White House Advisor Peter Navarro Releases Dubious Voter Fraud Report

Topline

White House trade advisor Peter Navarro is the latest Trump administration staffer to publicly back up the president’s baseless voter fraud claims, publishing a report Thursday that claims widespread irregularities may have stolen last month’s election from President Trump — but the report hinges on debunked allegations that have largely been rejected when raised in court, and one nonpartisan ethics watchdog criticized Navarro for writing it.

White House Trade Advisor Peter Navarro speaks to the press about former National Security Advisor … [+] John Bolton’s upcoming book release, outside of the White House in Washington, DC, on June 18, 2020.

AFP via Getty Images Key Facts

Navarro, an economist who heads the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy and has no clear background in election issues, released the report Thursday afternoon and organized a virtual press conference to discuss it.

It walks through what Navarro called “six dimensions of election irregularities” and suggests swing states won by President-elect Joe Biden were tinged by pervasive fraud, an effort Navarro speculated (without evidence) was coordinated.

Many of Navarro’s claims are either anecdotal or widely debunked: He pointed to Trump’s early election-night leads in several states later won by Biden (which was due to late counting of mail-in ballots, not fraud), a suspicious-looking surveillance tape from Atlanta (local Republican officials say it showed normal vote-counting), and alleged malfeasance in a Detroit counting center (a judge called the allegations “not credible”).

Navarro criticized courts for rejecting the legal arguments advanced by Trump and his allies, castigated media outlets for stating there is no evidence of widespread fraud, and called for investigations (Attorney General William Barr said his department is investigating irregularities and has found no evidence of election-reversing fraud).

Chief Critic

The nonpartisan Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) questioned Navarro’s decision to publish a heavily politicized report while working at the White House. The Hatch Act generally bars federal staffers like Navarro from engaging in politics while on the job, though CREW told Forbes the report — which Navarro says was produced “in his capacity as a private citizen” — likely didn’t run afoul of the 82-year-old law if he wrote it on his own time. Navarro and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.

Crucial Quote

“I’d question … how one of President Trump’s top economic advisers has so much free time to chase conspiracy theories and irresponsibly undermine faith in our democracy,” CREW Deputy Director Donald Sherman told Forbes in a statement.

Tangent

Last week, the federal Office of Special Counsel accused Navarro of violating the Hatch Act by attacking Biden in interviews and on an official Twitter account. He’s unlikely to be punished, however, because OSC said disciplinary action is at Trump’s discretion.

Key Background

Navarro has spent weeks tweeting thinly sourced claims about voter fraud and calling on the Department of Justice to investigate them. He’s not the only Trump administration staffer to publicly defend the president’s legal gambit to overturn Biden’s win. White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany appears on Fox News’ Hannity several nights a week to react to the latest legal news, and advisor Stephen Miller told Fox & Friends Monday about the campaign’s longshot plan to replace slates of electors in the states it’s disputed.

Further Reading

Federal Watchdog Finds Trump Adviser Peter Navarro Repeatedly Violated Hatch Act (Forbes)