White House Press Secretary, Sean Spicer, would take to the White House Press Room podium and blatantly lie to the press about attendance at the inauguration and television viewership. That press conference ignited a firestorm in the media, forcing Trump Spokesperson, Kellyanne Conway, to come to Trump and Spicer’s aid calling Spicer’s statements nothing more than “alternative facts.” After her comments aired, the dystopian novel by George Orwell, “1984,” went into re-print, as copies flew off the shelfs. The novel describes the doctoring of historical records to show a government-approved version of events.
Shortly thereafter, Trump posted another image of the inaugural crowd from a different vantage point. That over-large. framed photograph now hangs in the White House hall where all the press can see it.
But election officials who have analyzed the November 8 vote say there were almost no indications of voter fraud – certainly not on the scale Trump cites, and Congressional leaders also have contradicted Trump’s claim.
Paul Ryan, the Republican House Speaker, said to reporters that to his knowledge, he has seen no evidence of rampant voter fraud in the November election.[xyz-ihs snippet=”Adsense-responsive”]South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham called on Trump to stop repeating the claim, adding that if Trump has evidence of fraud, “he needs to disclose why he believes that.” Graham also cautioned Trump. saying, “I would urge the president to knock this off. This is the greatest democracy on Earth; we’re the leader of the free world, and people are going to start doubting you as a person if you keep making accusations against our electoral system without justification. This is going to erode his ability to govern this country if he does not stop it.”
Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who ran against Trump in the primaries, said, “I have no evidence whatsoever, and I don’t know that anyone does, that there were that many illegal people who voted, and frankly it doesn’t matter. He’s the president, and I’m not sure why he brought it up.”
Independent Senator Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton’s opponent on the Democratic primaries, said to reporters that Trump’s voter fraud claims are “nonsensical.” He said it is “a delusional statement.”
Sanders believes that Trump’s statement is merely an effort by Trump to lay the groundwork for more restrictive voting laws. “What I fear about that statement,” Sanders said, “and what is something we should all worry about … he is sending a message to every Republican governor in this country to go forward with voter suppression.” Sanders pointed out that voter suppression is the greatest democratic crisis facing the United States.
Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, via a Facebook Live interview with USA Today, called on Republican leaders to speak up and challenge the president on the false claims, saying, “When these falsehoods are told, our Republican colleagues have an obligation to reject them.”
Schumer continued, saying Trump “ought to realize he’s president. Instead of talking about the election or how many people showed up at the inauguration, he ought to talk about how many new jobs he’s creating.”[xyz-ihs snippet=”Adsense-responsive”]
In a statement, the National Association of Secretaries of State, refuted Trumps claims of voter fraud, saying, Tuesday, “we are not aware of any evidence that supports the voter fraud claims made by President Trump, but we are open to learning more about the administration’s concerns.”
The Secretary of State for Ohio, Jon Hustad, re-tweeted Trump’s claims and added a tweet in reply, that said,
We conducted a review 4 years ago in Ohio & already have a statewide review of 2016 election underway. Easy to vote, hard to cheat #Ohio https://t.co/OpDrPUX6Ev
— Jon Husted (@JonHusted) January 25, 2017
The Justice Department, whose Civil Rights Division deployed over 500 people to monitor the election in 28 states, announced post-election, that there were no major instances of voter fraud. DOJ declined to comment on Trump’s claims Wednesday.
Trump Calls for Major Voter Fraud Probe added by Alaska Native News on
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