Conservatives debunk Trump’s ‘wrong and bad’ election fraud claims

• A lengthy report written by well-known conservatives debunks Trump’s false election claims.
• Former federal judge Michael Luttig, a Jan. 6 hearing witness, contributes to the report.
• Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was fraudulent are “wrong and bad for our country,” the report says.

A 72-page report released on Thursday by a group of eight prominent conservatives challenged a slew of election fraud claims former President Donald Trump has made about the 2020 election results.

“Donald Trump and his supporters have failed to present evidence of fraud or inaccurate results significant enough to invalidate the results of the 2020 Presidential Election,” the report says. “We do not claim that election administration is perfect. Election fraud is a real thing; there are prosecutions in almost every election year, and no doubt some election fraud goes undetected.”

The report continues, “But there is absolutely no evidence of fraud in the 2020 Presidential Election on the magnitude necessary to shift the result in any state, let alone the nation as a whole. In fact, there was no fraud that changed the outcome in even a single precinct.” 

The report, titled “LOST, NOT STOLEN: The Conservative Case that Trump Lost and Biden Won the 2020 Election,” includes the voices of lawyers, retired federal judges, and former senators who analyze the over 60 court cases Trump and his allies filed in the six battleground states he lost, costing him the election. The report was first reported on by CNN.

“It is wrong, and bad for our country, for people to propagate baseless claims that President Biden’s election was not legitimate,” the report says.

Among the conservatives who contributed to the report is Michael Luttig, a retired federal judge who testified before the House Select Committee investigating the Capitol attack on January 6 during its third public hearing. Luttig, along with several of the other authors of the report, expressed criticism of the former president on many occasions.

Other well-known contributors include former Sen. John Danforth of Missouri, lawyer Benjamin Ginsburg, Thomas Griffith, former federal judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, David Hoppe, chief of staff for former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, Michael W. McConnell, former judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, former US solicitor general Theodore B. Olson, and former Sen. Gordon H. Smith of Oregon.

The report is broken down by state and analyzes cases in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Each case analysis includes an addendum showing the case filed, the claim that was made, and the ending result. Many of the cases listed in the report were dismissed on merit or dropped voluntarily by plaintiffs, Trump and his supporters, or by state judges. The writers of the report also looked at how missing mail-in ballot situations were handled by each county election office.

“Fraud, irregularities, and procedural deficiencies formed the basis for challenging the results in five of the six highly contested Electoral College battleground states,” the report says. “Trump verbally attacked the elections as fraudulent, but his lawyers never filed such charges in court … We conclude that Donald Trump and his supporters had their day in court and failed to produce substantive evidence to make their case.”

The report included a plea to other conservative Republicans to reconsider their priorities and change their tune on the election.

“We urge our fellow conservatives to cease obsessing over the results of the 2020 election, and to focus instead on presenting candidates and ideas that offer a positive vision for overcoming our current difficulties and bringing greater peace, prosperity, and liberty to our nation,” the report says.