US Attorney General, William Barr says his justice department has found no proof to back President Donald Trump’s claims of fraud in the 2020 election.
“To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election,” said the top US law enforcement agent.
His comments are seen as a big blow to Mr. Trump, who has not accepted defeat.
He and his campaign have filed lawsuits in states that he lost, as they begin certifying Joe Biden as the winner.
President-elect Biden defeated the incumbent Mr. Trump by a margin of 306 to 232 votes in the US electoral college, which chooses the US president. And in the popular vote, Mr. Biden won at least 6.2 million more votes than Mr. Trump.
Since 3 November’s election, Mr. Trump has repeatedly made unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud, and members of his legal defence team have spoken of an alleged international plot to hand Mr. Biden the win. On Tuesday, after Mr. Barr’s statements were released, the president tweeted several times alluding to voter fraud, again without proof.
“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,” Mr. Barr, who is seen as a top Trump ally, told AP News on Tuesday, referring to the assertion that ballot machines were hacked to give more votes to Mr. Biden.
Mr. Barr said that the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Homeland Security have investigated that claim, “and so far, we haven’t seen anything to substantiate that”.
Last month, the top lawyer issued an order to US attorneys, allowing them to pursue any “substantial allegations” of voting irregularities, before the 2020 presidential election was certified.
“There’s a growing tendency to use the criminal justice system as sort of a default fix-all, and people don’t like something they want the Department of Justice to come in and ‘investigate,'” he added. He also told the AP that he had appointed a veteran prosecutor to continue investigating the origins of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into alleged election meddling.
Reacting to his comments, Trump campaign lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis said in a joint statement: “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.”
Meanwhile, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said of Mr. Barr’s statement: “I guess he’s the next one to be fired.”
In Mr. Trump’s first post-election TV interview on Sunday, he told Fox News that he would continue to pursue every legal challenge available.
“My mind will not change in six months,” he said by phone, adding: “There was tremendous cheating here.”
He also floated the idea of having a special counsel appointed to investigate the election. Any such special counsel would have to be approved by Mr. Barr.
Mr. Barr is not the first senior US official to declare the election free from tampering.
Chris Krebs, who headed the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, was fired last month after he disputed Mr. Trump’s fraud claims. The 2020 election “was the most secure in American history,” he had said.
READ ALSO: Man, 26, Jailed For 2 yrs. For Trafficking 25.5kg Of Marijuana
On Monday, Trump lawyer Joe DiGenova drew swift condemnation after he called for violence against Mr. Krebs.
“Anybody who thinks the election went well,” he told The Howie Carr Show podcast, “like that idiot Krebs who used to be the head of cybersecurity, that guy is a class A moron.
“He should be drawn and quartered. Taken out at dawn and shot.”
That threat was condemned on Tuesday in a blistering tirade from Georgia’s voting systems manager.
Gabriel Sterling, a Republican, said Mr. Trump would bear ultimate responsibility for any violence that results from the election fraud claims the president has stoked.
