- The Justice Department released two statements Thursday, announcing an investigation into “potential issues with the mail-in ballot” in Lucerne County, Pennsylvania.
- The first statement said “very few military ballots were canceled,” that investigators “collected nine ballots at this time” and that “all nine ballots were placed for presidential candidate Donald Trump.”
- That statement was deleted from the DOJ’s website and was an amended statement that was soon released stating that seven of the nine ballots were cast for Trump and it is unknown who voted for the remaining two.
- Both statements sounded an immediate alarm with election experts and DOJ veterans who said they may violate departmental policy and appear to be politically motivated in light of Trump’s baseless attacks on postal voting.
- It is not clear whether the ballots mentioned in the statement were “cast” as part of the primary or general election, and experts said it was also unusual for the statement to reveal who voters voted for.
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The Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a statement Thursday that it was investigating “reports of potential issues with the mail-in ballot” in Lucerne County, Pennsylvania.
Initially, the department announced that “a small number of military ballots had been abandoned” and that investigators had “recovered nine ballots at this time.” It added that “all nine votes were cast for presidential candidate Donald Trump.”
However, the statement was soon deleted from the DOJ’s website and a revised statement was released.
H Philip Bump (@ Pump) September 24, 2020
The second statement said, “Out of the nine ballots that were cast and then recovered were placed for presidential candidate Donald Trump. Two of the canceled ballots were returned to the FBI by election officials before the FBI recovered them.” Research was done inside the envelope. The contents of those 2 ballot papers are unknown. “
The FBI’s field office in Harrisburg began investigating the case Monday with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Central District of Pennsylvania, the revised statement said. It said the investigation was initiated at the request of Lucerne County District Attorney Stephanie Salavantis and “focused on reports of potential issues with a small number of mail-in ballots to the Lucerne County Board of Elections.”
The statement said FBI agents working with Pennsylvania State Police have since conducted “numerous visits and obtained specific physical evidence” and Lucerne County election officials have been “cooperating.”
The statement added that “our investigation is ongoing and we expect later today to share our latest findings with Lucerne County officials.”
Both statements raised red flags with election experts and DOJ veterans who said they appeared to be politically motivated and that they violated departmental policy. It was also unclear when they said when the ballots were “canceled” and what the statements meant were primary or general election ballots.
A DOJ spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
“These are both bizarre and confusing – the U.S. Attorney’s Office does not issue reports on the rest of the investigation – and certainly does not release such reports to provide political prestige for the sitting president’s campaign statement,” said David Loffman, David’s former senior national security official. Wrote on Twitter.
Indeed, shortly after the DOJ released its preliminary statement on the investigation, Matt Walking, deputy communications director for the Trump campaign, Tweeted The announcement was proof that “Democrats are trying to steal the election.”
White House Press Secretary Kyle McNee also noted the first statement. To tweet“Nine military mail-in ballots – all cast for President @RiyalDonaldTrump – were cast in Pennsylvania! DOJ confirms.”
Trump and Republicans in Congress have launched a flurry of baseless attacks on voting by mail and mail-in ballot in recent months. The president has suggested without evidence that an increase in mail-in ballots following COVID-19 would lead to widespread voter fraud and “rigid” general elections.
Nonpartisan experts and multiple studies have found no evidence of widespread voter fraud and millions of Americans vote by mail each year. Trump and many of his top staff and family members have also voted by mail or tried in recent years. Amid fears that the presidential campaign and Republican officials are quietly promoting absentee and mail-in voting, Trump’s claims will hurt Republicans by disappointing voters in his own electorate.
Eli Honig, a longtime former federal attorney in the Southern District of New York, told Business Insider that such a statement about the ongoing investigation is not only unusual for the DOJ, but also “contrary to the DOJ’s own stated policy.”
Furthermore, he said, “The fact that the vote was deliberately rigged for Trump is completely irrelevant to any criminal investigation. It is a matter of political conversation.”
Rick Hassen, professor of law and political science at the University of California, Irvine, and an election security expert, Wrote on Twitter It was “shocking” for the DOJ to announce who the voters voted for. “The release of that information appears to be for political reasons,” he wrote.
David Baker, the DOJ’s former voting rights lawyer, echoed that view and highlighted several irregularities in the DOJ’s statement.
“What makes this even clearer is the fact that the DOJ has already amended the statement,” he said. He tweeted. “Now it’s just a vote, and there’s no explanation of how this was discarded or received, or why they were opened, or why they declared a presidential vote, violated privacy, and other races.”
