Trump Repeats Baseless, False Claims About the Election
In his first interview since Election Day, President Donald Trump recapped baseless, false and misleading claims he has made before of a “rigged” election.
Trump spoke by phone with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on Nov. 29. In the interview, Trump went so far as to suggest the Department of Justice might be part of some grand conspiracy. “This is total fraud. And how the FBI and Department of Justice — I don’t know. Maybe they’re involved,” Trump said.
There’s no evidence that Trump’s loss of a second term is due to “fraud.” State and federal judges have rejected Trump’s claims, saying the Trump legal team has provided no evidence of fraud, and election security officials have labeled this “the most secure in American history.”
Update, Dec. 1: Attorney General William Barr told the Associated Press on Dec. 1 that U.S. attorneys and the FBI have followed up on claims of fraud. “To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election,” Barr said.
Bogus Attacks on Dominion Voting Systems
The president stuck to a conspiracy theory that Dominion Voting Systems had switched “thousands of votes” from him to President-elect Joe Biden, saying these were cases of “theft” not “glitches.” A group of federal, state and local officials overseeing the nation’s voting system refuted such claims back on Nov. 12, hours after Trump tweeted them.
“There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised,” said the Elections Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council and the Election. The joint statement from the groups described the 2020 election as “the most secure in American history.”
