MAGA Cheers Trump’s Call for Prosecutor to Probe 2020 Election
After President Donald Trump called Friday for a special prosecutor to probe false claims of fraud in the 2020 election, leading right-wing figures cheered.
Trump posted on TruthSocial that former President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory was a “total fraud,” and that “the evidence is massive and overwhelming.”
“A Special Prosecutor must be appointed,” Trump wrote. “This cannot be allowed to happen again in the United States of America! Let the work begin!”
Trump’s post came days after FBI director Kash Patel said on X that the bureau recently shared “alarming” allegations about China’s role in manipulating the outcome of the 2020 election with Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Kari Lake, the former Arizona gubernatorial candidate and conspiracy theorist who serves as a senior White House advisor overseeing Voice of America, welcomed Trump’s call for a federal probe.
“This is the most important issue of our time,” Lake wrote. “We need a Special Prosecutor ASAP and they need to start in their [sic] investigation in Arizona.”
Rep. Abe Hamedeh (R-Ariz.), another Arizona politician with a long history of promoting election conspiracies, posted Trump’s TruthSocial message on X and said: “Election Security is NATIONAL Security!”
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) wrote on X that, “the FBI declassified documents exposing a CCP plot to influence the 2020 election with fake ballots. Now Trump wants to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate this corruption. THIS is the accountability the American people want to see!”
Trump may be looking backwards to 2020, but his call for a special prosecutor seems equally aimed at undermining future elections.
It’s likely to fuel the GOP’s efforts to implement more voting roadblocks ahead of the 2026 election. The Republican National Committee stepped in to defend Trump’s sweeping anti-voting order in the courts, while Senate Republicans are currently exploring every option to pass the SAVE Act, which could disenfranchise millions of voters. Meanwhile Republicans on the state level are trying to pass their own anti-voting bills in time for the 2026 midterms — in some cases using 2020 election conspiracy theories to fan the flames of support for these bills.
Trump’s call for a special prosecutor and his false claims about cheating in 2020 also could help further, and provide a rationale for, his administration’s broad effort to use law enforcement to target his political opponents.
The documents Patel mentioned are related to a fringe right-wing conspiracy theory about a Chinese scheme to mass-produce fake driver’s licenses for mail-in voting fraud. News that Patel had turned over the documents to Grassley was first reported by right-wing pundit John Solomon, who was a key figure in promoting conspiracy theories during Trump’s first impeachment trial.
Kelly Loeffler, the administrator of the Small Business Administration, was asked about Patel’s claims while appearing on YouTuber Benny Johnson’s show last week.
“How do any of these policies matter if our elections are rigged?” Loeffler replied. “So we have to get back to the facts on this and thanks to President Trump’s leadership, we will do that. We will hold people accountable.”
The U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the documents that Patel provided to Grassley.
Joyce White Vance, a former federal prosecutor, noted on BlueSky that “the DOJ doesn’t turn over evidence to Congress if they have a viable investigation in the works.”
There’s been exhaustive audits and research into the 2020 election, which has not turned up any evidence of the systemic, far-reaching voter fraud that Trump and many of his supporters falsely claim.