No widespread electoral fraud was found in the US presidential elections, says William Barr

ATTORNEY GENERAL WILLIAM Barr said the US Department of Justice has uncovered no evidence of widespread electoral fraud that would change the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

His comments come despite repeated unsubstantiated claims by President Donald Trump that the election was stolen, his effort to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election, and his refusal to acknowledge his defeat to President-elect Joe Biden.

Barr said US prosecutors and FBI agents have been working to follow up on the specific complaints and information they have received, but have not discovered any evidence that changes the outcome of the election.

“To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election,” Barr said.

The comments are especially direct and come from Barr, who has been one of the president’s most ardent allies.

Before the election, he had repeatedly raised the notion that voter fraud by mail could be especially vulnerable to fraud during the coronavirus pandemic, as Americans feared going to the polls and opted to vote by mail instead.

Shortly after Barr’s statement was released, Trump tweeted more unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud.

Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and his campaign issued a scathing statement stating that, “with all due respect to the Attorney General, there has been no appearance” of an investigation.

Last month, Barr issued a directive to US prosecutors across the country allowing them to pursue any “substantial allegations” of voting irregularities, if any, before the 2020 presidential election was certified, even though there was no evidence. at that time of widespread fraud.

That memorandum gave prosecutors the ability to circumvent long-standing Justice Department policy that would normally prohibit such overt actions before elections are certified.

Shortly after it was broadcast, the top election official in the crime department announced that he would be retiring from that post due to the memo.

The Trump campaign team led by Giuliani has been alleging a widespread conspiracy by Democrats to dump millions of illegal votes into the system without evidence.

They have filed multiple lawsuits in battlefield states claiming that partisan election watchers did not have a clear enough view on polling sites in some locations and therefore something illegal must have happened.

The allegations have been repeatedly dismissed, including by Republican judges who have ruled that the lawsuits lacked evidence. Local Republicans in some battle states have followed President Trump in making similar unsubstantiated claims.

President Trump has criticized the election in tweets and interviews, although his own administration has said the 2020 election was the safest in history.

President Trump recently allowed his administration to begin the transition to Biden, but he has still refused to admit he lost.