Kris 'king of voter suppression’ Kobach scared of answering ACLU’s questions under oath

The lead voter fraud conspiracy theorist is seeking to avoid answering questions under oath about attempts to change US election law.

The Republican Secretary of State in Kansas, Kris Kobach, filed the notice with the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, The Topeka Capital-Journalreports.

"Two federal judges have each twice ruled Kobach misled the court about the contents of documents he took into a November meeting with then-President-elect Donald Trump and a separate draft amendment to the National Voter Registration Act," The Topeka Capital-Journal reminded. "The court fined Kobach $1,000 and ordered him to testify on Thursday about the documents."

Kobach effectively runs President Donald Trump's Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, better known as Trump's voter fraud task force. Kobach is running for governor of Kansas on a nativist platform.

The American Civil Liberties Union called Kobach's legal filing, "bizarre."

"Kris Kobach is the king of voter suppression. He has an obsession with trying to show that there is widespread cheating in our elections when there isn’t," said ACLU Voting Rights Project director Dale Ho in May. "In Kansas, he’s instituted a 'Show Me Your Papers' law which requires people to show a birth certificate or passport when they register to vote."

Kobach is a highly controversial figure.

"President Trump’s decision to appoint Kris Kobach to help lead a new commission to study voter fraud shows that the commission itself will be fraudulent – as was the president’s ludicrous claim that millions of illegal ballots cost him the popular vote in November," the Southern Poverty Law Center wrote. "The real threat to our democracy is voter suppression. Kobach is a longtime lawyer for far-right extremist groups with ties to white nationalists and is a leader in the movement to suppress the votes of minorities."

Kobach was also a key figure in the criminal contempt case against Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Arizona. Former Sheriff Arpaio was found guilty Monday and is facing six months in jail when he's sentenced on October 5th.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has said Kobach is the "lawyer for America's nativist movement." Kobach authored SB 1070 in Arizona, the "show me your papers" bill introduced by state Senator Russel Pearce that resulted in a large-scale boycott of the state.

"A Yale-trained lawyer, Kobach has served as counsel to the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) since 2004. IRLI is the legal arm of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a group whose leaders have historical ties to white supremacists and eugenicists and who have made numerous racist statements," SPLC revealed. "He joined IRLI after a two-year stint as a White House fellow working in the U.S. Justice Department under Attorney General John Ashcroft during the Bush administration."

"Mr. Kobach now leads a presidential commission on election integrity, established by President Trump after his groundless assertion that 3 million to 5 million people voted illegally last November. The commission, stacked with Kobach clones who have made voter suppression into a political cottage industry, could undertake various forms of mischief intended to impede voting," The Washington Post editorialized Sunday. "That’s why fears about Mr. Kobach’s intentions now are justified. If his commission endorses the Kansas model, or even recommends requiring documentary proof of citizenship as a condition of voter registration, millions of Americans will face disenfranchisement, and democracy itself will be at risk."