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Remember how, in the days leading up to the 2016 election, when it seemed like Donald Trump might lose to Hillary Clinton, he kept insinuating that there was some mass voter-fraud scheme happening? Remember how, even after he won, he held on to that myth and created a controversial voter-fraud commission to investigate it? Then remember last week, when he signed an executive order ending the commission, allegedly because individual states were refusing to provide the commission with “basic information” the commission needed for the investigation?


As it turns out, that commission never found any evidence to substantiate its claims. ThinkProgress reports that in a Tuesday court filing, the White House acknowledged that it had not found any preliminary evidence of voter fraud during the 2016 election and would therefore be destroying the confidential voter information that was collected for Trump’s commission.

Just one week ago, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who was also the vice chair of the commission, told Breitbart in an interview that the investigation was being handed off to the Department of Homeland Security. Trump also said that the investigation was going to DHS in his statement announcing the dissolution of the commission.


Those claims can be put to bed now.

White House Director of Information Technology Charles C. Herndon said: “The commission did not create any preliminary findings. In any event, no commission records or data will be transferred to the DHS or another agency except to NARA [the National Archives and Records Administration] if required, in accordance with federal law.”

Herndon added that “no commission member was provided access to the state voter data prior to the commission’s termination and none has access now.”


From ThinkProgress:

The commission came under fire last year after requesting that states turn over their voter rolls and confidential voter data in order to parse them for evidence of potential fraud. That demand was met with immediate bipartisan backlash: officials from 44 states either officially rejected the request or refused to comply fully, citing concerns over privacy laws.


So, to review: There is not now and never was any evidence of voter fraud.

This administration continues to take being stupid to the highest level, and it’s come out looking dumb every single time.


Were any tax dollars spent on this little investigation? How will that be explained?

It’s hilarious that your president chose to ride on this for so long despite the fact that he won the election in the first place. It just shows you how far he is willing to go to satisfy his fragile little ego.


Ugh. Let me off this ride already. I’ve been nauseated for the last 12 months.

Read more at ThinkProgress.