Republicans ‘desperate’ to find fraud evidence to explain Trump’s loss — but ‘that smoking gun doesn’t exist’

Republicans in multiple states are trying to find evidence of election fraud to explain Donald Trump's loss, but they're running into a significant obstacle.

GOP legislators in Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are conducting "forensic audits" intended to uncover evidence of fraud based on claims by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and other conspiracy theorists -- including the twice-impeached former president himself -- but their efforts are coming up empty, reported NPR.

"It's clear to me that the Republicans are not interested in improving our election processes, but rather desperate to find some type of smoking gun that doesn't exist," said Milwaukee County Clerk George Christenson, who rejected an election-related subpoena from a GOP legislator. "I would encourage them to educate themselves on how elections work in their own state, rather than flying to Arizona or getting their intelligence from a guy who makes pillows."

State Rep. Janel Brandtjen, who chairs the state Assembly elections committee and previously visited the Arizona election review, hasn't been able to obtain information from election officials after Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos refused to sign subpoenas she sent to Christenson and another county clerk seeking evidence of fraud.

"We give you our word that we are doing everything we possibly can to uncover what occurred in 2020," Vos assured GOP voters this summer at the Wisconsin Republican convention.

The state has already completed a series of routine election audits and a presidential recount in its two largest counties, and none of those reviews found any widespread fraud or wrongdoing, and numerous Republican-backed lawsuits have also failed to turn up any evidence of wrongdoing.