President Donald Trump established the commission by executive order in May 2017, with the purpose of examining voter fraud and voter suppression. GAO to investigate Trump's voter fraud commission

The Government Accountability Office will investigate President Donald Trump's voter fraud commission, following calls from Democratic senators for the watchdog agency to look into the commission.

GAO said it would investigate the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity in response to a letter last week from Sens. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.). In a response letter to Bennet, the agency accepted the request on Wednesday "as work that is within the scope of its authority."


The watchdog agency writes in the GAO letter that it anticipates "that staff with the required skills will be available to initiate an engagement in about five months."

Trump established the commission by executive order in May 2017, with the purpose of examining voter fraud and voter suppression. The president has repeatedly claimed, without providing evidence, that fraudulent voting is an ongoing problem in the United States. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly said that the election would be rigged against him and continued the rhetoric after winning the election.

“In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally,” he wrote on Twitter in November.

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Vice President Mike Pence serves as the commission’s chairman, alongside Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who serves as vice chairman. Kobach has made a name for himself, due to his hardline positions on immigration. In his home state, Kobach has sought out stricter voter ID laws — some of which judges have struck down due to their unfairness to minority voters.

Still, the commission has come under fire for its lack of transparency.

"Unfortunately, the PACEI has ignored numerous requests from Members of Congress seeking clarification on the PACEI's activities," the three Democratic senators wrote in their letter to GAO. "Open record requests and court documents from litigation have provided some insight into the creation and operations of the PACEI, which we believe are cause for serious concern. Additionally, investigative reports raise questions about the motives and actions of the Commission."