Trump’s Voter Fraud Probe Still Hasn’t Gotten Off The Ground

White House press secretary Sean Spicer walks to the podium before speaking to the media during the daily briefing in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2017. (AP Phot... White House press secretary Sean Spicer walks to the podium before speaking to the media during the daily briefing in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2017. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) MORE LESS
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White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s promised investigation into his unsubstantiated claims of massive voter fraud has consisted, so far, of naming a task force.

“The President has talked a number of times about millions of illegal immigrants casting votes during the election in his mind,” Washington Post reporter David Nakamura asked at Spicer’s daily briefing. “Seems like there was no mention of that in any of these directives, to look for these immigrants. Does the President still believe—”

“Yeah, he’s mentioned that Vice President Pence will lead a task force on this,” Spicer interjected.

“Where do we stand on that, though?” Nakamura asked.

“He named the task force,” Spicer said. “And the vice president is starting to gather names and individuals to be part of it.”

Trump was originally scheduled to sign an executive order in January opening a Justice Department investigation into his baseless claims that massive voter fraud cost him the popular vote in the 2016 election.

The President still has not signed the order, and an unnamed White House senior official told CNN earlier in February that the probe was no longer “a top priority.”

Several days later Trump announced the formation of a commission to “look at” voter fraud, headed by Vice President Mike Pence, in an interview with Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly.

“We’re going to look at it very, very carefully,” he said.

But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said the same day that he does not think taxpayer money should be spent on Trump’s probe.

“There is no evidence that it occurred in such a significant number that would have changed the presidential election,” he said. “And I don’t think we ought to spend any federal money investigating that.”

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