President Donald Trump used an address to the nation Thursday night to call on federal authorities to “fully investigate” fraudulent voter registrations submitted in Michigan before the 2020 election.
Trump, a Republican, has maintained for years that widespread fraud caused him to lose the 2020 vote in Michigan to Democrat Joe Biden. However, Trump has not provided evidence to prove his claims.
His speech Thursday focused on national election integrity. In it, he contended that China had exploited U.S. voter data and that thousands of noncitizens were registered to vote in the U.S. He also released batches of law enforcement documents, including ones covering the Muskegon probe, a situation that first became public in October 2020, before the November 2020 election.
Trump said there had been “alleged fraud” by a large-scale voter registration operation in Michigan. Biden’s Department of Justice had “slow-walked” the investigation and “killed it,” said Trump, who won a second term as president in 2024.
“Tonight, I am asking the FBI director to ensure the matter is fully investigated and to work with the Department of Justice to prosecute those responsible for any crimes,” Trump said.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, responded to Trump’s speech, saying Michigan elections “are safe and secure” and “any suggestion otherwise is designed to undermine our voters’ basic rights.”
“Conspiracy theories about the 2020 elections must come to an end,” Whitmer added.
Authorities in Michigan previously referred an investigation into the fraudulent voter registration forms, submitted by a person in Muskegon, to the FBI. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office said the total number of suspected fraudulent forms delivered to the Muskegon clerk by the individual was 8,000 to 10,000.
In 2023, Danny Wimmer, Nessel’s spokesman, said the “attempted fraud” was caught before Election Day because Michigan’s election system worked and the applicants were not added to the state’s voter rolls. Nessel is a Democrat.
“The city clerk in Muskegon detected the fraudulent material provided and alerted the proper authorities,” Wimmer said in a 2023 statement. “A thorough investigation was conducted by multiple agencies within the state and no successful fraud was perpetrated upon the state’s election process or qualified voter file.”
Wimmer said state officials decided to refer the matter to the FBI because of its national jurisdiction. The person who submitted the registrations to Muskegon Clerk Ann Meisch’s office was a representative of GBI Strategies, which conducts voter registration drives and is headquartered in the state of Tennessee, Wimmer said.
A law enforcement timeline released by the White House showed work on the Michigan voter registration investigation going on into 2024, including a handwriting analysis and considerations of prosecution. It wasn’t clear who might have been prosecuted.
The White House also released a 2021 email from one FBI official to another about the investigation. In it, one official, whose name was redacted, directly said individuals involved in the Michigan operation submitted fraudulent voter registration applications.
But the official appeared to reference that someone else in the agency had concerns about proving the registrations, which aren’t believed to have led to fraudulent votes, impacted the election.
“I understand that proving this was done ‘willfully’ would still be difficult, but I wanted to raise my concerns before closing the case,” the official added.
In October 2020, the Michigan State Police first publicly revealed it was examining “irregularities in voter registration forms” in Muskegon.
The investigation of potential election fraud forgery included a search warrant being executed at a Southfield location of GBI Strategies in October 2020, Wimmer said.
The city of Muskegon had about 38,000 residents, so 8,000 new voter registrations would equal about 21% of the population. Muskegon had about 28,000 registered voters during the 2020 presidential election, according to state records.
Curtis Hertel, chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party, criticized Trump’s election speech Thursday night.
“I liked this speech better when it was between a crematorium and an adult book store,” Hertel wrote.
cmauger@detroitnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Trump calls for renewed probe into 2020 Michigan voter registrations
Reporting by Craig Mauger, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Craig Mauger, The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
