Attorney General William Barr dealt a severe blow to the efforts of President Trump’s legal team on Tuesday. During an interview with The Associated Press, he stated that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has not yet uncovered evidence showing that the former vice president won the presidential election due to voter fraud. As the battle over the race stretches into December, his comments put the Trump campaign under increased pressure even as legal challenges go forward in various states.

DOJ Finds No Evidence of Stolen Election

The attorney general, who is viewed as one of the president’s most enthusiastic allies, explained that despite thorough investigations, they have not uncovered enough evidence to prove that Biden would not have won the election without fraudulent votes. Previously, he raised concerns that the drastic increase in mail-in voting due to the coronavirus could result in massive voter fraud. But so far, it appears that his fears have not been realized.

From The Associated Press:

“Last month, Barr issued a directive to U.S. attorneys across the country allowing them to pursue any ‘substantial allegations’ of voting irregularities, if they existed, before the 2020 presidential election was certified, despite no evidence at that time of widespread fraud. That memorandum gave prosecutors the ability to go around longstanding Justice Department policy that normally would prohibit such overt actions before the election was certified. Soon after it was issued, the department’s top elections crime official announced he would step aside from that position because of the memo.”

The Trump team and attorney Sidney Powell – not a member of the president’s legal representation – has filed a series of lawsuits in battleground states like Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Michigan, and Wisconsin to challenge the vote count. Led by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, lawyers have made allegations of a widespread conspiracy by Democrats to illegally influence the outcome of the election. The AP reported that “they have filed multiple lawsuits in battleground states alleging that partisan poll watchers didn’t have a clear enough view at polling sites in some locations and therefore something illegal must have happened.”

The report also noted that “the claims have been repeatedly dismissed including by Republican judges who have ruled the suits lacked evidence. Local Republicans in some battleground states have followed Trump in making similar unsupported claims.”

Barr also appeared to debunk claims made by Powell, who worked alongside the Trump team before it distanced itself from her. She made appearances on several media outlets in which she claimed that the lawsuit she filed in Georgia was “epic” and “biblical.” She alleged that the Democrats engaged in a conspiracy to change millions of votes from Trump to Biden using vulnerabilities in voting technology.

The attorney general told the AP: “There’s been one assertion that would be systemic fraud and that would be the claim that machines were programmed essentially to skew the election results. And the DHS and DOJ have looked into that, and so far, we haven’t seen anything to substantiate that.”

What Next?

While Attorney General Barr isn’t necessarily the final authority on the integrity of the election, his words do carry weight. With Trump’s lawsuits failing to gain any significant traction, it appears that the conflict over the 2020 presidential election is getting close to the end.

It is not yet known whether or not Trump will concede the race anytime soon, or if his legal team has one more trick up its sleeve. However, it does not seem likely that anyone will be able to definitively prove that the Democratic Party stole the election from President Trump at this point, despite a considerable weight of witness testimony and statistical anomalies.

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