Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, like other anti-immigrant zealots, hates immigrants because he’s an unrepentant bigot. Unlike most unrepentant bigots, Kobach, a birther who cozies up to hate groups and questions the voting rights of minorities without justification, has turned rabid xenophobia into a lucrative career.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/13/magazine/the-man-behind-trumps-voter-fraud-obsession.html
The Center for American Progress, an independent nonpartisan public policy organization, found that Kobach’s law firm charged more than $6.5 million to represent cities in creating – and then defending — anti-immigration laws that are then summarily overturned as unconstitutional by a judge or court.
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/unconstitutional-and-costly/
The Southern Poverty Law Center compared Kobach with Harold Hill, the fast-talking con man in the musical Music Man, who comes to town with a lot of promises and then leaves with the townspeople owing a lot of money.
One expert on election law, Richard Hasen, the Chancellor’s Professor of Law and Political Science at the University of California, Irvine, described Kobach as a “charlatan,” “provocateur” and “a leader nationally in making irresponsible claims that voter fraud is a major problem in this country.”
Kobach – like Trump – seems to think that anything he says is true by virtue of having it said.
The reality is much closer to the opposite.
Statements made by Kobach – and Trump – should be considered false until proven otherwise.
In 2010, Kobach, while serving as Kansas secretary of state, said that there could be as many as 2,000 people who were using the identities of dead people to vote in the state. In particular, he mentioned “Albert K. Brewer” as a deceased person who had voted.
This came as a surprise to Brewer.
The Wichita (KS) Eagle interviewed Brewer, who was not dead or even feeling ill. When asked about Kobach’s statement, Brewer said, “I don’t think this is heaven, not when I’m raking leaves.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/13/magazine/the-man-behind-trumps-voter-fraud-obsession.html
Kobach’s claims about widespread voter fraud have been widely dismissed as utter nonsense. Yet Trump and his surrogates, including Steve Miller and Kellyanne Conway, have quoted Kobach in their bogus claims of voter fraud.
Trump was elected president over the Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016 – despite the fact that Clinton won the popular vote. Trump insisted that millions of unauthorized immigrant voters had voted for Clinton.
“I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally,” Donald Trump tweeted.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/13/magazine/the-man-behind-trumps-voter-fraud-obsession.html
The Atlantic magazine questioned Trump’s statement.
“He did not provide any evidence for the claim, because there is none,” the magazine reported.
When an ABC interviewer asked Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway where Trump got his information, Conway named Kobach.
“I think the president-elect is absolutely correct when he says the number of illegal votes cast exceeds the popular-vote margin between him and Hillary Clinton,” Kobach responded.
Kobach cited a 2014 study whose methodology and results had been widely discredited.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/13/magazine/the-man-behind-trumps-voter-fraud-obsession.html
Trump adviser Steven Miller quoted Kobach’s claim that thousands of Massachusetts voters had voted in New Hampshire in 2016.
When CNN asked Kobach for evidence of this, Kobach would not answer the question.
CNN posted on the screen that Kobach’s claim was false.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/cnns-kate-bolduan-shuts-down-trumps-voter-fraud-expert-kris-kobach
In addition, the fact-checking news site PolitiFact called Kobach’s claim “false.”
Trump appointed Kobach to investigate his charge that he would have won the 2016 Presidential Election by millions more votes if there had not been widespread voter fraud by Democrats.
Kobach and Vice President Mike Pence co-chaired the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity – a finalist for oxymoron of the year.
The commission, however, was disbanded because according to one member, it found no evidence of voter fraud.
Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap said that the commission had a “pre-ordained outcome.” However, Dunlap, a Democrat, added, drafts of the commission’s report on voter fraud was “glaringly empty.”
“It’s calling into the darkness, looking for voter fraud,” Dunlap, told the Associated Press. “There’s no real evidence of it anywhere.”
https://apnews.com/article/f5f6a73b2af546ee97816bb35e82c18d
One can assume that Kobach’s check cleared for his work on the commission.
