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William Barr, US attorney general, repeated Donald Trump’s misinformation on mail-in ballots.
William Barr, US attorney general, repeated Donald Trump’s misinformation on mail-in ballots. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images
William Barr, US attorney general, repeated Donald Trump’s misinformation on mail-in ballots. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

Barr echoes mail-in ballot falsehoods and denies racism in policing

This article is more than 3 years old

When asked to back up his claims on counterfeit ballots, the attorney general says he’s basing his assertion ‘on logic’

In a CNN interview, William Barr, the attorney general, echoed Donald Trump’s misinformation about mail-in voting and denied racism in policing – but on both counts came up short when asked to provide evidence to back up his claims.

Barr said he didn’t have evidence to prove that foreign countries could interfere in US elections with counterfeit ballots, as he has previously claimed; rather, he was basing his assertion “on logic”. On policing, Barr defied logic and denied that police discrimination against Black Americans amounted to racism.

“I think there are some situations when statistics would suggest they are treated differently, but I don’t think that’s necessarily racism,” he told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.

He added: “There appears to be a phenomenon in the country where African Americans feel that they’re treated, when they’re stopped by police, frequently, as suspects before they are treated as citizens. I don’t think that that necessarily reflects some deep-seated racism.”

Attorney General Barr says he doesn’t have evidence that foreign countries could successfully interfere in the election with fake ballots. He says he’s "basing it on logic."

Wolf: Pardon? 

Barr: "Logic." pic.twitter.com/FzzIRL2PrK

— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) September 2, 2020

Barr also said he thought there was no systemic racism in the US justice system, and that there is a “false narrative” that the country is in an “epidemic” of Black people being killed by white police officers.

Investigations by the Guardian and the Washington Post have found that Black people in America are more than twice as likely to be killed by the police than white people.

Barr also used the CNN interview to reiterate key talking points of Trump’s, including the vilification of leftwing protesters and denouncing the safety of voting by mail.

“People trying to change the rules to this methodology, which, as a matter of logic, is very open to fraud and coercion,” Barr said of mail-in voting. “It’s reckless and dangerous, and people are playing with fire.”

Trump and Barr have been sowing mistrust in the electoral system. In North Carolina on Wednesday, the president told voters they should cast two ballots, once by mail and once in person, even though doing so would be illegal.

“Let them send it [their mail-in ballot] in and let them go vote, and if their system’s as good as they say it is, then obviously they won’t be able to vote. If it isn’t tabulated, they’ll be able to vote,” Trump said, in response to a question about whether he was confident about the voting system. “So that’s the way it is. And that’s what they should do.”

However, experts say voter fraud of any kind is exceedingly rare in the United States. An analysis of voter fraud cases by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative thinktank, found 143 cases of criminal convictions involving mail-in or absentee ballots over the past two decades – which means that about 0.00006% of total votes cast would be fraudulent.

Elections experts have also said that a foreign scheme of counterfeit ballots would be prohibitively difficult. Rick Bates, a professor of law and political science at UC Irvine recently wrote that “the possibility of a foreign entity swaying election by mailing fraudulent absentee ballots … defies common sense.”

Voter suppression: how Trump is undermining the US election – video explainer

Mail-in ballots are difficult to duplicate, and people could easily find out if someone else had voted in their name.

Barr also told CNN the justice department was monitoring anti-fascist groups known as Antifa, claiming that it is at the heart of violence in cities around the country.

“I’ve talked to every police chief in every city where there has been major violence and they all have identified Antifa as the ramrod for the violence,” Barr said. “They are flying around the country. We know people who are flying around the country.”

“We see some of the purchases they are making before the riots of weapons to use in those riots,” Barr added. “So, we are following them.”

Barr’s comments mirrored claims made by Trump in a Fox News interview late on Monday, in which he said an investigation was under way into alleged “thugs” who boarded a plane seeking to cause damage last week during the Republican party convention, without providing details or evidence.

Trump has made fearmongering about the threat of Antifa and the far left a key theme of his re-election campaign. Yet, research has found that Antifa activists have not been linked to a single murder in decades. However, rightwing extremists have been linked to attacks that have left at least 329 victims dead over the past 25 years, according to a database of nearly 900 politically motivated attacks and plots.

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