As civil rights groups and voting advocates question the motives of an “elections integrity” commission expected to be created by President Trump Thursday, a group known for fear-mongering about the prevalence of voter fraud slammed those critics as “accessories after the fact to voter fraud.”
“Foes of the commission are trying to cover up crimes,” a spokesman for the Public Interest Legal Foundation said in a statement to TPM. “They are accessories after the fact to voter fraud.”
The Public Interest Legal Foundation is led by J. Christian Adams, a prominent advocate for restrictive voting laws on the right. Adams is a former Justice Department official who helped make the New Black Panther case a conservative cause célèbre. Adams resigned from the Justice Department in 2010 claiming that the Obama administration was neglectful in how it handled voter intimidation allegations against two black activists at a Philadelphia voting site in the 2008 election.
Trump on Thursday is expected to sign an executive order creating a commission that will look into voter fraud, after Trump himself, without evidence, claimed that millions of people voted illegally. The commission is being led by Vice President Mike Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who is a vocal advocate for restrictive voting laws.
Numerous studies have shown voter fraud to be extremely rare.
