A Justice Department official responsible for investigating elections crimes abruptly resigned Monday after Attorney General William Barr authorized federal investigators to look into allegations of vote fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
Richard Pilger, the director of the Election Crimes Branch, indicated in a memo to DOJ colleagues that his resignation was in protest of Barr’s directive.
Later Monday, Donald Trump Jr. weighed in on Twitter.
“Wait. Seriously? Isn’t this the guy who was involved with the IRS and Lois Lerner in targeting conservatives and the Tea Party?” he wrote. “Maybe that’s why he hasn’t done —- at the DOJ.”
The allegations of vote fraud range from election officials coaching voters, to ballot harvesting, to computer software glitches that shifted votes from President Trump to Joe Biden. A whistleblower testified a postal supervisor instructed workers to back-date mailed ballots that missed the deadline in order for them to be counted.
NBC News reported Pilger said in a statement, “Having familiarized myself with the new policy and its ramifications, and in accord with the best tradition of the John C. Keeney Award for Exceptional Integrity and Professionalism (my most cherished Departmental recognition), I must regretfully resign from my role as Director of the Election Crimes Branch.”
Barr’s memo authorizes prosecutors “to pursue substantial allegations of voting and vote tabulation irregularities prior to the certification of elections.”
It calls for review of “clear and apparently credibly allegations of irregularities that, if true, could potentially impact the outcome of a federal election in an individual state.”
The statement from Donald Trump Jr. referred to the Obama administration scandal in which IRS officials descriminated against conservative organizations applying for tax-exempt status, delaying their applications during Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign.
Lois Lerner, then head of the tax-exempt division at the IRS, communicated with Pilger by email in 2010 during his first year as head of the election crimes branch, DailyMail.com noted.
In an exchange shortly before the midterm elections, they discussed prosecuting groups for abusing their tax-exempt status. They met at about the same time in a meeting that later was scrutinized in Congress. Lerner eventually pleaded the Fifth.
Barr’s memo said “it is imperative that the American people can trust that our elections were conducted in such a way that the outcomes accurately reflect the will of the voters.”
He explained the normal process would be to wait for the conclusion of the election, but “such a passive and delayed enforcement approach can result in situations in which election misconduct cannot realistically be rectified.”
