Trump's Voter Fraud Witch Hunt: A Dangerous Obsession

Former US President Donald Trump has long claimed that the 2020 election was fraudulent and that there was widespread voter fraud. However, there is little evidence to support these claims, and investigations by Trump's own administration, as well as state and federal authorities, have failed to find any significant instances of voter fraud. Despite this, Trump has continued to push for investigations into voter fraud, even targeting members of his own administration who refused to pursue these claims. Most recently, Trump ousted RNC Chairperson Ronna McDaniel for failing to investigate allegations of voter fraud in the Iowa Caucuses. This move underscores Trump's continued focus on voter fraud allegations and his willingness to remove those who do not support his claims.

Trump's former Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, is being investigated for voter fraud in North Carolina

In March 2022, Mark Meadows, former Chief of Staff to President Donald Trump, was under investigation by North Carolina authorities for possible voter fraud. Meadows, who had represented North Carolina in Congress from 2013 until 2020 when he joined the Trump administration, registered to vote in September 2020 using an address that he allegedly never visited. The property owner of the mobile home address in question told The New Yorker that Meadows' wife had rented the property for two months but had only spent a handful of nights there. Meadows himself was never at the residence, according to the owner.

The North Carolina Attorney General's office asked the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) to lead the inquiry, with a spokesperson stating: "We have asked the SBI to investigate and at the conclusion of the investigation, we'll review their findings." Meadows and his wife reportedly voted in North Carolina via absentee ballots in the 2020 presidential election, which Trump won by a margin of slightly more than 1%.

The investigation was sparked by a New Yorker article that raised questions about the legitimacy of Meadows' voter registration. According to North Carolina law, voters must live in the county where they are registering and have resided there for at least 30 days before the election date. Lying on voter registrations is a felony.

Meadows had previously been held in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena from the January 6 select committee. He was also on the phone line with Trump when the former president called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger in January 2021 to "find" enough votes to overturn Biden's victory in that state.

Trump himself has repeatedly and falsely claimed that he was cheated out of a second term by widespread ballot fraud in several swing states.

Trump's former Justice Department official, Jeffrey Clark, had his home raided by federal agents

On June 23, 2022, federal agents raided the home of Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official under the Trump administration. Clark was known for his staunch belief in the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump due to voter fraud.

The raid, which occurred in the early morning, saw Clark being escorted outside in his pajamas while federal agents, accompanied by a couple of local police officers and an "electronics-sniffing dog", searched his house for around three and a half hours. Clark's electronic devices were seized during the operation.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington confirmed the law enforcement activity in the vicinity of Clark's Lorton, Virginia, residence but did not disclose the nature of the operation or any particular individuals involved.

Clark's name had come up in hearings with the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol, where he was scrutinized for his role in Trump's attempts to pressure the Justice Department to advance debunked election fraud claims. Clark had also created a backchannel directly to Trump, bypassing his DOJ superiors.

Trump had considered appointing Clark as acting Attorney General to aid in his post-election fight, but the plan was abandoned after several top Justice Department officials threatened to resign.

The raid on Clark's home was seen as an escalation of the DOJ's investigations into Trump allies and associates, particularly those connected to the so-called alternate electors scheme, where Republicans in states won by Biden sent pro-Trump electors to Washington.

RNC Chairperson, Ronna McDaniel, resigned after refusing to investigate allegations of voter fraud

RNC Chairperson Ronna McDaniel announced her resignation on February 26, 2024, following Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 South Carolina Republican primary. Her resignation came after she refused to investigate allegations of voter fraud in the Iowa Caucuses.

McDaniel rejected evidence presented to her by White Hats, an organisation that provided what they called "substantive proof" that one of Nikki Haley's staffers, known only as "Joan", had attempted to buy votes using $1,000 prepaid gift cards. The evidence included a video of Joan distributing the cards, the testimony of two U.S. Army CID Warrant officers, and copies of Joan's banking history, which indicated financial irresponsibility. Despite the evidence, McDaniel dismissed the claims as "spurious" and "flimsy", stating that there was no confession from either Joan or Haley to substantiate the allegations.

