A postal worker whose allegations of adulteration of banknotes are the basis of Republican requests for investigations, would have portrayed himself in his history.
Democrats on the House’s oversight committee said Richard Hopkins – the worker who claimed in a signed sworn statement that a US Postal Service (USPS) supervisor in Erie, Pennsylvania, instructed the team to tamper with the ballots depicting those who arrived late – had retracted the allegations in an interview with investigators for the USPS inspector general. The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that it learned from three officials that Hopkins admitted to fabricating his allegations.
The investigators told the committee that Hopkins “did not explain why he signed a false statement,” the committee wrote in a statement.
South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who heads the Senate judiciary committee, suspended Hopkin’s statement to call for a federal investigation.
LATEST NEWS: Erie, Pa. #USPS whistleblower completely RESTORED his allegations of a supervisor tampering with ballots after being questioned by investigators, according to the IG.
THREAD:
– Supervisory Committee (@OversightDems) November 10, 2020
Hopkins denied having retracted his testimony in a video posted on YouTube late on Tuesday. “I didn’t reply to my statements,” he said.
The USPS inspector general’s office has not yet publicly released the results of its investigation.
The Office of the Inspector General of the United States Post Office does not comment on ongoing matters.
The reports the fact that Hopkins made up his claims occurred while the Trump campaign continued to pursue distant lawsuits in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona and Georgia that are not supported by credible evidence.
Among these processes is an effort in Pennsylvania to pressure the United States Supreme Court to reject ballots sent by mail that are posted until Election Day and arrive at polling stations three days later. The state supreme court approved an extension of the deadline for ballots that arrived late; several other states accept last-minute ballots.
The Trump campaign tried to argue in federal court that Republican observers were prevented from monitoring vote counts, until a campaign attorney had to admit that, in fact, a “non-zero” number of observers was allowed.
These dubious investigations and lawsuits continued after the media projected Joe Biden to be the winner of the election. Trump has yet to grant and illegitimately declared himself the winner.
Major Republicans, including Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, defended Trump’s right to challenge the election results. On Monday, McConnell said in a speech at the Senate floor that Trump was “100% within his rights to investigate allegations of wrongdoing and weigh his legal options”.
On Monday, the US Attorney General sent a memo to prosecutors approving federal investigations into electoral fraud, despite the lack of evidence that such fraud was taking place.
In response, the chief justice department official in charge of electoral fraud investigations, Richard Pilger, resigned, pointing to the department’s 40-year policy of refraining from intervening in the elections and conducting investigations only after the elections are certified.
Republicans have been struggling to gather any evidence to support their unfounded allegations of fraud, opening a hotline that has been flooded with prank calls. On Tuesday, Dan Patrick, the Republican deputy governor of Texas, said he was offering $ 1 million to encourage people to present evidence of wrongdoing.
The party’s efforts are unlikely to have any effect on the outcome of the presidential election. Biden secured a big enough advantage in undecided states that even if some ballots that Republicans want to reject were dropped, he would still win.
But critics said the president’s refusal to admit defeat and Republicans’ efforts to challenge the results are sowing doubts in the US electoral system.
A Reuters / Ipsos poll this week of 1,363 adults found that 79% of Americans believe Joe Biden won the election, including about 60% of Republicans. About 72% said the loser of the election should concede. A separate poll by Politico and Morning Consult, however, found that 70% of Republicans do not believe the presidential election was “free and fair”.
Efforts by the president and his party to undermine the effectiveness of the US electoral system began before election day.
In August, Trump admitted he was undermining the postal service, so the USPS would have a harder time delivering ballots by mail. Louis DeJoy, the postmaster general and a major Republican donor, made service cuts amid reported major service delays across the country.