The White House has made a DOJ announcement on Trump’s “rejected” votes

The Justice Department said it is investigating “possible problems with postal voting” in the Pennsylvania swing situation and, in a very unusual disclosure, revealed that several votes marked for President Donald Trump have been “discarded.” U.S. Attorney David Freed said a preliminary investigation determined that nine “military votes were rejected” and that seven of them were given to “Donald Trump’s presidential candidate.” The incident happened in Lucerne County, in the swing county of northeastern Pennsylvania, where Wilkes-Barre lives. Trump overthrew the council in 2016 after winning a narrow Democratic victory. The statement was very unusual, as it highlighted that the ballot boxes were marked for Trump, which immediately led to the suspicion that the Justice Department was trying to supply material that Trump could promote for political gain. In fact, Trump and other White House aides used the information, even before it was made public, to attack postal votes. Election officials are working hard to protect the secret ballot. It is unclear how the researchers figured out who the votes were for and why they made that information public. In addition, the Department of Justice does not normally comment on ongoing investigations, even if there are rules such as the integrity of the election when the public interest is at stake. The federal probe was apparently prompted by a request from Republican District Attorney Lucerne Stefanie Salavantis, who announced Tuesday that federal investigators were assisting with an election issue. Freed, also a Republican, was nominated by Trump in 2017. A spokesman for Salavantis told CNN that the nine affected votes are for the general election. Many military and foreign votes were sent out last weekend. # 2020 Election #CNN # AC360.

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