The Department of Justice responded to media organizations who reported on Tuesday that the DOJ had concluded its investigation into allegations of voter fraud and had found no evidence, saying that claim was incorrect.
“Some media outlets have incorrectly reported that the Department has concluded its investigation of election fraud and announced an affirmative finding of no fraud in the election,” a DOJ spokesperson said in a statement. “That is not what the Associated Press reported nor what the Attorney General stated. The Department will continue to receive and vigorously pursue all specific and credible allegations of fraud as expeditiously as possible.”
what the Attorney General stated. The Department will continue to receive and vigorously pursue all specific and credible allegations of fraud as expeditiously as possible.” @ClareHymes22 @CBSNews
— Catherine Herridge (@CBS_Herridge) December 2, 2020
The Associated Press reported on Tuesday:
Barr told the AP that U.S. attorneys and FBI agents have been working to follow up specific complaints and information they’ve received, but “to date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.”
The comments, which drew immediate criticism from Trump attorneys, were especially notable coming from Barr, who has been one of the president’s most ardent allies. Before the election, he had repeatedly raised the notion that mail-in voting could be especially vulnerable to fraud during the coronavirus pandemic as Americans feared going to polls and instead chose to vote by mail.
“There’s been one assertion that would be systemic fraud and that would be the claim that machines were programmed essentially to skew the election results,” Barr added. “And the DHS and DOJ have looked into that, and so far, we haven’t seen anything to substantiate that.”
The AP noted that Barr also stated that people were wrongly looking to the federal criminal justice system as a fix-all when it comes to election issues, adding that the proper remedy for many of these issues is often found in civil lawsuits.
“Most claims of fraud are very particularized to a particular set of circumstances or actors or conduct. … And those have been run down; they are being run down,” Barr added. “Some have been broad and potentially cover a few thousand votes. They have been followed up on.”
The Trump campaign’s legal team responded to Barr’s remarks by stating that “there hasn’t been any semblance of a Department of Justice investigation” and that the evidence they compiled has not been examined by the DOJ. The legal team added, “Again, with the greatest respect to the Attorney General, his opinion appears to be without any knowledge or investigation of the substantial irregularities and evidence of systemic fraud.”
Following the election, Barr authorized federal prosecutors to pursue any “substantial allegations” of voting irregularities “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.” The Daily Wire reported:
Barr specifically instructed prosecutors that “while serious allegations should be handled with great care, specious, speculative, fanciful or far-fetched claims should not be a basis for initiating federal inquiries.”
In regard to the lawsuits that have been filed by the Trump campaign, many have been dismissed or denied in court while others are either currently being litigated or have been withdrawn by the campaign. The campaign did win a case in Pennsylvania when a judge issued an order that stopped counties from counting mail-in or absentee ballots for which voters gave missing identification information after a deadline that had been extended because the secretary of state “lacked statutory authority” to grant the extension.