President Donald Trump’s senior policy adviser Stephen Miller lied.
The ability to do so seems to be a prerequisite in the Trump administration.
On Sunday, in an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC News’ "This Week," Miller repeated the completely debunked claim that a "massive" number of people voted fraudulently in the 2016 election.
He said: "George, it is a fact and you will not deny it, that there are massive numbers of non-citizens in this country, who are registered to vote. That is a scandal."
There aren’t, and it isn’t. More on that later.
The president’s response to Miller’s numerous voter fraud falsehoods came via Twitter: "Congratulations Stephen Miller — on representing me this morning on the various Sunday morning shows. Great job!"
Great job? It was a disgraceful, lying-through-your-teeth job, and I bring it up in part to highlight to you kind readers why I refuse to stop writing critically about Trump and his administration.
Throughout last year’s presidential campaign and since Election Day, I have regularly filled this space with columns — some serious, some satirical — highlighting the dishonesty and danger President Trump presents.
I could write about other things. I do sometimes.
But almost daily now, something happens in Trumpland that screams, "This is not normal!"
A dead-eyed policy adviser like Miller gets on national television and lies and lies and lies, then slips in this corker: "The powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned."
Oh, they’ll be questioned, Mr. Miller. They’ll be questioned plenty.
I think about a song by a band called The Decemberists, a song that speaks of taking a stand, not growing complacent, fighting "with our arms unbound." The chorus echoes: "This is why/This is why we fight."
That’s a bit dramatic, I suppose, but what I see happening under Trump — incessant lying, the unnecessary demeaning of opponents — is wrong. I’m not referencing policy, just basic human behavior and a belief that facts matter.
It’s a privilege to have a platform and a voice, a privilege that — despite my frequent silliness — I don’t take lightly. So when I see Trump tweeting false information with the sole purpose of scaring the Americans who trust him, I’m going to write something. And when I see someone like Miller shamelessly repeating talking points that have been proven false over and over again, I’m going to write something.
And I’m not going to listen to people who say, "Give it a rest, Trump won." And I’m not going to grow tired of shoving the truth in the face of liars.
What I write matters little in the grand scheme. But if I get even one person to rethink his or her opinion, I’ll take it, and if I merely add to the chorus of fact-advocates out there, good.
On Sunday, Miller said that "14 percent of non-citizens, according to academic research, at a minimum, are registered to vote, which is an astonishing statistic." Astonishing, and completely misrepresented. One of the researchers Miller is citing said of his own study: "On the right there has been a tendency to misread our results as proof of massive voter fraud, which we don’t think they are."
Miller also said that busing voters from neighboring states into New Hampshire to cast illegal votes is a "very real" and "very serious" problem. It’s absolutely not.
Tom Rath, a Republican and the former attorney general of New Hampshire, wrote on Twitter: "Let me as be unequivocal as possible — allegations of voter fraud in NH are baseless, without any merit — it’s shameful to spread these fantasies."
The fact-checking group PolitiFact gave Miller’s claim a "Pants on Fire" rating, noting: "PolitiFact New Hampshire, in particular, talked to several state and local officials about whether anything fishy occurred Nov. 8. Nashua City Clerk Tricia Piecuch, who works in the state’s second-largest city on the border with Massachusetts, said nothing out of the ordinary went down. Officials in the Secretary of State’s office, Attorney General’s office and U.S. Attorney’s office all reported no complaints of voter fraud in the 2016 election."
Miller and Trump and anyone else in the administration can say there was "massive voter fraud" in the election — the one that Trump won — all they want. There are still no facts and no complaints from state-level Republicans or Democrats to back up that claim.
They are hammering away at a lie because they want to use it to justify unnecessarily strict voting laws across the country, laws that have been found, in repeated court rulings, to disenfranchise lower-income minority voters.
This is why we fight. Because laws shouldn’t be based on lies.
When President Trump and the people around him find the moral fortitude to conduct their business with a modicum of honesty, to ground their policy decisions in factual information, I’ll be more than happy to move on to other subjects.
Until then, I’m not shutting up, and I hope you don’t shut up either.
What good is a voice if you don’t use it when it matters most?
Listen to Rex Huppke and WGN radio host Amy Guth discuss presidential politics each week on the "Guth and Huppke on Politics" podcast at chicagotribune.com/guthhuppkepodcast.
rhuppke@chicagotribune.com
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