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The Popular Vote Loser To Seek ‘Major Investigation’ On Voter Fraud

The Popular Vote Loser To Seek ‘Major Investigation’ On Voter Fraud

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he would seek a major investigation of alleged voter fraud in the November election, despite overwhelming consensus among state officials, election experts and politicians that voter fraud is rare in the United States.

“I will be asking for a major investigation into VOTER FRAUD, including those registered to vote in two states, those who are illegal and….even, those registered to vote who are dead (and many for a long time). Depending on results, we will strengthen up voting procedures!” Trump said on Twitter.

Trump, who has bristled at references to losing the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton, did not elaborate beyond the two Twitter posts. The Republican real estate mogul and reality television star has never substantiated his claim of voter fraud.

State officials have said they found no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the Nov. 8 election and there is no history of it in U.S. elections. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, the most senior Republican in Congress, repeated on Tuesday that he had seen no evidence to support it.

Trump won the state-by-state Electoral College tally that decides the presidency but Clinton had about 2.9 million more popular votes.

The popular vote and allegations of Russia influencing the election on Trump’s behalf have led to criticism that his victory was not legitimate.

Trump’s announcement on Twitter follows a White House news briefing on Tuesday in which his spokesman Sean Spicer confirmed that Trump continued to believe that millions of illegal immigrants voted in the election.

Spicer did not provide any evidence to support those beliefs.

Federal investigations of voter fraud are rare. A five-year probe initiated by the George W. Bush administration turned up no evidence of voter fraud and ended in resignations and more investigations for the Department of Justice, which enforces federal voting rights laws.

Trump’s attorney general nominee, Republican Senator Jeff Sessions, has been criticized for his record on voting rights and race relations. A voter fraud case he prosecuted as a U.S. attorney in Alabama in 1986 helped derail his confirmation as a federal judge in 1986.

In a 2007 report titled “The Truth About Voter Fraud,” by the Brennan Center cited voter fraud incident rates between 0.00004 percent and 0.0009 percent.

A study by the Washington Post found 31 credible cases of impersonation fraud out of more than 1 billion votes cast in elections from 2000 to 2014. Arizona State University studies in 2012 and 2016 found similarly low rate.

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu and Susan Heavey; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Bill Trott)

IMAGE: Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Sacramento, California. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

Trump Detours Off Campaign Trail To Tout New Washington Hotel

Trump Detours Off Campaign Trail To Tout New Washington Hotel

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump planned a detour from the campaign trail on Wednesday to formally open a new hotel in what a top aide said would remind voters of his business accomplishments less than two weeks before the election.

Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, in several television interviews, said the event in Washington would not detract from the campaign’s efforts to rally voters before the Nov. 8 election.

Trump, a real estate developer making his first run for elected office, is trailing his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in national opinion polls.

“It’s a quick pit stop,” Conway told CBS program “This Morning,” speaking at the Trump International Hotel, which opened for business last month about a mile from the White House.

Trump, a former reality TV star, has held numerous events at his properties since launching his White House bid in June last year, including a trip to Scotland to open a refurbished golf resort in June this year.

His campaign has stressed his credentials as a wealthy businessman, although Clinton and other political opponents have long pointed out that Trump’s career includes business failures, and have also criticized him for not making public his tax returns.

Trump’s hotel event was scheduled for 11 a.m. ET (1500 GMT) ahead of two rallies in North Carolina, one of the key states that could determine who wins the White House. On Thursday, he heads to Ohio, another battleground state.

Republican strategist Steve Schmidt, who led 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain’s campaign, said the hotel stop was the latest inexplicable act from Trump and was atypical behavior for someone trying to win the White House.

“The walls are collapsing,” Schmidt told MSNBC in an interview. “He is not doing any of the normal activities that you’d be doing 13 days out in a presidential race for somebody who’s competitive. You don’t take a time-out to tend to your business interests.”

ADELE CONCERT

Conway defended Trump’s decision to leave the campaign for a business stop, noting that Clinton went to a concert by singer Adele on Tuesday night in Miami, where the former secretary of state celebrated her birthday. She turned 69 on Wednesday.

