Chris Lange, FISM News
A group of formerly prominent conservatives with ties to the Bush family released a report Thursday countering former President Donald Trump’s claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
The group concluded that Trump’s claims are baseless in a report titled, “LOST NOT STOLEN: The Conservative Case that Trump Lost and Biden Won the 2020 Presidential Election,” following a year-long investigation of 64 cases in six key states where Trump alleged voter fraud.
The group of three former federal judges and eight Republican leaders said they felt compelled to conduct a thorough investigation of the 2020 election results out of concern that the electoral process would incur further damage amid Trump’s ongoing allegations of fraud.
Notably, the panel of investigators — with two exceptions — was made up entirely of men once hired by, appointed by, or elected during former President George W. Bush’s administration. Those men include election attorney Benjamin Ginsberg, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Danforth, former Senator Gordon H. Smith of Oregon, former Solicitor General Ted Olson, and former federal appeals court judges Thomas Griffith and Michael McConnell.
Those not directly tied to former President George W. Bush’s administration are longtime lobbyist and Rep. Paul Ryan’s former Chief of Staff David Hoppe and former appeals court judge Michael Luttig, who was appointed by former President George H.W. Bush.
Despite the report, multiple instances of election law violations, fraud, and irregularities in 2020 have been confirmed by the FBI, the DHS, legislators, and courts, 21 of which were uncovered in the past 18 months, according to a Just the News report, though thus far none of the confirmed reports would have been enough to overturn the election.
The most recent revelation came out of Wisconsin, where the state’s Supreme Court ruled that election regulators did not have the legal authority to allow voters to cast their ballots in mobile drop boxes. Just the News described the ruling as “a jaw-dropping decision that invalidated the way tens of thousands of voters — many of them Democrats — cast their ballots.”
Investigators of the “LOST NOT STOLEN” report may have revealed a bias in their investigation, prompted by a fear of the outcome of fraud claims. They said that if Trump’s supporters continue to believe his stolen election claims, it could backfire if Republicans win majorities in the House and Senate after the midterm elections.
“I think there is a lack of recognition that that goes both ways and that, should Republicans take over, you’re opening the door for Democrats to say the same thing. And that corrodes the basic fundamental part of our democracy,” Ginsberg told Fox News.
Ginsberg also noted that Trump’s continued allegations of voter fraud could dampen Republican voter turnout in the midterms.
“I contacted Ben and a number of other longtime political conservatives to say, ‘Let’s look at this ourselves. Let’s not rely on what The New York Times is telling us or our other outlets are telling us. Let’s look at this ourselves. Let’s spend the time. Let’s do a deep dive into each of the contested states,'” Griffith said.
The report does acknowledge that pandemic-related voting changes in 2020, such as the use of mail-in-voting and ballot drop boxes, may have opened up the opportunity for fraud. However, it states that this was not the case.
“The performance of the system in 2020 was all the more remarkable because of the extraordinary circumstances caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which precipitated changes on an unprecedented scope and timeline,” the report stated.
“Some of those changes may have created possibilities for fraud, but there is no evidence that those risks materialized in reality; nor did they result in dampening voter participation. Quite the opposite. Nonetheless, moving forward, the states should redouble their efforts to strengthen the integrity of our voting systems and make it as easy to vote and as hard to cheat as possible for persons of every circumstance.”