‘Discarded’ ballots in Pennsylvania fuel campaign outrage

HARRISBURG, PA. >> The news release from a U. S. attorney in Pennsylvania was provocative: Nine mailed-in military ballots had been “discarded” by the local election office in a swing county of one of the most important presidential battleground states. All of them were marked for President Donald Trump, it said. Then came another news release with key details changed but still little explanation of what had happened and whether investigators believed a criminal act had occurred.

Despite the information vacuum, the White House press secretary told reporters “ballots for the president” had been “cast aside.” The Trump campaign’s rapid response arm pushed out the release from Trump’s own Justice Department under the headline “Democrats are trying to steal the election” — ignoring the fact that the local government, Luzerne County, is controlled by Republicans. Conservative voices used the news release as rocket fuel to amplify the investigation on social media.

By Friday, more details had emerged in the Pennsylvania case. The U.S. attorney’s office in Pennsylvania notified senior officials at Justice Department headquarters earlier this week about a small number of ballots that were found to be discarded, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press. Attorney General William Barr told Trump that the Justice Department was going to look into the matter before the department publicly confirmed the investigation, the person said. The U.S. attorney’s office had received inquiries from local reporters about the ballots, the person said, and released the statement, which included specific details about the ballots, after Trump revealed the existence of the investigation in an interview with Fox News Radio. The person could not discuss the investigation publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

The Justice Department is permitted to advise the White House of pending investigations or cases, but according to a memo dictating the scope of such contacts, that notification is to be made “when — but only when — it is important for the performance of the President’s duties and appropriate from a law enforcement perspective.”

“This is clear politicization of the Justice Department’s work in the middle of an active general election,” said Kristen Clarke, executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “It seemed like a thinly veiled attempt to breathe life into President Trump’s false claims about mail ballot fraud.”