Prosecutor quits over Barr’s vote fraud note

THE US justice official who oversees voter fraud investigations has resigned after US attorney general William Barr said prosecutors could look into allegations of election irregularities.

Richard Pilger, a career prosecutor in the j ustice department’s public i ntegrity section, sent an email – obtained by US media outlets – which announced his resignation just hours after Mr Barr’s memo was issued.

The Barr memo said that federal prosecutors were allowed to look into “substantial allegations” of voter fraud before the 2020 election results are formally certified by states.

Mr Barr’s direction clashes with longstanding justice department policies warning against launching criminal investigations into voter fraud while votes are being counted, reflecting concerns that could undercut public trust in the results.

The investigation led to an immediate and heated backlash from the legal community, which has frequently accused Mr Barr of acting politically to support Donald Trump.

The attorney general has always vehemently denied that.

Mr Barr’s intervention comes as the US president continues to claim, without evidence, that there was a widespread move to “steal” the election from him. The Trump campaign has submitted a blizzard of lawsuits in key battleground states. One in Michigan was rejected by a judge this week.

A copy of Mr Barr’s memo was obtained by The New York Times. It was carefully worded and ran across two pages. In parts, Mr Barr argued that there could be specific instances where it would be justifiable for prosecutors to investigate voter fraud before votes were certified.

Mr Barr began his memo by saying while “most allegations” are so minor that they would not impact the election result, and so can be investigated at a later date, that is not true of all cases.

He continued: “Furthermore, any concerns that overt actions taken by t he [ j usti c e] department c ould inadvertently impact an election are greatly minimised, if they exist at all, once voting has concluded, even if election certification has not yet been completed.

“Given this and given that voting in our current elections has now concluded, I authorise you to pursue substantial allegations of voting and vote tabulation irregularities prior to the certification of elections in your jurisdictions in certain cases, as I have