“Dubious Vote-Fraud Claim Gets the Trump Seal of Approval”

NYT:

To support his call for a sweeping federal inquiry into his claims of vast voting fraud, President Trump turned on Friday to a little-known conservative activist whose work on the issue has been widely discredited and who has trafficked in conspiracy theories.

“Gregg Phillips and crew say at least 3,000,000 votes were illegal,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter, a reference to a claim by Mr. Phillips, who helped create an app to report voter fraud, that he had “verified” such irregularities. With those words, Mr. Trump bestowed the imprimatur of the presidency on new ground: the feverish online fringes of American politics.

In elevating Mr. Phillips, who last month on Twitter cited “spook friends” to claim that “the Israelis impersonated the Russians” and interfered in the American election, Mr. Trump returned to a familiar pattern.

After a campaign in which he gave voice to outlandish falsehoods, including claims that Justice Antonin Scalia was suffocated by a pillow and Senator Ted Cruz’s father had a connection to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Mr. Trump has not left his penchant for conspiracy-mongering at the White House door.

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