A4 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.FRIDAY, DECEMBER 11 , 2020
BY MICHELLE YE HEE LEE
When Georgia state Rep. Bee
Nguyen (D) revi ewed a l ist of vot-
ers who President Trump’s cam-
paign claimed cast illegal ballots
in the state, three names caught
her eye: two friends and a c on-
stituent.
For days, Nguyen pored over
public records, spoke with voters
by phone and even knocked on
doors in person to vet the Trump
list. She found that it included
dozens of voters who were eligible
to vote in Georgia — along with
their full names and home ad-
dresses.
On Thursday, when a data ana-
lyst who compiled the list told a
panel of state lawmakers that it
proved thousands of voters cast
ballots in Georgia who should not
have, Nguyen was ready.
“I do want to share with you
some of the things that I found
that appeared to be incorrect to
me,” the two-term lawmaker told
Matt Braynard, whose research
has been cited in numerous suits
filed by Trump and his allies, sev-
eral of which have been tossed out
of the courts.
Nguyen’s 10-minute dissection
of the data offered a rare real-time
fact check of the unsubstantiated
claims of widespread fraud that
the president’s allies have promot-
ed in state hearings around the
country, largely before friendly
Republican audiences.
“If y ou are going to take the
names of voters in the state of
Georgia and publish their first,
middle and last name, their home
address, and accuse them of com-
mitting a f elony, at the very mini-
mum there should have been an
attempt to contact these voters,”
she said in an interview after the
hearing. “There was no such at-
tempt.”
Braynard said in an email to
The Washington Post that he “ap-
preciated her feedback and look
forward to getting her records that
are questionable. I was happy to
make a s tatement and happy to
hear feedback and questions.”
The episode shows how quickly
the allegations by Trump and his
supporters have fallen apart un-
der scrutiny, particularly in the
courts, which have consistently
rejected assertions that rampant
irregularities tainted the vote.
Yet in Georgia and elsewhere,
many state Republicans have giv-
en Trump a p latform to air the
claims, holding legislative hear-
ings on election integrity that have
largely been used to recycle con-
spiracy theories and unsubstanti-
ated allegations.
The president’s lawyer, Ru-
dolph W. Giuliani, appeared via
video at the Georgia House ’s inve s-
tigative hearing into the election
on Thursday, a d ay after being
discharged from the hospital due
to a coronavirus infection. During
his testimony, Giuliani reiterated
seve ral claims that state election
officials have repeatedly de-
bunked si nce Election Day.
Giuliani called out several
Black election workers in Fulton
County, alleging that they were
“passing around USB ports as if
they were vials of heroin or co-
caine.” He also referred to some
election workers by name while
questioning their actions — de-spite repeated pleas from state
election officials to protect the
safe ty of election workers.
The president’s legal team also
questioned the securi ty of the vot-
ing machines used in Georgia, re-
peating a w idely debunked con-
spiracy theory.
At one point, as the lawyers
played a v ideo of an election offi-
cial in Coffee County, Ga., Giuliani
was heard saying off-camera:
“This is really good stuff,” adding:
“We should try to get this on News-
max, on OAN,” referring to con-
servative media outlets.
House Governmental Affairs
Committee Chairman Shaw
Blackmon, a Republican, did not
offer an opportunity for lawmak-
ers to question Giuliani.
The forum was sharply criti-
cized by officials with the secre-
tary of state’s of fice, who have
defended the integrity of the elec-
tion and denounced efforts to un-dermine public faith in the out-
come.
“ Giving oxygen to this contin-
ued disinformation is leading to a
cont inuing erosion of people’s be-
lief in our elections and our pro-
cesses,” Gabriel Sterling, Georgia’s
voting information systems man-
ager, said during a news confer-
ence Thursday afternoon.
Georgia certified its election re-
sults for the second time this week
after a s econd recount of presiden-
tial ballots reaffirmed Joe Biden’s
narrow victory in the state.
But the legal challenges have
not abated. The Republican Na-
tional Committee filed a lawsuit
Tuesday claiming that some poll
watchers could not observe the
vote counting as closely in person
as it had hoped, and challenging
the use of ballot drop boxes, which
were installed at the direction of
election officials in Georgia.
