Tag: Kris Kobach

Kris Kobach claimed his product would ‘kill COVID’ and bring jobs back to Kansas. An investigation found ‘no evidence’ that’s true

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Back in October, far-right Republican Kris Kobach — Kansas’ former secretary of state and a “birther” who promoted the racist conspiracy theory that President Barack Obama wasn’t really born in the United States — promoted a device he claimed would fight COVID-19. But a two-month investigation by the Columbia Journalism Review, according to the Kansas Reflector, showed nothing to verify Kobach’s claims.

Kobach, along with his business partner, Daniel Drake — the CEO of MoJack Distributors in Wichita — made a sales pitch to Kansas legislators in October. Drake described the product as a “revolutionary” device that would “kill COVID” and claimed it would bring “several hundred jobs back to Wichita.”

Kobach told Kansas legislators, “This stuff is very cutting-edge,” saying that he wanted to give them the “first bite at the apple” and noting that the product was part of a new line called Sarus System. Continue reading.

Kris Kobach releases racist video to disprove racism allegations

The Republican Kansas senate hopeful was flagged

Kansan Kris Kobach, the Republican former secretary of state who lost the 2018 gubernatorial election by five points to Democratic nominee Laura Kelly in a state that President Donald Trump carried by more than 20 points two years earlier, is back and running for U.S. Senate. In a new kickoff video, he suggests that if Kansas Republicans give him another chance, he will be better prepared for the “propaganda” attacks on him for his racist and white supremacist views.

In the same video, he demonstrates exactly why even Trump’s presidential transition vetting team flagged him for “white supremacy” concerns.

While waving a coffee mug around in front of a black screen, Kobach began his ad quoting the late climate-science denier Michael Crichton about the threat of fantasy propaganda winning out over truth.

View the complete July 31k article by Josh Israel on the ThinkProgress website here.

A Would-Be Trump Aide’s Demands: A Jet on Call, a Future Cabinet Post and More

Access to a government jet 24 hours a day. An office in the West Wing, plus guaranteed weekends off for family time. And an assurance of being made secretary of homeland security by November.

Those were among a list of 10 conditions that Kris Kobach, the former Kansas secretary of state, has given to the White House if he is to become the administration’s “immigration czar,” a job President Trump has been looking to create to coordinate immigration policy across government agencies. The list was described by three people familiar with it.

Mr. Kobach, who once served as an adviser to the hard-line immigration Sheriff Joe Arpaio and helped write an Arizona law requiring local officials to verify the citizenship of anyone they had “reasonable suspicion” to believe was an unauthorized immigrant, said he would need to be the main television spokesman for the Trump administration on immigration policy. And he said he wanted a guarantee that cabinet secretaries whose portfolios relate to immigration would defer to him, with the president mediating disputes if need be.

View the complete May 20 article by Maggie Haberman and Annie Karni on The New York Times website here.

The writer with ties to white nationalists who resigned from DHS donated to the RNC, Donald Trump, Kris Kobach, and Dave Brat

The following article by Eric Hananoki was posted on the Media Matters website August 31, 2018:

Update: Ian Smith also donated to Corey Stewart’s 2017 gubernatorial campaign

Ian Smith, a writer who recently resigned from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) over his ties to white nationalists, donated thousands of dollars combined to the Republican National Committee (RNC) and the Republican campaigns of President Donald Trump, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, and Rep. Dave Brat from Virginia..

The Atlantic’s Rosie Gray reported on August 28 that Smith, who had recently worked at DHS as a policy analyst on immigration issues, “had in the past been in contact with a group that included known white nationalists as they planned various events.” She added that the messages “provide a glimpse into how a group that included hard-core white nationalists was able to operate relatively incognito in the wider world, particularly in conservative circles.”

The Washington Post’s Nick Miroff reported on August 30 that “Smith, a Department of Homeland Security analyst who resigned this week after he was confronted about his ties to white nationalist groups, attended multiple immigration policy meetings at the White House, according to government officials familiar with his work.”

View the complete article here.

Trump endorses GOP candidate who hired white supremacists

The following article by Tommy Christopher was posted on the ShareBlue.com website August 6, 2018:

Credit: Carolyn Kaster, AP Photo

Trump endorsed Kris Kobach for governor of Kansas just days after Kobach was outed for hiring white supremacists.

Trump took time out of his vacation in New Jersey to endorse Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach for governor — just days after Republican consultants publicly outed Kobach for employing alleged white supremacists on his campaign.

Trump tweeted from his Bedminster, New Jersey golf resort Monday morning that Kobach “is a fantastic guy” who “will be a GREAT Governor and has my full & total Endorsement!”

