Here are a couple of names to add to the list of lackeys aiding President Donald Trump in his unceasing effort to undermine the rule of law and fair elections: Charles Neil Floyd, acting U.S. attorney for the Western District of Washington, and Pete Serrano, the first assistant U.S. attorney for Eastern Washington.
Earlier this week, Floyd and Serrano delivered to Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs a list of 400 people whose votes, they alleged, should not be counted because they believe those voters are not American citizens. The two U.S. attorneys asserted the list was merely “the tip of the iceberg,” implying there were many more names to come.
In his response, Hobbs said an initial check of the list showed that it included U.S. citizens. Hobbs demanded that the Justice Department provide proof that people on the list were not eligible to vote. It is quite doubtful that the DOJ can come up with such proof. The Department of Homeland Security has claimed there are 16,000 illegal voters in Nevada alone, but, when a list of 185 names were presented, Nevada’s attorney general checked them out and determined none of them were noncitizens. Nada, zero, zilch.
The DOJ under Attorney General Todd Blanche is simply catering to the insane delusions of the president who, for years, has insisted that any election that does not go his way is tainted by a massive number of fake voters casting illegal ballots for Democrats. There is not the slightest amount of evidence to back up that claim. In fact, every serious person who has examined the American electoral system agrees that fraudulent voting is very rare and difficult to pull off. Occasionally, a few bad ballots sneak through, but never on a scale that could affect the outcome of any election.
Yet Trump, through his minions like Blanche, Floyd and Serrano, continues to push this absurd canard. It has nothing to do with protecting voting rights and everything to do with sowing doubt so that the results of legitimate elections can be challenged. So far, the ploy has never worked, but they keep trying.
Any attorney with a spine or an ounce of conscience would refuse to take part in this charade. It appears the DOJ is now filled with lawyers who have neither.
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