In another lawsuit filed in re-cent days, the Trump campaign
and Georgia Republican Party
Chairman David Shafer alleged
systemic irregularities and re-
quested that the court decertify
the election and pr event the state’s
electors from casting their votes
for Biden when the electoral col-
lege meets on Monday.
Legal experts said the court
challenges have little hope of suc-
cess.
“It seems, in any event, to be
much ado about nothing,” said
John Powers, a G eorgia analyst at
the voting rights group Lawyers’
Committee for Civil Rights Under
Law. “It’s not clear what the end
game is here, but it’s never been
clear to me that there is a discern-
ible end game.”
The Trump campaign’s 1,585-
page lawsuit relies heavily on data
analysis by Braynard, who worked
on the Trump campaign in 2016
and who has led an outside effortto analyze voter records and other
databases in search of signs that
ballots may have been cast illegal-
ly.
“When just combining my find-
ings alone, the number of ballots
that are strongly indicated as ille-
gally cast surpasses the margin of
victory in the presidential elec-
tion, thus making it impossible to
know who the deserved winner is
in Georgia,” Braynard said during
the hearing.
He provided lists of voters’ per-
sonal information to back up his
claim that there were thousands of
individuals who had voted but
were registered in another state.
He said the lists showed voters
who used a post of fice address to
mask their true residences and
that others voted in two states.
During the hearing Thursday,
Nguyen countered Braynard’s
analysis with her own research,
based on a sampling of the exhib-
its included in the lawsuit.
Of the first 10 names on the list
that were allegedly out-of-state
vot ers, Nguyen said she found
eight who were longtime Georgia
residents and property owners by
using public records.
Dozens of voters who the cam-
paign suggested used P.O. boxes to
vote illegally were actually resi-
dents of a single condominium
building that had a mail center on
the first floor — including Repub-
licans and Democrats, she said.
“I wanted to do the research
because these are real-life people
and we cannot just be alleging that
they are committing voter fraud
and that they are committing a
felony and not do our due dili-
gence,” Nguyen said later.
Nguyen, who in 2017 filled the
state legislative seat vacated by
Stacey Abrams when she ran for
governor, said the voters she con-
tacted said they were not aware
that their names and addresses
were made public in the lawsuit.
After she presented her find-
ings during the hearing, Braynard
thanked Nguyen for her research.
“I actually want to thank you for
helping to raise issues to help bet-
ter validate data,” he said. “It’s only
with strong scrutiny that we’re
able to be completely confident in
our findings.”
[email protected]Aaron Schaffer contributed t o this
report.Ga. lawmaker rebuts data used in Trump voter fraud suit
JABIN BOTSFORD/THE WASHINGTON POST
Supporters of President Trump wait for him to speak Saturday at a r ally in Valdos ta, Ga. Many Republicans in Georgia and elsewhere have
continued to give Trump a platform to air claims that rampant irregularities tainted the vote despite consistent evidence to the contrary.McDonough was Obama’s chief
of staff during his second term,
and he previously served as depu-
ty national security adviser and
chief of staff to the National Secu-
rity Council. Biden viewed those
roles as important in selecting
McDonough to head VA, accord-
ing to a source familiar with the
selection, speaking on the condi-
tion of anonymity before the for-
mal announcement.
But McDonough has never
overseen anything close to the size
of VA, a sprawling agency with
nearly 380,000 employees and a
budget request of $263 billion in
2021.
“He’ll have to go a l ong way to
prove himself to a very skeptical
population who would prefer
someone with more direct veteran
and VA experience,” said Jeremy
Butler, chief executive of Iraq and
Afghanistan Veterans of America.
“He’s starting in a position of pub-
lic deficit because of who he is
not.”
But McDonough’s supporters
noted that in his roles under
Obama he visited Walter Reed
National Military Medical Center
regularly and met with service
members in Iraq and Afghanistan.
McDonough’s wife, Kari, is presi-
dent and co-founder of Vets’ Com-
munity Connections, a nonprofit
group based in San Diego focused
on strengthening ties between
veterans and the larger communi-
ties.
“He is an experienced leader
who has helped #DeptVA through
[its] toughest days in 2014 and
cares deeply about #veterans,”
Shulkin tweeted. “He will do a
great jo b.”