“Hillary Clinton has time to go to an Adele concert, and everybody thinks that’s really cool. Donald Trump stops off to unveil just an incredibly stunning piece of architecture and new … first-class hotel and everybody’s hair’s on fire,” Conway told NBC’s “Today” program.

Trump’s 263-room luxury hotel in Washington’s Old Post Office building has not escaped controversy, as preparations for its launch and its opening came in the middle of the presidential campaign.

Trump has sued celebrity chefs Jose Andres and Geoffrey Zakarian for backing out of plans to run a restaurant there amid Trump’s harsh rhetoric toward Hispanics.  Critics have also organized protests out front. Earlier this month, the hotel’s facade was sprayed painted with graffiti, NBC News reported.

One of Trump’s sons, Eric Trump, said the Trump brand was “hotter than ever before” but that his father put his presidential campaign before his business interests. “Even if there was a price associated with it, I think he was willing to pay that price, because it’s just that important,” he told Fox News.

On Tuesday, Trump stopped at his Doral National Golf Club in Florida as part of a campaign swing through the state, denouncing President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare overhaul because of rising insurance premiums.

Clinton will continue to campaign in Florida, where many public opinion polls show a tight race. An average of polls compiled by RealClearPolitics showed the two candidates close in Florida, with Clinton at 46.4 percent compared to 44.8 percent for Trump in a race including minor candidates.

With the campaigns focused on battleground states, Clinton has a strong lead in the race to secure the 270 Electoral College votes – or tally of wins from the states – needed to win the White House, according to results from Reuters/Ipsos States of the Nation project released on Saturday.

Conway predicted Trump would win Florida and its 29 electoral votes, saying his supporters’ enthusiasm would motivate them to go out and vote.

“There’s a lot of time left,” she told CBS.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Frances Kerry)

Photo: People gather to protest against Republican U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump on the sidewalk, outside the grand opening of his new Trump International Hotel in Washington, U.S. October 26, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Trump Plans Statement On Obama Birth After Refusing To Say President Was Born In States

Trump Plans Statement On Obama Birth After Refusing To Say President Was Born In States

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republican Donald Trump said he planned to address President Barack Obama’s citizenship on Friday, prompting a call from Democratic rival Hillary Clinton to apologize for reviving the so-called birther movement which questions whether Obama was born in the United States.

“I’m going to have a big announcement on it today,” Trump said in an interview with Fox Business Network, a day after he refused in a newspaper interview to say whether he believed Obama was born in the United States.

Trump was due to discuss the issue in a speech at a new hotel his company is opening in Washington.

The New York businessman several years ago led the birther movement aimed at Obama, who was born in Hawaii to an American mother and a Kenyan father.

The issue has not been a major factor in the campaign for the Nov. 8 presidential election and by bringing it up again Trump takes the focus of his campaign away from topics such as immigration, trade and the economy, which he has been using to hit Clinton.

Trump has recovered ground against Clinton in recent national opinion polls after revamping his campaign staff in August and taking steps to give a more polished performance on the campaign trail.

But the birther movement, which casts doubt over whether Obama is legally able to be president, incenses black Americans whose votes Trump has been trying to court.

“Barack Obama was born in America, plain and simple, and Donald Trump owes him and the American people an apology,” Clinton said in an address to the Black Women’s Association in Washington. She said Trump was trying “to delegitimize our first black president.”

A few years into his presidency, Obama, the first African American to win the White House, released a longer version of his birth certificate to answer those who suggested he was not U.S. born.

Trump on Thursday declined to say whether he believed Obama was born in Hawaii during an interview with The Washington Post.

“I’ll answer that question at the right time. I just don’t want to answer it yet,” Trump told the newspaper.

His campaign released a statement later in the day saying the candidate is convinced of the legitimacy of Obama’s presidency. A U.S. president must be a natural-born citizen.

“In 2011, Mr. Trump was finally able to bring this ugly incident to its conclusion by successfully compelling President Obama to release his birth certificate,” Trump spokesman Jason Miller said in the statement.

“Having successfully obtained President Obama’s birth certificate when others could not, Mr. Trump believes that President Obama was born in the United States,” he said.

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu and Susan Heavey; Editing by Alistair Bell)

Photo: Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks to the Economic Club of New York luncheon in Manhattan, New York, U.S., September 15, 2016.  REUTERS/Mike Segar