Recidivism Watch: Trumps claim that millions of people voted illegally

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Fact Checker

Recidivism Watch: Trump’s claim that millions of people voted illegally
By Glenn Kessler

@GlennKesslerWP

January 24 at 6:53 AM

... Trump, in a meeting with congressional leaders, resurrected a false claim that has been repeatedly debunked. ... Apparently obsessed with the fact that he lost the popular vote by more than 2.8 million votes — and only narrowly achieved an Electoral College win — Trump a few weeks after the election tweeted this:

{snip}

Trump’s fixation with this apparently started with Link to tweet
" target="_blank">a few tweets by Gregg Phillips, a self-described conservative voter fraud specialist, who started making claims even before data on voter history was actually available in most jurisdictions. (It had not even been determined which provisional ballots were valid and would be counted.) These claims were then picked up by such purveyors of false facts as Infowars.com, a conspiracy-minded website, even though Phillips declined to provide any evidence to back it up.

After Trump’s tweet, the Trump transition team then scrambled to come up with proof, but could only resurrect claims and data that had been previously rejected as irrelevant during the campaign. None of the information supported Trump’s claim of “millions” of illegal votes, just isolated instances of voting irregularities.

Both Trump’s claim and the Trump team’s effort to justify it earned Four Pinocchios.

[Jacob Boehme]

1. Crikey! Even the tRump lie counter can't keep up!

[Johonny]

2. If Hillary could bring out that many illegal voters...why did she lose?

Why wouldn't the Dems stuff the close typically Blue states of Penn, Mich and Wis instead of California and New York. The whole idea is idiotic. His lies aren't even smart lies.

[spanone]

3. New York Times has it right. HE LIED.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028526584

[smirkymonkey]

4. He's like a Rottweiler with a piece of meat!

He just wont let go of it! He is really unhinged.

[Turbineguy]

5. The "fraudulent" voters

did not outnumber the stupid voters. Luckily for him.

[DetlefK]

6. Millions of fraudulent votes! Whoa! That means this whole election was invalid and must be redone!

Trump will surely not taint his administration by ignoring that he was elected with a vote-count that was radically false!