We know where the fraud lies

And it's not with voters.

Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap, a Democrat who served on President Donald Trump’s voter fraud commission, published a trove of documents Friday that he said show zero signs of mass voter fraud, declaring that the White House’s claims about wide-scale fraud are "false."

"I have reviewed the documents made available to me and they do not contain evidence of widespread voter fraud," Dunlap wrote in a letter that took aim at Trump’s repeated — and baseless — claims that millions of people voted illegally.

Dunlap had sued the government to obtain the records he published Friday, which he said the administration had been hiding.

The commission’s co-chairs, Vice President Mike Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, had claimed that widespread fraudulent voting required stringent new regulations, which critics said would block people of color who are legally registered to vote and who tend to lean Democratic, from accessing the polls.

The documents were all posted online.

  Buzzfeed

And, speaking of Kris Kobach...

Kris Kobach’s gubernatorial campaign employs three men identified as members of a white nationalist group by two political consultants who have worked with Republicans in Kansas.

  Topeka Capital-Journal Online

I assume that's a winning point for many, if not most, of Kobach's supporters.

Kobach spokeswoman Danedri Herbert rejects the accusation as a baseless distraction from real news in the closing days of a contested GOP primary race.

[...]

The consultants in early July independently named the three men, all in their early 20s, as members of American Heritage Initiative, a splinter of Identity Evropa, which the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as as a campus-based white supremacy group that builds community from shared racial identity.

[...]

Herbert said the three told her they never heard of American Heritage Initiative and aren’t members of such a group.

[...]

“It is baffling to me, a black woman who serves as Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s spokeswoman, that so many in the media are digging up fake news when they should be investigating real stories.”

[...]

None of the three responded to messages seeking comment this week.

[...]

[One of the men] attracted attention for remarks he made last year in a discussion group for the Kansas Federation of College Republicans. He posted an image of a student reading “Brown is the New White,” a book by Steve Phillips about a progressive, multiracial majority who could win elections if mobilized.

In his comment under the photo, Gustin used the N-word and complained of people who are “openly anti-white.”

“These people know they’re not oppressed,” he wrote. “They just hate white people and are jealous of us. They know they can bully us with the oppression stuff until they’re granted EXTRA rights, because most have been brainwashed with disingenuous, weaponized, cherry picked history into white guilt. They won’t stop until we grow a spine. The USA is the least racist country in the world. We have so much racial tension because we ALLOW and SUBSIDIZE tens of millions of people from other groups to come here.”

[...]

Last year, SPLC reported Kobach met with an adviser in Topeka who was fined for hate speech in Austria. He also spoke in 2015 at a writer’s workshop for The Social Contract Press, which publishes white nationalist material. He defended the group and takes contributions from K.C. McAlpin, executive director of the group’s parent organization, US Inc.

A devastating story by The Star and ProPublica showed that Kobach’s lucrative career chasing anti-immigrant legislation is a sham. The secretary of state has earned at least $800,000 over the years traveling from city to city to draft and defend rickety ordinances aimed at restricting immigration.

To their deep regret, officials in those communities did not know what Kansans have learned: Kobach is a terrible lawyer. In city after city, his poorly drafted ordinances were struck down by the courts, even though Kobach was paid handsomely to write them and defend them in court.

Valley Park, Mo., taxpayers coughed up $300,000 because officials there were sold on Kobach’s pitch. The city’s immigration ordinance, drafted with Kobach’s help, was eventually gutted.

Grant Young, Valley Park’s former mayor, described Kobach’s approach: “Let’s find a town that’s got some issues or pretends to have some issues, let’s drum up an immigration problem, and maybe I can advance my political position ... and maybe make some money at the same time,” he said.

It may be the best description ever of Kris Kobach’s understanding of public service.

It wasn’t just Valley Park, of course. Farmers Branch, Texas, ended up $7 million in the hole. Hazleton, Pa., borrowed $1.4 million to pay for Kobach’s folly. Taxpayers in Fremont, Neb., raised property taxes to put money in Kobach’s pocket.

[...]

Kobach was sanctioned by a federal judge for contempt. He has been ordered to take remedial classes in basic courtroom rules.

Kobach helped President Donald Trump form a voting commission aimed in part at exploring the laughable contention that Trump actually won the popular vote in 2016. Predictably, the commission collapsed from its own silliness.

  Kansas City Star

And now he's running for governor of Kansas. Any bets?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.