McDaniel's refusal to investigate the voter fraud allegations led to criticism from President Trump, who summoned her to Mar-a-Lago for a meeting. According to sources, Trump expressed his dissatisfaction with McDaniel's handling of the situation and her inability to manage the RNC's finances effectively.

Following the meeting, McDaniel announced her intention to resign, stating that she would do so gracefully rather than face further repercussions from Trump. Her resignation took effect on March 8, 2024, marking the end of her tenure as the longest-serving RNC chair since the Civil War.

In addition to her refusal to investigate voter fraud allegations, McDaniel faced other controversies during her time as RNC chair. She was criticised for her staunch support for Trump, including running ads for his 2020 campaign as early as 2018, placing Trump affiliates on the RNC payroll, and spending funds at Trump-owned properties. She also faced backlash for her role in orchestrating the censure of Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, the two Republicans who served on the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Attack.

McDaniel's replacement as RNC chair was North Carolina GOP Chair Michael Whatley, a little-known operative with a focus on voter fraud prevention.

Trump's Attorney General, William Barr, refused to investigate voter fraud

In 2020, Trump's Attorney General, William Barr, authorized the Department of Justice to investigate any "substantial allegations" of voter fraud in the 2020 election. Barr's memo to U.S. attorneys stated that investigations "may be conducted if there are clear and apparently-credible allegations of irregularities that, if true, could potentially impact the outcome of a federal election in an individual State."

Barr's memo came days after Joe Biden was projected by every major news outlet as the winner of the 2020 presidential election. Trump refused to concede, instead claiming, without evidence, that there was widespread voter fraud. The Trump campaign filed lawsuits in several key battleground states, asking local judges to either invalidate or stop counting mail-in ballots.

Barr's memo was criticized by some as a reversal of long-standing Justice Department policy, and as a means of fueling Trump's unfounded claims of massive election fraud. Richard Pilger, the head of the Justice Department's Election Crimes Branch, stepped down from his position in protest over Barr's directive.

While Barr's memo authorized investigations into voter fraud allegations, it did not offer new evidence of substantive election fraud. Barr noted that the Department had no indication that voting irregularities had impacted the election outcome. He also limited the cases that prosecutors might be able to open to irregularities that "if true, could potentially impact the outcome of a federal election in an individual State."

Despite Barr's authorization, there is little evidence that widespread voter fraud exists. In fact, election officials from both political parties have stated that the election went well, with only minor issues typical in elections, such as voting machine malfunctions and lost ballots.

Trump's voter fraud commission, led by Kris Kobach, was disbanded after not finding any evidence of voter fraud

After the 2016 election, President Trump claimed that millions of votes had been illegally cast, and that he had been denied victory in the popular vote due to 3-5 million unauthorized-immigrant voters. In May 2017, he announced the formation of a commission to study voter fraud, with Vice President Mike Pence as the titular head and Kris Kobach as the effective leader. Kobach, a Republican and the Kansas Secretary of State, was a relentless advocate of the voter-fraud claim and had previously used a national database called the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program to identify duplicate voter registrations across 25 states.

Trump's commission was short-lived, however, as it was disbanded in January 2018 without producing any findings or evidence of fraud. State officials and security experts, including Republicans, criticized the commission's request for sensitive voter data, citing concerns about privacy, cost, and state law violations. Kobach's own office admitted that the Crosscheck program produced a high number of false positives. The commission also faced legal challenges and complaints from its Democratic members about being shut out of meetings and deliberations.

Despite the lack of evidence from his commission, Trump continued to claim voter fraud in the 2020 election, refusing to recognize President-elect Joe Biden's victory. Trump's unsubstantiated allegations had a clear goal: refusing to accept defeat and undermining the election results.

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