By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows doubled down on his criticism of FBI Director Christopher Wray on Sunday and even suggested he could be replaced, ramping up the baseless narrative that mail-in votes are going to lead to widespread fraud.
“As we look at this, we want to make sure he’s doing his job. There are different degrees of confidence in different Cabinet members,” Meadows said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “Certainly, he’s still there. The minute that the president loses confidence in any of his Cabinet members — they serve at his pleasure — he will certainly look at replacing them.”
The rebuke of Wray comes after he told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Thursday that there’s no evidence of “any kind of coordinated national voter fraud effort.”
Meadows lashed out at Wray on Friday, saying the FBI director “has a hard time finding emails in his own FBI, let alone finding out whether there is any kind of voter fraud.”
On Sunday, Meadows said Wray was too quick to dismiss election fraud.
“To suggest that there is a process that is full of integrity is trying to make a verdict before you’ve actually heard the case,” Meadows aid. “That’s my problem with Director Wray. They need to investigate it and make sure that the voting populace, make sure their vote counts and no one else’s does.”
But Wray emphasized to lawmakers last week that the FBI “would investigate seriously” any evidence of election fraud.
Former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson weighed in Sunday.
“It’s disconcerting to see the president and his chief of staff cast doubt on the integrity of our democracy,” Johnson said “Face the Nation.” “In fact, mail-in voting is almost as old as the nation. There are states now where the predominant way to vote is by mail.”
