[ad_1]
- Prosecutors investigating baseless allegations of irregularities in the vote count told Attorney General William Barr they had found no “substantial irregularities,” the Washington Post reported.
- Barr sent a memo Monday asking prosecutors to investigate the “substantial allegations” of fraud.
- Some members of the Justice Department said the request was groundless, aided President Donald Trump, and went against long-standing departmental policy.
- Visit the Business Insider homepage for more stories.
Prosecutors investigating baseless allegations of irregularities in the vote count in the election told Attorney General William Barr they found no “substantial irregularities,” the Washington Post reported.
Although there is no substantial evidence, President Donald Trump, who lost the election and refused to concede to President-elect Joe Biden, made baseless allegations of mass fraud after Biden won several Key states.
Earlier this week, before states certified election results, Barr sent a memo to federal prosecutors allowing them to investigate allegations of potential voter fraud, breaking long-standing policy.
Richard Pilger, director of the electoral crime section of the Ministry of Justice and senior election official, resigned from this post following the decision.
“Having learned about the new policy and its ramifications, I unfortunately have to resign my post as director of the Electoral Crimes Directorate,” Pilger wrote in an email to colleagues.
Barr’s memo went against the long-standing policy of preventing the DOJ from interfering in the elections.
The 16 US assistant attorneys who have been tasked with conducting investigations also told Barr that politics “plunged career prosecutors into partisan politics,” The Post reported.
Barr’s memo told prosecutors “to pursue substantive allegations of voting irregularities and vote tabulation prior to certification of elections in your jurisdictions in some cases.” The note applied specifically to places where election results could be affected.
However, prosecutors found no evidence of fraud in the 15 different federal judicial districts where they were located.
“The policy change was not based on the facts,” the lawyers wrote.
Kerri Kupec, a DOJ spokesperson told the Post that nothing in the memo suggested that “voting irregularities had an impact on the outcome of an election.”
Read more: EXCLUSIVE: Documents reveal Trump is building his own ‘deep state’ leaving political appointees in government for Biden administration
Other DOJ members also took issue with Barr’s memo, saying it worked to help Trump and circumvented department policies.
Trump reinforced numerous claims that the election was “stolen” and that the fraud helped Biden win, but on Thursday the Department of Homeland Security also said there was no evidence of fraud.
“The November 3 election was the safest in American history,” DHS said in a statement.
[ad_2]
Source link