fraud Claims

President Trump’s fantastical election fraud claims received yet another credibility blow Tuesday. Attorney General William Barr, a staunch supporter of the President, admitted Tuesday that the Department of Justice (DOJ), which he heads, found no instances of significant voter fraud. This comes as the Trump campaign has faced defeat after defeat in court over vain and longshot attempts to overturn the results of a legitimate, fair election. Republican governors and secretaries of states, including in Arizona and Georgia, have all certified their results for President-Elect Joe Biden.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Barr said, “to date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.” He said that both the DOJ and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) were unable to come up with any solid evidence of substantial voter fraud in any state.

This comes from an attorney general who, prior to the election, had alleged claims that the nation’s vote-by-mail systems were insecure, amid a global pandemic which, to date, has taken the lives of 271,000 Americans and infected almost 14 million, has forced everyone to avoid going out and reduce social interactions.

Last week, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, defended his state’s election systems, stating that the election was secure and it was his “responsibility” to certify the state’s 11 electoral votes to the statewide presidential election winner, which was President-Elect Joe Biden. He won the state by 10,457 votes or 0.31 percent.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, both Republicans, also rejected Trump’s demands to have them overturn the state’s election results after certification, despite opening investigations into isolated suspicions of illegal votes. The president-elect won the state by 12,670 votes or 0.25 percent.

Barr is the latest high-profile Republican to denounce the Trump campaign’s claims of voter fraud, which has the effect of making certain other high-profile Republicans, such as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who have refused to denounce such claims so far seem even more disingenuous.

Rudy Giulani, head of the Trump campaign’s legal efforts, denounced Barr’s claims, continuing to claim that they have “ample evidence of illegal voting in at least six states.” They have not been able to produce any of this alleged evidence so far in the 39 cases the campaign has lost in court.

Much more to Trump’s liking, though, Barr said he appointed John Durham as a special counsel investigating the Russia scandal in the 2016 campaign. Doing so would make it difficult for Biden’s attorney general to fire the investigator, which so far has issued no public reports and has only brought one minor criminal charge since starting in 2019, because special counsels are protected more stringently under federal law. Barr has essentially primed a political landmine in the DOJ, ready for whoever Biden chooses to replace him.

Barr did, though, admit that neither President-Elect Joe Biden nor former President Barack Obama are under investigation by the DOJ.

This move was quickly overshadowed by another emerging scandal about presidential pardons, which will be discussed in a future post.

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