During the campaign, Biden of-
ten spoke of the importance of
taking care of veterans. He ends
almost every speech with “May
God protect our troops,” and he
repeatedly voiced anger after re-
ports that Trump had disparaged
fallen soldiers.
Rick Weidman, executive direc-
tor for policy and government af-
fairs at Vietnam Veterans of
America, said it was more impor-
tant for McDonough to be experi-
enced and influential within pol-
icy circles.
“You don’t have to be a veteran
to be a g reat veterans’ advocate,”
Weidman said. “He’s very serious
and he’ll get things done.”
[email protected]
[email protected]Lisa Rein contributed to this report.cates. McDonough would be the
11th confirmed VA secretary since
the agency was elevated to a Cabi-
net-l evel organization in 1989, but
only its second non-veteran lead-
er.
The other non-veteran was Da-
vid Shulkin, who was appointed
by Trump. But Shulkin was a phy-
sician and longtime health-care
executive, so his experience
meshed more clearly with VA’s
mission of providing medical
care.
McDonough’s name was not on
a lis t circulated to Capitol Hill and
veterans groups, which were led
to believe the top contender was
Patrick Murphy, a Democratic for-
mer congressman from Pennsyl-
vania and an Iraq War veteran.
“I don’t get it. I don’t under-
stand the nomination,” said Joe
Chenelly, executive director of
American Veterans, an advocacy
group known as Amvets. “He’s not
a veteran. What we really want to
understand is Joe Biden’s think-
ing on this. There were some real-
ly good candidates out there. Mc-
Donough has no background in
health care or experience running
a big organization.”
The pick was so unexpected
that while Amvets prepared news
releases on other candidates, it
had not put together any material
on McDonough, Chenelly said.
The group had been looki ng
forward to a woman or a veteran
of the post-9/11 military to lead
VA, Chenelly said. Women are the
fastest-growing group of veterans.
“We were thinking this was go-
ing to be history,” Chenelly said.
“But not this kind of history.”menthal (D-Conn.) — have al-
ready said they will oppose grant-
ing the waiver.
Biden chose Vilsack despite
sharp opposition from prominent
civil rights leaders upset about
Vilsack’s 2010 firing of Shirley
Sherrod, an African American
who was Georgia state director of
rural development for the Agricul-
ture Department. Sherrod was
fired after a conservative website
posted excerpts from one of her
speeches that appeared racist; the
full text made it clear her remarks
had been take n out of context, and
she was offered another federal
job.
Black farmers have also said
Vilsack did not do enough to liste n
and work with them during his
previous eight years in the posi-
tion. Prakash, of the Sunrise
Movement, criticized Biden for
bypassing Fudge in that role and
instead choosing her for HUD.
“While we believe Rep. Fudge
can excel at any leadership posi-
tion, we share the confusion of
many about this move, and are le ft
to believe this choice stems from
shallow racial stereotypes about
the of fice,” Prakash said in a state-
ment.
She called Vilsack’s appoint-
ment “a slap in the face to Black
Americans who delivered the elec-
tion to Joe Biden” and raised con-
cerns about his work in the private
sector after leaving the Obama
administration.
The choice of McDonough to
lead the Department of Veterans
Affairs, which like Rice’s selection
was first reported by Politico,
came as a shock to many advo-nounced.
She was considered as a poten-
tial Biden running mate, and was
also a p ossible secretary of state,
but his advisers were wary of what
could be a t ough confirmation
fight. Republicans have targeted
Rice because of comments she
made in the aftermath of the 2012
Benghazi attacks that they consid-
er misleading.
By selecting her as domestic
policy adviser, Biden is avoiding
the need for Senate confirmation
— and putting Rice in an unex-
pected role for someone whose
career has been built on foreign
policy. A transition official, speak-
ing on the condition of anonymity,
said the decision reflects Biden’s
view of foreign and domestic eco-
nomic policy as increasingly inter-
twined.
He also values Rice’s crisis man-
agement skills, experience work-
ing across federal agencies and
negotiating ability, the official
said. In formally introducing Rice
on Friday, Biden is expected to cite
her personal story, including how
her grandparents immigrated
from Jamaica and how she be-
come a Stanford-educated Rhodes
Scholar.
