Days after electors voted to make it official that Joe Biden is president-elect, and one day after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) congratulated Biden on his victory, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said at a congressional hearing that the election “in many ways was stolen.”
“The fraud happened. The election in many ways was stolen and the only way it will be fixed is by in the future reinforcing the laws,” Paul said during a hearing with testimony from Christopher Krebs, the president’s former cybersecurity chief, who was fired by Trump after he reported there was no interference in the election.
Paul made the remarks as Krebs, wearing a mask, looked on skeptically, his arms crossed in front of his chest.
The remarks were notable because Paul is seen as one of the senators who might join a bid by Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) to challenge the election’s outcome and overturn the results in several states, despite a series of court decisions that have rejected claims of widespread fraud as unsubstantiated.
Doing so would disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters, and the Supreme Court, now dominated by conservative justices including three nominated to the court by President Trump, rejected a suit from the attorney general of Texas just last week to do so.
Just one GOP senator would need to back Brooks to force the House and Senate to hold debates and votes on the results at a Jan. 6 session. McConnell urged Republicans not to do so during a call Tuesday, and several GOP senators have now said they will not do so.
But Paul has a history of bucking his party and his comments at a Wednesday hearing will raise some eyebrows, though he appeared more focused on passing laws moving forward that would target fraud.
After Krebs reasserted his view that the election had been free of foreign or domestic interference, Paul said because the election was safe did not mean there were no rules broken.
“To say it was the safest election, sure I agree with your statement if you are referring to foreign intervention, but if you are saying it’s the safest election based on no dead people voted … no people broke the absentee rules, I think that is false and I think that’s what’s upset a lot of people on our side is that they are taking your statement to mean there, oh there were no problems in the election, I don’t think you examined any of the problems we heard here, so really you are just referring to something differently the way I look at it,” Paul said.
There is no evidence that hundreds of thousands or even tens of thousands of deceased people voted in such a way that could alter Biden’s win, nor has there been any evidence to suggest massive voter fraud changed the outcome.