US President Donald Trump, who has claimed that millions voted illegally in the November last year presidential election, said US Vice President Mike Pence will head a commission to look into the matter.
“We’re going to look at it very, very carefully,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly that aired on Sunday during the Super Bowl pre-game show.
The interview was taped on Friday at the White House.
Trump has repeatedly alleged massive voter fraud despite a complete lack of evidence, and blamed his loss in the 2016 popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton to ballots cast by undocumented immigrants and others.
On Sunday, he suggested that an investigation was warranted “when you look at the registration and you see dead people that have voted, when you see people that are registered in two states that voted in two states, when you see other things, when you see illegals, people that are not citizens.”
“Depending on results, we will strengthen up voting procedures!” Trump wrote in a related tweet last month.
Trump has told members of US Congress he believes he lost the popular vote in his election because as many as 5 million people cast ballots illegally, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said.
Academics, government officials and even fellow Republicans have rejected Trump’s claim, which Spicer said were based primarily on the US president’s beliefs.
US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell disagreed with the US president’s course of action.
He said that while election fraud does occur, there is no evidence it happened at a level significant enough to change the outcome of the US presidential election and that it is something best handled by the states.
“I don’t think we ought to spend any federal money investigating that,” McConnell said on Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union. “The states can take a look at this issue.”
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