Biden is also displaying a will-
ingness to face a significant de-
gree of criticism to get the team he
wants.
Austin, for example, is facing
growing controversy over a con-
gressional waiver he will need to
become defense secretary after re-
cently serving in the military. Sev-
eral prominent Democratic sena-
tors — including Elizabeth War-
ren (D-Mass.) and Richard Blu-John F. Kerry, who now will be
climate envoy.
Another big selling point for
Biden is a candidate’s friendship
with his late son Beau. The presi-
dent-elect’s pick to run the Penta-
gon, Gen. Lloyd J. Austin, attend-
ed Mass with Beau when they
were deployed together in Iraq.
Harris was also good friends with
Beau, a relationship that played
no small part in her selection.
One of the freshest faces to the
highest levels of government is
Biden’s nominee for secretary of
health and human services. Still,
Xavier Becerra, a former 12-term
member of Congress, is hardly
new. He le ft Congress in 2017 to
become California’s attorney gen-
eral partly to advance his political
career outside of Washington,
where top Democratic congres-
sional leadership was entrenched.
Biden’s emerging team gives
him a level of comfort and trust,
something he prizes. It also re-
flects a belief among his top advis-
ers that the morale of the federal
workforce under Trump has fallen
to an all-time low, requiring an
all-out push to restore faith in
institutions that have been dam-
aged over the past four years.
But in choosing figures who
bring reassurance and familiarity,
Biden is hardly avoiding contro-
versy.
Rice was a high-level of ficial in
Obama’s administration, first
serving as United Nations ambas-
sador and later as national secu-
rity adviser. Her of fice was next to
Biden’s in the northwest corner of
the White House, and Biden
would often drop in unan-some of the Democrats and liber-
als who Biden kept united during
the general election campaign.
Varshini Prakash, executive di-
rector of the liberal Sunrise Move-
ment, said some diverse candi-
dates were apparently getting by-
passed in favor of more-establish-
ment figures, citing for example
the uncertainty over whether Rep.
Deb Haaland (D-N.M.), a Native
American, will be chosen as interi-
or secretary.
“It is shameful that strong,
qualified women of color are alleg-
edly being pushed out of the run-
ning for roles they are qualified to
fill in order to make room for men
with corporate connections,”
Prakash said.
The McDonough and Rice picks
were only the latest examples of
Biden leaning on the familiar. He
formally confirmed on Thursday
that Tom Vilsack, who was
Obama’s longest-serving Cabinet
member, would reprise his role as
agriculture secretary, prompting
criticism from some Black leaders.
The transition also formally an-
nounced that Rep. Marcia L.
Fudge (D-Ohio) would be nomi-
nated as secretary of housing and
urban development and Kather-
ine Tai as U.S. trade representa-
tive. The five latest picks will join
Biden for a formal introduction in
Wilmington, Del., on Friday after-
noon.
Taken as a wh ole, the nomina-
tions underscore Biden’s longevi-
ty in politics, as he increasingly
turns toward those who he’s
known and worked with for dec-
ades. In some cases the choices are
not an obvious fit, signaling that
Biden is prioritizing familiarity,
diversity and competence over
subject matter expertise.
During the campaign, Biden
spoke of providing a bridge to a
new generation of Democrats. But
other than Vice resident-elect Ka-
mala D. Harris, Biden so far has
selected no one, for example, from
the diverse group of two dozen
Democrats who ran against him
for the nomination.
His incoming White House
chief of staff, Ron Klain, was his
former chief of staff. Jake Sullivan,
who was Biden’s national security
adviser when he was vice presi-
dent, is becoming his national se-
curity adviser as president. The
former deputy secretary of state,
Antony Blinken, will be secretary
of state — a position once held by
BIDEN FROM A
Biden adds to team of longtime allies with V A, Domestic Policy Council picks
CAROLYN KASTER/ASSOCIATED PRESS
President-elect Joe Biden named former national security adviser
Susan E. Rice director of the White House Domestic Policy Council.CHARLES DHARAPAK/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Biden has picked Denis McDonough, Barack Obama’s chief of staff,
as incoming secre tary o f the Department of Veterans Affairs.