Newsdeck

Newsdeck

U.S. Justice Department has found no evidence of widespread voter fraud – AP

US Attorney General William Barr testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing on 'The Justice Department's Investigation of Russian Interference with the 2016 Presidential Election' on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, 01 May 2019. EPA-EFE/SHAWN THEW

WASHINGTON, Dec 1 (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department has not uncovered any evidence of widespread voter fraud in the presidential election, despite President Donald Trump's repeated claims, Attorney General William Barr told the Associated Press on Tuesday.

By Sarah N. Lynch

“To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election,” the news service quoted Barr as saying.

Barr last month told federal prosecutors to pursue investigations into credible allegations of election fraud, but warned them to avoid probes into “fanciful or far-fetched claims.”

Democratic President-elect Joe Biden beat Republican Trump by a wide margin in the Nov. 3 election, by 306 to 232 votes in the state-by-state Electoral College that chooses the president, as well as by more than 6.2 million ballots in the popular vote.

Despite that, Trump has continued to claim loudly and without evidence that the election was marred by widespread fraud, claims that have been repeatedly rejected by state and federal officials.

Trump has pursued a series of legal challenges in numerous states, although none has thus far resulted in any meaningful gains for the president. Most of the lawsuits have been rejected by judges, who have expressed skepticism about the claim that the election results are illegitimate.

The Trump campaign’s legal team responded by saying the Justice Department did not do enough to investigate allegations of voter fraud.

“With all due respect to the Attorney General, there hasn’t been any semblance of a Department of Justice investigation,” Trump attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis said in a joint statement. “Nonetheless, we will continue our pursuit of the truth.” (Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Scott Malone and Jonathan Oatis)

Gallery

Comments - Please in order to comment.

  • Geoff Young says:

    “…We will continue our pursuit of the truth.” Continue? Truth? If only they would. And then please, for the love of human decency (never mind democracy), please sink under the waves of reality and history forever.

  • Colleen Dardagan says:

    Regardless, for the rest of his life Trump will say he never lost this election – a convenient and suitable salve for his ego.

  • Kanu Sukha says:

    What Barr means when he says to avoid “fanciful or far-fetched claims”… is the kind of jaundiced and deliberately misleading ‘summary’ he produced of the Muller investigation! Backed up by his aggressive and vehement disputation of the manufactured ‘ills’ of mail-in ballots in his Wolff interview. He will go down in AG history as the most corrupt lackey of Trump…who did not even bother to feign an appearance of ‘objectivity’ in his job.

Please peer review 3 community comments before your comment can be posted

We would like our readers to start paying for Daily Maverick...

…but we are not going to force you to. Over 10 million users come to us each month for the news. We have not put it behind a paywall because the truth should not be a luxury.

Instead we ask our readers who can afford to contribute, even a small amount each month, to do so.

If you appreciate it and want to see us keep going then please consider contributing whatever you can.

Support Daily Maverick→
Payment options

Premier Debate: Gauten Edition Banner

Gauteng! Brace yourselves for The Premier Debate!

How will elected officials deal with Gauteng’s myriad problems of crime, unemployment, water supply, infrastructure collapse and potentially working in a coalition?

Come find out at the inaugural Daily Maverick Debate where Stephen Grootes will hold no punches in putting the hard questions to Gauteng’s premier candidates, on 9 May 2024 at The Forum at The Campus, Bryanston.