The Republican Congress just pushed back against President Donald Trump.
Trump, in the past week, resurrected the false claim that 3 to 5 million people voted illegally in the 2016 election. He vowed in a tweet to ask for “a major investigation into VOTER FRAUD, including those registered to vote in two states, those who are illegal and even, those registered to vote who are dead (and many for a long time).”
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), the chairman of the House oversight committee, isn’t going to be the one to investigate.
“On the voter fraud issue, that really happens at the county level. I don’t see any evidence,” Chaffetz told reporters at the congressional Republican retreat, via CNN. “But the President has 100,000 people at the Department of Justice and if he wants to have an investigation, have at it. I just don’t see any evidence of it.”
Chaffetz added: “The oversight committee is not planning to do anything with it. If the President sees that, he’s got 100,000 he can task with doing that.”
Although there’s been no credible evidence to suggest the kind of widespread voter fraud Trump is speaking about, he tweeted Friday morning that he still wants an investigation.
Look forward to seeing final results of VoteStand. Gregg Phillips and crew say at least 3,000,000 votes were illegal. We must do better!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 27, 2017
Who’s Gregg Phillips, you might be wondering? He’s been cited by the far-right Breitbart News as an “election integrity researcher” and has said that millions of illegal immigrants voted.
So far, Phillips hasn’t provided any evidence to back up his claims. But he told the Daily Beast this week that he might release the names of those who voted illegally.
When asked this week what evidence Trump has seen to allege such widespread voter fraud, Press Secretary Sean Spicer didn’t answer. Instead, he said, “As I said, I believe the president has believed that for awhile based on studies and information he has.”
It’s been revealed in the past few days that Steve Bannon, Trump’s senior adviser and the former CEO of Breitbart; Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law; and Spicer are all registered to vote in multiple states.
Though she lost the election, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, beating Trump by nearly 3 million votes.
H/T Mediaite
