The top Republican in Pennsylvania’s Senate said Friday that he is putting a different senator in charge of an “election integrity” undertaking and removed a senator who had made waves by aiming to carry out an Arizona-style “forensic investigation” of Pennsylvania’s 2020 presidential election.
Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman said he had had “many frustrations” with state Sen. Doug Mastriano, who has helped spread former President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was rigged against him in Pennsylvania and other battleground states.
Mastriano, R-Franklin, last month kicked off his effort to bring to Pennsylvania a repeat of the Arizona state Senate GOP’s widely discredited and partisan audit of the 2020 election in that state.
Corman’s move set off a round of recriminations Friday, with Mastriano going on right-wing broadcasters to accuse Corman of obstructing his efforts and lying about it.