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"Barr OK for election-fraud investigations roils Justice Department
In response to Barr’s memo, the career official running the DOJ branch that oversees such prosecutions stepped down."….
Attorney General William Barr appeared Monday to make a bid to reassure backers of President Donald Trump who have complained bitterly in recent days that the Justice Department was not taking action to combat alleged voter fraud and other election irregularities.
Attorney General William Barr appeared Monday to make a bid to reassure backers of President Donald Trump who have complained bitterly in recent days that the Justice Department was not taking action to combat alleged voter fraud and other election irregularities.
Attorney General William Barr appeared Monday to make a bid to reassure backers of President Donald Trump who have complained bitterly in recent days that the Justice Department was not taking action to combat alleged voter fraud and other election irregularities.
Ina memo to U.S. attorneys, Barr authorized them to open election-fraud investigations “if there are clear and apparently-credible allegations of irregularities that, if true, could potentially impact the outcome of a federal election in an individual State.”
Barr’s memo broadening the authorities of prosecutors in the election season had an abrupt and dramatic impact: prompting the veteran career official running the Justice Department branch that oversees such prosecutions to step down from his post, effective immediately.
In Barr’s directive, obtained by POLITICO and first reported by The Associated Press, the attorney general said he had already approved such probes related to the 2020 election “in specific instances.” He did not elaborate on the circumstances or whether they remained open.
Barr acknowledged that his new instruction departed from the usual Justice Department practice of not launching full-scale investigations into allegations of such fraud or taking overt investigative steps until after an election result is certified. However, the attorney general said that policy made little sense in cases in which fraud that could affect the outcome of an election was suspected.
Shortly after Barr’s directive was released, Richard Pilger, director of the DOJ Criminal Division’s Election Crimes Branch, sent colleagues an email saying he was transferring to another role in the department. The 28-year-veteran federal prosecutor also made unmistakably clear that alarm at Barr’s policy shift prompted his exit from the job he has held since 2010.
Pilger’s email called Barr’s edict “an important new policy abrogating the 40-year-old Non-Interference policy of ballot fraud investigations in the period prior to elections becoming certified and uncontested.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/09/barr-memo-authorizes-doj-to-open-election-fraud-investigations-435622