More than two dozen House Republicans sent a letter to President Trump on Wednesday requesting that the president direct Attorney General William Barr to appoint a special counsel to probe “irregularities” in last month’s general election.
“The American people deserve a definitive resolution to the uncertainty hovering over the outcome of our election, but legitimate questions of voter fraud remain unanswered,” reads the letter, signed by 27 GOP representatives.
Representative Lance Gooden of Texas first wrote and sent the letter on his own last week, but he decided to resend it after other members in his caucus expressed interest in signing their names to it, including Andy Biggs of Arizona, Louie Gohmert of Texas, Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Mo Brooks of Alabama, Ted Budd of North Carolina, and Paul Gosar of Arizona.
The Republicans’ frustration comes after Barr said last week that the Justice Department has not found evidence of voter fraud widespread enough to change the outcome of this year’s presidential election.
The Trump campaign legal team quickly disputed Barr’s appraisal, saying “there hasn’t been any semblance of a Department of Justice investigation” and that the DOJ is unaware of the totality of the evidence Trump’s lawyers have gathered to substantiate their fraud allegations.
“The Department of Justice has been asked on multiple occasions to launch an investigation into this matter, but inaction from the Department along with public comments made by the Attorney General indicate a lack of willingness to investigate the irregularities your campaign and other elected officials across the nation have alleged,” the GOP representatives stated in their letter.
“The appointment of a Special Counsel would establish a team of investigators whose sole responsibility is to uncover the truth and provide the certainty America needs,” the lawmakers said.
Earlier this year, Barr suggested that the high levels of mail ballots this year due to people opting to stay home during the pandemic could become a breeding ground for fraud.
Since Joe Biden eked out a victory in the election earlier this month, flipping several key battleground states Trump won in 2016 by razor-thin margins, the Trump campaign has launched a slew of more than 40 lawsuits challenging the vote results in six swing states.
Trump has so far refused to concede the election to Biden and has claimed he won a second term “by a lot” even as his legal team fails to produce of voter fraud on a scale widespread enough to affect the outcome of the race and the former vice president’s victory.