A few days earlier on Friday, however, the Topeka Capitol Journal broke the news that Kobach’s campaign has been accused of employing three white supremacists, that we know of:

View the complete post here.

Kobach helped lead Trump’s election panel. A judge just found him in contempt in a voter ID case

The following article by Eli Rosenberg was posted on the Washington Post website April 18, 2018:

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, the vice chair of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, spoke at its first meeting on July 19. (Reuters)

A federal judge has found Kansas’s chief elections official — Kris Kobach, a Republican who helped lead a much-criticized commission set up by President Trump to investigate supposed voter fraud — in contempt of court in a sharply worded ruling that said Kobach acted “disingenuously” and that ordered him to pay the plaintiff’s attorney fees.

The order stems from a 2016 lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Kansas voters in federal court against a state voter ID law. The 2013 law required people to provide proof of citizenship, such as a passport or birth certificate, when they registered to vote for the first time. The ACLU argues that the law violates the federal National Voter Registration Act, which requires state DMVs to offer people the ability to register with only the “minimum amount of information necessary.” Continue reading “Kobach helped lead Trump’s election panel. A judge just found him in contempt in a voter ID case”

President Trump’s claim that ‘mostly Democrat States’ refused to provide voter data

The following article by Glenn Kessler was posted on the Washington Post website January 5, 2018:

President Trump announced on Jan. 3 that he is disbanding a controversial panel studying alleged voter fraud. (Patrick Martin/The Washington Post)

“Many mostly Democrat States refused to hand over data from the 2016 Election to the Commission On Voter Fraud. They fought hard that the Commission not see their records or methods because they know that many people are voting illegally.”
— President Trump, in a tweet, Jan. 4, 2018

Regular readers know that President Trump has often earned Pinocchios for his unproven claims about rampant voter fraud. In disbanding his controversial panel studying alleged voter fraud, the president once again asserted “many people are voting illegally” even though there is no evidence of that.

Rather than rehash that bogus claim — readers can find our previous fact checks here, here, here, here, here, here and here — we decided to examine the first part of Trump’s tweet. He claimed that “many mostly Democrat States refused to hand over data” requested from the voting commission. Continue reading “President Trump’s claim that ‘mostly Democrat States’ refused to provide voter data”

Trump Closes Voter Fraud Panel That Bickered More Than It Revealed

The following article by Michael Wines and Maggie Haberman was posted on the New York Times website January 4, 2018:

Voters in the 2016 presidential election in the Bronx, New York. A voter fraud commission, formed shortly after the president’s inauguration, was disbanded on Wednesday. Credit Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, which was disbanded this week by the White House, grew out of a presidential tweet.

“I will be asking for a major investigation into VOTER FRAUD,” President Trump wrote on Jan. 25, just days after his inauguration, repeating a claim he had made that millions of illegal immigrants had voted improperly in the last presidential election and swung the popular vote in Hillary Clinton’s favor.

On Wednesday the president closed the inquiry, which after eight months of efforts had found no evidence of electoral fraud and had been widely discredited and enmeshed in controversy after controversy. Its epitaph too was marked by a follow-up missive typed out on Thursday morning by @realDonaldTrump. Continue reading “Trump Closes Voter Fraud Panel That Bickered More Than It Revealed”

Trump abolishes controversial commission studying alleged voter fraud

The following article by John Wagner was posted on the Washington Post website January 4, 2018:

President Trump announced on Jan. 3 that he is disbanding a controversial panel studying alleged voter fraud. (Patrick Martin/The Washington Post)

President Trump announced Wednesday that he is disbanding a controversial panel studying alleged voter fraud that became mired in multiple federal lawsuits and faced resistance from states that accused it of overreach.

The decision is a major setback for Trump, who created the commission last year in response to his claim, for which he provided no proof, that he lost the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 because of millions of illegally cast ballots. Continue reading “Trump abolishes controversial commission studying alleged voter fraud”

Trump voter fraud commission sued by one of its own members, alleging Democrats are being kept in the dark

The following article by John Wagner was posted on the Washington Post website November 9, 2017:

President Trump’s voter fraud commission was sued Thursday morning by one of its Democratic members, who alleged that he has been kept in the dark about its operations, rendering his participation “essentially meaningless.”

Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap said in a complaint filed in federal court that the 11-member panel is in violation of a federal law that requires presidential advisory commissions to be both balanced and transparent in their work.

“The Commission has, in effect, not been balanced because Secretary Dunlap and the other Democratic commissioners have been excluded from the Commission’s work,” says the complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. “The Commission’s operations have not been open and transparent, not even to the commissioners themselves, who have been deprived access to documents prepared by and viewed by other commissioners.” Continue reading “Trump voter fraud commission sued by one of its own members, alleging Democrats are being kept in the dark”