President Donald Trump on Monday endorsed the former vice chair of his bogus “Election Integrity” commission, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, to be Kansas’ next governor.
Kris Kobach, a strong and early supporter of mine, is running for Governor of the Great State of Kansas. He is a fantastic guy who loves his State and our Country – he will be a GREAT Governor and has my full & total Endorsement! Strong on Crime, Border & Military. VOTE TUESDAY!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 6, 2018
Kobach, current Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer (R) and other Republicans will face off in a primary vote on Tuesday.
Colyer assumed that role early this year when then-Gov. Sam Brownback was sworn in as the U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. (Brownback has used the position to advocate for a British Islamophobe, among other things.) Colyer was previously elected Kansas’ lieutenant governor in 2010 and 2014.
Kobach has a long history of pursuing restrictive voting and immigration laws.
ProPublica and the Kansas City Star recently profiled his work as a legal gun-for-hire, sometimes leaving municipalities with millions in legal bills after laws he promoted were subsequently the subject of costly lawsuits.
A federal judge earlier this year struck down a Kansas law requiring proof of citizenship to vote, and further mandated that Kobach enroll in six hours of legal education following his repeated fumbling of courtroom procedure.
And on Friday, a Democratic member of the White House’s since-dissolved “Election Integrity” commission lambasted Kobach, the panel’s vice chair, and Vice President Mike Pence, its chair, for what he called falsehoods concerning purported evidence of widespread voter fraud uncovered by the panel.
No such evidence was included in the commission’s internal documents and communications, the Democrat, Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap said, despite Kobach and the White House’s claims otherwise. Dunlap only recently received the records as a result of a lawsuit over the commission’s improper secrecy and partisanship.
Emails also revealed that Kobach urged Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to add a citizenship question to the census in order to address, in Kobach’s words, “the problem that aliens who do not actually ‘reside’ in the United States are still counted for congressional apportionment purposes.”
That move, which would discourage undocumented people from participating in the census, would kneecap government funding and political representation in areas with large immigrant communities. It’s currently the subject of a multi-state lawsuit.
Kobach can’t lose, then !
tRump should just waddle into Wyandotte County and hold a rally for
Kobachhimself. He could fill all those empty seats with his paid rally chimps and their poor little kids…Kris Kobach. Talk about your low IQs…
Hug him closer, Donald: ensure his defeat.
File under: “Trump endorses Nothingburger”