Dan Bishop, Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget, poses for an official commissioned officer portrait, Thursday, April 24, 2025, in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building at the White House. (Official White House Photo by Abe McNatt)
Former Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC), tapped by President Donald Trump to oversee a Justice Department (DOJ) probe into his false 2020 election fraud claims, is using generative artificial intelligence to pursue a theory rejected by Trump’s own FBI, The New York Times reported Friday.
Retiring from Congress in 2024, Bishop was among those who refused to certify former President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. His appointment last month to oversee a sweeping DOJ investigation, The Times wrote, was seen as “the latest example of the Trump administration putting untested loyalists in charge of sensitive criminal inquiries that feed into the president’s political agenda.”
And Bishop’s “inexperience,” The Times wrote, was "on display” last month during a meeting with top DOJ officials.
Joined by FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI Co-Deputy Director Andrew Bailey, Bishop was briefed on a fraud investigation inquiry involving claims that an election technology company had “manipulated voter registration records” in Texas, according to The Times. The FBI agent delivering the briefing concluded, however, that “anomalies” in voting data “appeared to have been caused by clerical error, not by fraud,” the Times reported, citing “people familiar with the matter.”
Bishop, The Times reported, was “skeptical” of the agent’s assessment.
“He later used artificial intelligence to do his own analysis of the [voter fraud claim], the people said, and came to the conclusion that the F.B.I. was wrong about the data, urging investigators to take another look,” The Times reported.
“Mr. Bishop would hardly be the first senior official in Mr. Trump’s Justice Department who has questioned the findings of the F.B.I. and chased investigative leads that its agents had rejected. Still, his doubts suggest the lengths to which he is willing to go to turn up even the slimmest shred of evidence to support Mr. Trump’s persistent claims that elections have been marred by fraud – especially by voting machines.”
Trump has long claimed, without evidence, that the 2020 election was “rigged” against him. Last year, Trump suggested that Republicans should take control of the election process in “at least” 15 states, citing his false theories about systemic voter fraud in the 2020 election.