White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows is coming out swinging at Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Christopher Wray.
Meadows was asked about Wray’s testimony on Thursday before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee where he said there has been no “coordinated national voter fraud effort” by mail in past elections. His remarks came 40 days before the 2020 presidential election, as of Thursday.
However, Meadows pushed back during Friday’s CBS “This Morning” interview saying, “With all due respect to Director Wray, he has a hard time finding emails in his own FBI let alone figuring out whether there is any kind of voter fraud.”
Meadows continued to say “this is a very different case,” adding, “The rules are being changed.”
“What I’m suggesting is, perhaps he can drill down on the investigation that just started, others that we’re seeing in North Carolina and other places where multiple ballots, duplicate ballots, are being sent out. Perhaps he needs to get involved on the ground and he would change his testimony on Capitol Hill,” the White House chief of staff added.
See Meadows’ remarks (starting at 3:10):
WATCH: White House Chief of Staff @MarkMeadows joins us to discuss President Trump's refusal to say if he will accept the results of the election and commit to a peaceful transfer of power. pic.twitter.com/yOvu5XNBib
— CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings) September 25, 2020
During Thursday’s hearing, Wray was asked by lawmakers if voting by mail is secure, as IJR previously reported.
“We take all election related threats seriously, whether it’s voter fraud, voter suppression, whether it’s in person, whether it’s by mail, and our role is to investigate the threat actors,” he said.
Wray added, “We have not seen, historically, any kind of coordinated national voter fraud effort in a major election whether it’s by mail or otherwise. We have seen voter fraud at the local level from time to time. And so my comments should in no way be construed as minimizing how seriously we take our responsibility to investigate such incidents.”
In case you missed it:
FBI Director Christopher Wray on voting by mail: "We have not seen historically any kind of coordinated national voter fraud effort in a major election, whether it's by mail or otherwise. We have seen voter fraud at the local level from time to time." https://t.co/T8eHUNRjEl pic.twitter.com/g5hgwMi7y5
— ABC News (@ABC) September 24, 2020
Wray’s comments come as President Donald Trump has repeatedly slammed mail-in voting, calling ballots “a whole big scam” on Thursday, as IJR reported.
Asked by a reporter on Thursday, “Are the election results only legitimate if you win?” Trump said, “We have to be very careful with the ballots. The ballots that’s a whole big scam,” before adding, “We want to make sure the election is honest, and I’m not sure that it can be. I don’t know that it can be.”