EXCLUSIVE: The top Republicans on the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees on Wednesday demanded that Committee Chairs Jerrold Nadler and Carolyn Maloney launch congressional investigations into alleged “errors and misconduct” surrounding the 2020 presidential election, and called for them to hold hearings “immediately.”
House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and House Oversight Committee Ranking Member James Comer, R-Ky., penned a letter to Nadler, D-N.Y., and Maloney, D-N.Y., urging them to “examine the integrity of the 2020 election” amid claims from the Trump campaign of “irregularities” and “improprieties.”
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“We urge you to immediately convene hearings to examine the integrity of the 2020 election amid troubling reports of irregularities and improprieties,” Jordan, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, and Comer, the top Republican on the Oversight Committee, wrote.
“Given your role as leaders of a political party that spent four years baselessly calling into question the legitimacy of the 2016 election with debunked allegations of Russian collusion, you owe it to all Americans to fully examine allegations of actual election errors and misconduct,” they wrote, referring to the yearslong congressional investigations into whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government to influence the last election.
Jordan and Comer, in their letter, referred to a report they released in September, where they warned that last-minute changes to state election laws and procedures, which they called “dangerous initiatives,” would increase the risk for election-related crimes and errors and would “undermine the integrity of the electoral process” and “cause lingering uncertainty about the results of the election for several days or weeks after Election Day.”
“Democrats ignored this report, but many of our predications have unfortunately come true,” they wrote.
Jordan and Comer also said that they warned “that because Democrats refuse to clean up outdated and inaccurate voter registration rolls, a last-minute move to widespread mail-in voting in some states would have unintended consequences.”
“These serious concerns give rise to the urgent need for congressional oversight of the integrity of the 2020 election,” they wrote. “Our committees must conduct oversight hearings to ensure that Americans have faith in the integrity of our election.”
Jordan and Comer asked their Democratic colleagues to work with them to schedule hearings “as soon as possible.”
Nadler and Maloney did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment on whether their respective committees will hold hearings to examine the 2020 election.
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The call for congressional investigations into the integrity of the 2020 presidential election comes as the Trump campaign has filed lawsuits in a number of key battleground states, is waiting for a recount in Georgia, and has filed a petition for a recount in Wisconsin.
President Trump has not yet conceded, despite Joe Biden having garnered more than the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.
Trump, for the first time on Sunday, signaled the Biden “won” the election, but continued to say that it was “rigged” against him. Trump continues to make unfounded claim of widespread and extensive voter fraud in the 2020 election.
On Wednesday, the Trump campaign filed for a partial recount in Wisconsin claiming illegally-altered absentee ballots and illegal advice given by government officials allowed Wisconsin’s voter ID laws to be circumvented.
The campaign is spending $3 million for the petition for a recount in Milwaukee and Dane counties, claiming that the Wisconsin Elections Commission directed Wisconsin municipal clerks to “illegally alter incomplete absentee ballots contrary to Wisconsin law.” In a new statement, the Trump campaign also said that clerks were instructed that they could “rely on their own ‘personal knowledge,’ or unspecified ‘lists or databases at his or her disposal’ to add missing information on returned absentee ballots.”
“The people of Wisconsin deserve to know whether their election processes worked in a legal and transparent way. Regrettably, the integrity of the election results cannot be trusted without a recount in these two counties and uniform enforcement of Wisconsin absentee ballot requirements. We will not know the true results of the election until only the legal ballots cast are counted,” Jim Troupis, counsel to the Trump campaign, said in a statement.
He added: “We will not stop fighting for transparency and integrity in our electoral process to ensure that all Americans can trust the results of a free and fair election in Wisconsin and across the country.”
Trump’s campaign said that clerks wrongly added missing information on returned absentee ballots.
But guidance from the Wisconsin Elections Commission, in place since 2016, says that clerks can fix missing witness address components on the envelopes that contain absentee ballots if they have reliable information. That guidance, passed unanimously by the bipartisan elections commission, has been in place for 11 statewide elections without objection.
The elections commission said that there were no corrections to actual absentee ballots contained inside the envelopes as some have claimed. The witness signature and address information is all contained on the envelope in which the ballot is sent.
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According to the Fox News Decision Desk, President-elect Joe Biden has 49.6% of the vote in Wisconsin, or 1.63 million votes, to President Trump’s 48.9%, or 1.61 million votes.
“The official canvass results reaffirmed Joe Biden’s clear and resounding win in Wisconsin after Wisconsin voters turned out to cast their ballots in record numbers,” Biden’s Wisconsin Communications Director Nate Evans said in a statement Wednesday. “A cherry-picked and selective recounting of Milwaukee and Dane County will not change these results.”
Evans added: “Election officials worked extremely hard under unprecedented circumstances to ensure all votes were counted quickly and accurately, and the recount demanded and paid for by the Trump campaign will once again confirm Joe Biden’s victory.”
The Trump campaign has filed lawsuits in several battleground states where Biden led by a razor-thin margin, including Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Georgia. The campaign has claimed instances of illegally counted votes after Election Day, and that poll watchers were blocked from observing counting.
Trump over the weekend announced that his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, would be “spearheading the legal effort to defend our right to free and fair elections,” and announced that Joe diGenova, Victoria Toensing, attorney for Michael Flynn Sidney Powell, and Trump campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis would also participate in the effort.