During a Senate hearing on Wednesday related to election integrity and security, Republican Senator Rand Paul stated that there were numerous instances of fraudulent voting in the 2020 presidential election and that it “in many ways was stolen” from President Donald Trump.
The junior Senator from Kentucky went on to tell the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that he believes many of the allegations of fraud in the November election are credible.
Paul emphatically stated that the only way to preclude future elections from being “stolen” is by “reinforcing” current election laws.
“The fraud happened,” said Paul. “The election in many ways was stolen and the only way it will be fixed is by in the future reinforcing the laws.”
On Twitter, Paul doubled down.
According to Paul, the argument that voter fraud may or may not have been “widespread” enough to alter the outcome of the election is nothing more than a mere distraction.
“We can’t just say it didn’t happen. We can’t just say ‘oh, 4,000 people voted in Nevada that were noncitizens’ and we’re just going to ignore it,” he said.
The Epoch Times reports that Paul also challenged assertions by Christopher Krebs, former director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
Krebs signed onto a joint statement by CISA and a coalition of elections infrastructure advisory councils, which delineated the November election as “the most secure in American history” and stated in emboldened text that “there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”
During the hearing, Krebs said, “While elections are sometimes messy, this was a secure election.” Adding that he stands by the earlier CISA statement, which was opposed by President Trump. The president strongly disagreed with the characterization and ultimately fired Krebs on Nov. 17—days after the statement was released.
Paul’s challenged Krebs’ position on election fraud by drawing a distinction between fraud that may have occurred online and fraud that may have occurred in person.
“I think [Krebs’] job was keeping the foreigners out of the election,” Paul said. “It was the most secure based on security of the Internet and technology, but he never has voiced an opinion—and he’s welcome to today—on whether or not dead people voted. I don’t think he examined that.”
“Did he examine non-citizens voting?” Paul asked rhetorically. “So to say ‘it was the safest election,’ sure, I agree with your statement if you’re referring to foreign intervention, but if you’re saying it is the safest based on no dead people voted, no non-citizens voted, no people broke the absentee rules, I think that’s false and that’s what has upset a lot of people on our side, is that they’re taking your statement to mean ‘oh, there was no problem in the election.’”
Paul also hopes that there will be hearings next year on election fixes, including limiting the involvement of courts and election officials in amending election laws, as some Republican lawsuits in key battleground states have alleged.
“I think state legislatures will need to reaffirm that election law can only be changed by a state legislature,” he concluded, alluding to the fact that, as per the United States Constitution, only the legislative branch is accorded the authority to establish or amend election laws—not the courts or election officials.
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