Attorney General William Barr appeared on CNN on Wednesday where he was fact-checked by host Wolf Blitzer after he tried pushing GOP voter fraud conspiracy theories.
Blitzer questioned Barr over Donald Trump’s recent idea of encouraging people to commit voter fraud by voting twice.
During an interview this week, Trump said that people should vote by mail and then “if the system works” they should be able to go to their polling place and find out if their vote had already been counted. If it has not then they should vote again, according to Trump. That’s actually illegal, Blitzer explained.
“What he’s saying is he’s trying to make the point that the ability to monitor this system is not good and if it was so good if you tried to vote a second time, you would be caught if you voted in-person,” said Barr
“That would be illegal if somebody mailed in a ballot and then actually showed up to vote in person,” said Blitzer. “That would be illegal.”
“I don’t know what the law in the particular state says,” said Barr.
As the attorney general, it’s unclear why Barr doesn’t know that voting twice in all states is illegal.
“Is there any state that says you can vote twice?” asked Blitzer.
“There are some that maybe you can change your vote up to a particular term,” said Barr. “Why are you asking me what he’s saying?”
“He doesn’t believe in the mail-in voting and you’re the attorney general of the United States,” said Blitzer on why he’s asking the questions.
Barr then became angry: “Wolf, this is sort of cheap talk to get around the fundamental problem, which is the bipartisan commission chaired by Jimmy Carter and James Baker set back in 2009 that mail-in voting is fraught with the risk of fraud and coercion.”
Blitzer tried to step in and fact check Barr but the attorney general got even angrier.
“Let me talk!” he shouted. “Please. And since that time, there have been in the newspapers, in networks, academic studies saying it is open to fraud and coercion. The only time the narrative changed is after this administration came in. but elections that have been held with mail have found substantial fraud and coercion. For example, we indicted someone in Texas, 1,700 ballots collected from people who could vote. He made them out and voted for the person replaced the same address with several generations of occupants. Do you think that’s a way to run a vote?”
“The only thing I’m saying is that so far we haven’t seen widespread fraud,” said Blitzer.
“So far we haven’t tried it,” Barr said. In fact, many states vote exclusively by mail, Blitzer told him. And they have almost non-existent voter fraud problems.
Take a look at the exchange in the video clip below:
