himself former secretary of state from kansas kris kobach it's a blatant attempt at a national voter suppression campaign but according to my next guest the bipartisan resistance forseen to the states and the commission's data request isn't what a scene is joining me now is greg palast investigative reporter and creator of the new documentary the best democracy money can buy a tale of billionaires and banded ballots pallas welcome back. be with you tom so first off can you explain for us a little more detail about what the specific voter data the trump is or the trump administration co back is asking for and why do they want that data and why is it such a big deal for them to be asking for ok number one what they want is the entire voter files of all fifty states you know your name last four numbers of your social security number your address your voting history your party preference etc and. and that's what they want for the national for this investigation of voter fraud now what's the danger why not give it to them by the way most of this information is public the danger is this we

is done specifically kobach who by the way has kept his title as secretary of state of kansas and is running for governor there while he's on the presidential commission and he's also by the way kept a third hat he is counsel to a group called fair which is a guess what white supremacist organization he has these three titles and what he's done with the list before for example has created what we've talked about on this program something called interstate cross-check where he hunts for double voters if people vote in two states in the same election yeah that's a crime put him in jail but what he's done is he's created a list ready seven point two million names of suspects of people who are suspected of voting twice this is where ronald because they were all rated this were donald trump has said that there are three million illegal double voters because those seven million names those are three million pairs of names like james brown. who they say are voting twice in the evidence and i have those lists tom i'm the only journalist who asked for the list and got them. you know it's jame

this is from kobach's letter. quote, any documents that are submitted to the commission will also be made available to the public. oh, good. they're going to publish everything on everyone. 200 million people, no problem. here is everything. now chris kobach later told local kansas reporters he didn't really mean that part of the letter. he told them that the personal data would be hosted on a secure server run by the federal government. it wouldn't actually be disclosed to the government despite what he told the secretaries of state. okay. this universal file of every single american's voting records that chris kobach is making for the trump administration, he is now telling reporters even though he says otherwise in writing, he is now telling reporters it's going to be super secure, don't worry. he is going to keep everything really secure. at least as secure as he kept that memo that he brought to the president. at least as secure as that. maybe even more secure. what are they up to here? what is this about? i

i keep mentioning kobach, vice chairman, chairman is the vice president, kobach, as kansas secretary of state and guy with long with this and filing declaration with the court will end up talking about the most in case. look, the goal of this commission was exactly what the caller said, to put this to rest. up finding no voter fraud, they find no voter fraud, barriers to lots of access, they find reverse, they find the reverse, i guess one you hear democrats in particular saying is that they tweets he president's from i guess six, seven months ago at this point, they don't commission can be even-handed in its investigation so they say they are going to they are looking for, even if it is not really there. national democratic committee set up counter commission to look at pecifically voter barriers to voting and both of them, the the president's commission has a meeting on july ish of this month and d.n.c. planning first panel activities on the same thing. from tyler, texas, essie, go ahead. in texas, good morning. here in texas, they have redrawn lines a whole gomer that is why we go

kris kobach at this commission already signaling that he's going for proof of citizenship that's not an easy thing to do if we're not red china we don't have citizenship cards we have passports but you know that's that's one of those racially biased weighted documents that we have in america not many poor folk that is blue folk have passports so and to boost that by the way one character i want to take note of this little this little coven of votes suppressors called the integrity commission the election degre commission is hond violence because ski and spot kosky is the guy who came up with the with the canard that one million mexicans swam the rio grande. on day to vote for hillary clinton and that's from spike koskie so to have this joker who is called a professor he's a professor nowhere by the way he works for the heritage foundation he gets coke money but he you know the professorship he ain't. anyway the so-called professor came up with the specious statistic saying that one million mexicans voted illegally in election unfortunately they can't seem to find any to arrest for fo

kobach's critics say he has a long record of employing voter suppression tactics.s kansas secretary of state and -- on tuesday, four leading house democrats wrote to vice-president mike pence requesting that kobach resign his post, citing his record and the commission's request for voter data, which they say violates federal privacy laws. well, for more, we're joined by katherine culliton-gonzalez, a civil rights lawyer and senior counsel at demos. her recent blog post for the website, also published on la opinion, is titled, "immigration data that trump's "election integrity" commission may use is a pre to suppress latino voting -- pretext to suppress latino voting rights." talk about the significance of this commission and all of these latest developments, at least 45 states refusing to comply in with kris full with kris kobach's information and then a lawsuit we hear the trump administration said when asked where they would store these records,of millions of they said, on vice president pence's computer. he is the chchair of the commission. seva gunitsky >> we h

like you said it's a rogue's gallery of votes suppressors and chris kobach is probably the vote seat in chief in the united states he's the guy that helps swing the swing states for trump in by simply suppressing the votes of minority of minority voters and so now he's been promoting big time in that first meeting of these election taggerty commission his plan to take the cross check system nationwide now we've talked about that before that's his claim that there are that you know trumps claim that there are three million voters voting twice the list of those three million double voters was created by this kris kobach i have the list they try to keep it secret from me but i've got the list and it's names like you know james edward brown who's both lee voted again as james thomas brown in another state it's about people that are registered to states voting twice in in the same election it just happens to be common names of african-americans age. the national weather service in mount holly new jersey has issued a severe thunderstorm warning four hundred county in northwestern new jerse

amy: that was kansas secretary kobach.s in february he again claimed there was widespread fraud in the presidential election. >> of the 30 states we have about 3 million people registered in more than one state. >> and closing -- including the president's son-in-law and secretary treasury. >> and many of your viewers, but what is a crime is if you actually vote in those states. a crime but this is where's the evidence of this widespread millions of people voting? why haven't we seen it? >> actually, maybe, i don't know if your network has covered it but in my state, people voting in kansas and other states, my office prosecutes it. >> on the notes i saw, you have nine cases. six guilty pleas and two pending since january 25. nine cases does not rampant make.read voter fraud amy: that wawas cnn anchor kaate golden. >> he is a leader of voter suppression movements nationwide. he has been going around the country trying to put into place suppressing voter laws. one law they have in place in kansas is proof of citizenship for

hand it over to the trump administration, hand it over to chris kobach.the answer to that letter from chris kabach so far is no it's been kind of an outcry from election officials, it's been a sort of subtle secretary of state little thing to behold today t. no response started with connecticut, the secretary of state there said she would only hand over data that was only public and nothing more. >> that started a cascade of other states saying, no, mississippi got its share hoff headlines when their secretary of state said chris kobach and his voigting commission can and quote go jump in the gulf of many excolorado mississippi not only said no, they said they can go jump in the gulf of mexico. >> that exact phrase was in the state official response. even chris kobach himself as secretary of state if kansas, he doesn't intend to comply with his own request. he initially told reporters in kansas, of course, he'd send this zsa that. today he said, actually he's not going to hand over all the social security numbers. at least not yet. what do they want to do

in early june and weeks later chris kobach announced that he was running for governor of kansas.f the way chris kobach has used his official role as vice-chair of this commission to promote his gubernatorial run. the hatch act prohibits this kind of conduct and we believe that we have set forth extensive evidence that shows that chris kobach is using everything that he does with this commission so that he can ultimately secure that gubernatorial position in kansas. we think it's unlawful, but more importantly, we believe that this commission is a dangerous and unprecedented attempt to promote voter suppression across our country. it's dangerous and we encourage states across the country not to participate or turn over data to this commission. >> now, when they have named it the integrity commission, i mean, the integrity commission in and of itself i found very interesting because they are really trying to claim that there were millions of fraudulent votes that no one has seen but them. i mean, it's largely been in their heads and if there was integrity involved you would have to

kobach: commissioner? >> i would like to make two suggestions to deal with collecting the data on what judge king and secretary gardner are expressing concern over, which i certainly share. one, i think it would behoove the commission to ask of the state to provide data on what kind of voting equipment they use in a state, and what the lifetime, the predicted lifetime is of that equipment and how far along they are with it. that will give us an idea of what the needs of the states will be in that area. mr. spakovsky: and second, i would recommend to the staff collect for the members of the commission, data from the u.s. census bureau. the u.s. census bureau does surveys after federal elections of individuals who did not vote and did not register to vote. and the surveys go into very extensive detail of trying to find out why did they not register and why didn't they vote. that data is very, very useful for answering the questions that secretary gardener raised. because the possible answers that are given o

kobach's history of refuse at to apply. just yesterday the president added someone else to his election integrity commission, who has a history of making false unsupported claims of voter fraud. yeah. could save thousands. you should probably buy me dinner. pappa's eatin' steak tonight. no. at lendingtree, shop and compare loan offers from top lenders and in just 5 minutes, you could save thousands. lendingtree, when banks compete, you win. i love date night. somebody's ruining it. yeah. well you could leave if you wanted to? >>> we have an honor system in the united states when it comes to voter registration and voting, states do almost nothing to verify the accuracy of the information they get when you register to vote. they don't check to make sure you're a real person, they don't check your i.d., they take the information they get on voter registration forms put it into the system and you are promptly registered to vote. >> the newest member of president trump's commission on election integrity. he's the one who's gotte

kobach's history of refuse at to apply. just yesterday the president added someone else to his election integrity commission, who has a history of making false unsupported claims of voter fraud. introducing the new sleep number 360 smart bed. the only bed smart enough to change sleep as we know it. it senses your every move and automatically adjusts on both sides to keep you comfortable. and snoring.... does your bed do that? right now save on sleep number 360 smart beds. plus, it's the lowest prices of the season with savings of $500 on our most popular p5 bed. ends saturday. >>> we have an honor system in the united states when it comes to voter registration and voting, states do almost nothing to verify the accuracy of the information they get when you register to vote. they don't check to make sure you're a real person, they don't check your i.d., they take the information they get on voter registration forms put it into the system and you are promptly registered to vote. >> the newest member of president trump's commis

pence, kris kobach is a lightning rod in terms of voting rights advocates.eft really believe that he has really advanced voter suppression efforts in his state and they fear he's trying to do that in the rest of the states and in terms of the congressional black caucus, one of the groups that voting rights groups fear are for minorities and these proposals will disproportionately affect minorities. >> we got this group of ten gop senators who sent the letter to majority leader mcconnell yesterday asking for august recess to be canceled because they want time to work on the major agenda items. what do you think? is that going to happen? paul, you first. >> no. no. congress doesn't do anything without a deadline. the minute leader mcconnell moves his deadline, that is, by canceling the recess and saying we'll work through august, everything on the agenda just moves back another month. there's no reason for mcconnell to cancel this deadline now until we get to the day before recess and then he can say i'm going to keep you a couple extra days but no, i can't im

it's been making a lot of news over the past few days because the person in charge of it, kris kobach to send this letter to elections officials in all 50 states asking those elections officials to give up personal information for every single voter registered to vote in all of those states. for every voter in every state he wants full names, addresses, date of birth, political party, the last four digits of your social security number, your voting history back to 2006, pretty much everything short of what you ate for breakfast every day you ever voted and whether or not you liked it. should all of those pieces of information really all be colatd in one convenient place for everybody in the country? really? before today, even as there has been increasing upset over that request to the states, before today it had been an open question as to what exactly the white house intended to do with all this data, where they planned to keep all of this super personal information about every single voter in america. today we got our answer. "washington post" reports according to kris kobach all th

he's chairing the commission with kris kobach. stirred big controversy when he requested on behalf of the commission last month that all 50 states turn over some pretty detailed voter information. many states run by democrat and republican alike simply refused the request. cnn's diane galler wi er willag following the work on the commission. what are they working on today? >> vice president mike pence, you saw him there introduce president trump. here he is. >> please be seated. mr. vice president, distinguished guests and members of the media, i'm honored to welcome you here as the bipartisan t shl advisory commission on election integrity prepares to conduct its first official meeting, very, very important. in this commission is tasked with the say credit duty of upholding the integrity of the ballot box and the principle of one citizen, one vote. every time voter fraud occurs it canceled out the vote of a lawful citizen and undermines democracy. you can't let that happen. any form of illegal or fraudulent voting whether by non-

"washington post" reports that according to kris kobach, all that voter information for every voter in country will be stored on white house computers under the direction of a member of the vice president's staff. well, that's fine, then. this past year, we now know in an attack that continued right up until days before the election, russian hackers tried to access voter data from individual states. they suck sisfully broke into multiple states' voter registration systems. that is a scary thing to hear about in terms of the integrity of our elections. what's always been the silver lining, the thing that makes stealing elections so hard to do in this country, is that every state hassis o its own system, own database where they store information in different ways. hackers would have to crack 50 different systems. that's been a safeguard thus far. and the feeling that that safeguard might be endangered is what's been rumbling underneath this news that the white house wants to put all that information about every single voter in all 50 states all in one place, on a white house server. what

i also want to thank kansas secretary of state kris kobach for serving as vice chair.going to be a lot of work. they are going to work very hard over a fairly short period of time. i want to thank you both very much, kris, mike. this is a bipartisan panel consisting of both republican and democratic leaders and experts on voter integrity. i would like to personally thank each of our panel members for serving, really do appreciate it. in addition to the chair and vice chair, this distinguished bipartisan panel includes indiana secretary of state connie lawson. thank you. new hampshire secretary of state bill gardner. thank you. maine secretary of state matthew dunlop. former ohio secretary of state ken blackwell. election assistance commissioner christy mccormick. former arkansas state representative david dunne. thank you, david. wood county, west virginia clerk mark rhodes. heritage foundation and manager of the election law reform initiative, a real export, hans van spou cow ski. and president and general counsel of the public interest legal foundation, great group,

something else happened the day that kris kobach sent that information.that is more important than your social number ending up in mike pence's office. that other thing that happened, that same day, that's next. steve was born to move. over the course of 9 days he walks 26.2 miles. that's a marathon. because he chooses to walk whenever he can. and he does it with support from dr. scholl's. only dr. scholl's has massaging gel insoles that provide all-day comfort to keep him feeling more energized. so he even has the energy to take the long way home. keep it up, steve! dr. scholl's. born to move. if you've got a life, you gotta swiffer governor jeb bush paid a private company to purify florida's voter rolls. eliminate duplicate people. the resulting list was full of mistakes. the state ended up wrongly purging people off the rolls who should have been allowed to vote. they purged african-american voters. because this was florida in 2000, because jeb's brother ended up winning by just over 500 votes, the decision to kick those thousands of people off the rol

it's day three of four days of the revolt in indianapolis against the kobach commission on so-calledoter fraud. 37 members of the national association of secretaries of state assembled today in indiana's capital, and much of the talk is about resistance to the president's commission on, quote, election integrity, which sent a letter this week demanding personal information about voters in all 50 states. >> we're not going to hand over any private protected information by state law, and that includes birth dates and social security numbers. >> there's not enough bourbon in kentucky to make this request seem palatable. indeed, it's been about as welcome across the united states as a breeze from an outhouse. >> there is no systemic massive voter fraud of the kind that the president has discussed. >> included among the kobach commission's demands made on all 50 states are these, addresses, date of birth, political party, last four dinggits of social security number, voter history, data on citizens living overseas. trump signed an executive order on may 11th to create the commission on vo

i also want to thank kansas secretary of state brisco bok -- kobach first serving as vice chair. this is a bipartisan panel consisting of republican and democratic leaders and experts on voter integrity. i would like to personally thank each of our panel members for serving. really do appreciate it. in addition to the chair and vice chair, this distinguished bipartisan panel includes indiana secretary of state conny , newon -- connie lawson hampshire secretary of state you, mainer, thank secretary of state matthew dunlop, former ohio secretary of blackwell, election assistance commission or formere mccormick, arkansas state representative david dunn, thank you, david, wood county, west virginia clerk , heritage foundation senior legal fellow and manager of the election law reform ,nitiative, a real expert hansots perkowski -- perkowski. and alan king. think you very much. each of you has been entrusted with a great responsibility of helping to advance the cause of fair, honest and lawful elections. your work will help protect our democracy. this will be a very transparent process

the letter was signed by secretary kobach, not the vice president. it was a dangerous request, and invasion of privacy for every voter in america. california was one of the first but thankfully we were not the only state to push back and say no. since then you've seen republican and democratic secretaries alike push back on this dangerous request for sensitive voter data on all americans. just yesterday in court papers the commission has admitted that what you did tend to do with the data they can collect? they want to start a white house come have white house computers and personal have direct access to this data. that's unacceptable and it's dangerous. it violates privacy. it violates voting rights and he goes contrary to every cybersecurity recommendation in. >> would give you. i know california has spoken. californians have spoken. we do not what our sensitive personal information in the hands of trump, and anybody whose purpose is to dismantle voting rights in america. and i as secretary of state on behalf of many, many of my colleagues will not

one of kobach's points is that most of this information is publicly available and the states that aret waiting to see what they need to provide. i want to get your take on this because there are some republican secretaries who are saying, washington, d.c., is not getting hold of my information. >> of course, republican governors that have said that, they are taking a slates rates approach to this, saying, look,l government screws up everything it touches, you're nt involved in this. we jealously guard this part of elections and we are not going to let the federal government ruin it. and, by the way, i applaud that, because that is the way the framers intended the balance between state government and federal government. but that aside, i think governor kobach is trying to do here, he is trying to audit, it certainly donald trump wants, he wants to audit this. he wants to see about this problem is. and the point that zac made about lightning, getting struck by lightning, that is bogus. we know how many people get struck by lightning. we have no idea how many people are, you know, commit

the co-chair of the commission, secretary kobach has been known to tell big fish tales over time andhat's expected out of this is that he's looking for information to confirm his pre-conceived notions that there's widespread voter fraud out there that something that the secretaries who actually run elections in their states and their local election officials who are even closer to the ground have repeated lead said just doesn't exist and so i think people are starting to recognize that this commission really isn't conducting a legitimate investigation that they have no responsibility to cover the pretext. >> the call is about integrity and paul, from a legal standpoint, the issues involved here can the courts stop this from happening? >> tom a we know there's a huge issue of integrity with the 2016 presidential elections and namely that the russians tried to subvert our democracy and yet when the president meets with the russian head of state, putin says oh, it's an honor to meet you. >> we don't have a significant legal problem with voter fraud. i did public corruption cases with th

the. >> kobach has zellously fought this at home. he is a champion for voter i.d. and he was fined by a federal judge in kansas just last week for his conduct in a lawsuit involving voting rights. connecticut's take, i have been go secretary kobach's history, we find it very difficult to find confidence m the woin the this commission. there is no credible evidence there has ever been a widespread voter problem. that is adding clearly to the hesitancy of many of these states. tom foreman, cnn, washington. >> what do republican voters think of the gop health care bills? >> the polling is bad. as we found out, sitting down with republican voters, they are putting congress on notice. >>> as republicans, raise your hand if you want to see democrats and republicans work together and come up with something different than the senate and the house have put forth? >> that's an easy one there. this is the president that wrote "the art of the deal." get in and make a deal. >>> this week, cnn sat down with a group of voters and we wanted to understand their views on the preside

i also want to thank kansas secretary of state kris kobach for serving as vice-chair. it will be a lot of work. they will work very hard over fairly short period of time. i want to thank you both much,r. chris, mike. there is bipartisan panel consisting of both republican and democratic leaders and experts on voter integrity.. i would like to personally thank each of our panel members for serving. really do appreciate it. in addition to the chair and vice-chair, this distinguished bipartisan panel includes indiana secretary of state connie lawson. thank you. new hampshire secretary of state bill gardner. thank you. maine secretary of state matthew dunlap. former ohio secretary of state ken blackwell.ll, election assistance commissioner christie mccormack. former arkansas state representative david dunne. thank you, david. wood county, west again i can't clerk, mark rhodes. heritage foundation senior legal fellow and manager of the election law reform initiative, a real expert, hanz spakowski. president and general counsel of the public interest legal fonddation, great

the commission co-chair, kansas secretary of state kris kobach, who is a republican, says the countryerves a "hard, dispassionate" look at the issue. >> for a long time, there has been lingering doubt among many americans about integrity and fairness of elections. and it's not a new issue at all. if you look at polling data, it goes back decades. >> brangham: the panel is chaired by vice president pence, and, in addition to kobach, members include current and former secretaries of state from indiana, new hampshire, maine and ohio, among others. but critics of the commission warn that stoking fears of alleged fraud will be used later to justify a crackdown on voting rights. rick hasen is a law professor at the university of california, irvine, and election-law expert. >> i'm concerned that it's going to be something that is just going to try to support the president's agenda, claiming that there's a lot of voter fraud, and use that to make it harder for people to be able to register to vote. >> brangham: already, the commission is facing at least seven lawsuits questioning its transpar

. >> reporter: to help steer his commission, he chose kansas secretary of state kris kobach, who callscomplete nonsense. >> we're looking at all forms of election irregularities, voter fraud, registration fraud, voter intimidation, suppression. >> reporter: kobach has zealously hunted vote cheaters back home for month, yet he's found less than a dozen provable cases out of a million and a half registered voters. he was fined by a federal judge in kansas just last week for his conduct in a lawsuit involving voting rights. connecticut's take? given secretary kobach's history, we find it very difficult to have confidence in the work of this commission. among the states raising questions about whether or not they can legally even comply with this is the vice president's own home state of indiana. with so much resistance, it's hard to see if this plan can even work at this point. anderson? >> tom, thanks very much. >>> up next, president trump is fond of taking credit for a new coal mine in pennsylvania even though it got approval before he took office. i'm keeping him honest ahead. david.

for bid releasing some of that data, especially any portion of a voter's social security number, kobachar right website, saying the commission didn't request that information. really? look at his letter to the states. while kobach noted some laws might prevent it, he did indeed ask for the last four digits of social security number if available. now, this whole dispute could be moot if the court sides with that privacy group. a ruling could come this week. but either way, it's hard to see how this effort will move forward effectively with so many states raising red flags about their willingness or legal ability to cooperate. jim? >> tom foreman, thanks very much. lots to talk about today with my panel. jack kingson, if i could start with you on the voter panel. one of several republicans pushed back on very strong terms with this request, he said very quotably, the election panel can go jump in the gulf of mexico. he says it violates privacy and states' rights to run their own elections. why is the president pushing for this election when there is so much bipartisan pushback? >> i think

it is shameful and despicable, ali. >> part of this is being pushed by chris kobach, the secretary of. >> yep. >> who has tried to do this. you are looking at him on the screen. he has tried to do this. he used as proof an example of a man who he said had died a long time ago but had voted on a recent election. it turns out that the guy was very much alive and it was his father who had died. this is just not proving to be a successful venture. >> greg palace, the journalist, has been talking about the whole idea of cross-checking. they're saying, if there is a roland martin in texas and michigan, oh, that must be the same person, so they're challenging it. mothers jones has a piece about three conservatives, one from virginia, one trump just put on this commission, what they are doing is sending legal notices to small towns in mississippi who can't afford a legal battle saying purge your roles. they can't afford it. this is a part of republican strategy. col there was a guy whose last name was smith. segregations in virginia. he wouldn't even have a committee hearing during the civil

information center sued to halt the requests for voter data made by kansas secretary of state kris kobach, as part of the presidential advisory commission on election integrity. he is the vice chair. kobach's request would gather the names, addresses, birth dates, social security numbers, party affiliations, and felony conviction records of virtually all u.s. voters. critics say the white house plans to use the data for large-scale voter suppression, and at least 44 states have said they will not comply with kobach's request. at the united nations, more than 120 countries are posed today to -- poised today to adopt a first-ever treaty banning the possession, use, and threat of nuclear weapons. the landmark deal was negotiated without the participation of any of the world's nine nuclear-armed states or their allies, with the exception of the netherlands. the nuclear ban is based on humanitarian law, and its authors note that just one% of -- 1% of the world's nuclear weapons are enough to devastate the natural world and could lead to humanity's extinction. in the sea of japan, south korean

even chris kobach as secretary of state in kansas, he doesn't intend to comply with his own request.ially told reports in kansas city he would send all of the data and today he said he's not going to hand over the social security numbers, at least not yet. what do they want to do with all of this particular and personally identifying data on every single registered voter in the entire country? look at. this this is from his letter. quote, any documents that are submitted to the commission will also be made available to the public. oh, good. so they're going to publish everything on everyone. 200 million people. no problem. here is everything. now chris kobach told reporters that he didn't mean that data but it would be hosted on a secure service run by the federal government and it wouldn't be disclosed to the public despite what he told the secretaries of state. okay. this universal file of every single american's voting reports that that he is making for the trump administration, he's now telling reporters even though he said other wise in writing, he's now telling reporters it is

i understand the kansas secretary of state, kris kobach, isn't actually there at the meeting.hat's been the reaction to that? >> it's a surprise on the part of many that he so conspicuously absent. he's been on this mission of his to root out voter fraud that simply isn't there. he's named as co-chair of the commission, who, you know, first step is to conduct this invasive data request before the commission has even met or established the procedures and the protocols for how they're going to operate. clearly not in a transparent format, and for him to avoid this conference, this gathering of these secretaries of state, the elections officials for all 50 states in the country, it's, you know, what does he have to hide? why isn't he here? >> so, just correct me if i'm wrong, but are you essentially saying that kris kobach is hiding from the secretaries of state of the united states of america? >> well, i can tell you this, if he was genuine about wanting to work with states to improve not just the integrity of our elections but the strength of our democracy, and the voter experi

a disciplinary office for kansas' supreme court is now investigating kobach showing a lack of respect fine that he misled the court. he violated federal law by using his position as vice chair to further his campaign for kansas governor. then there was the headline from a few days ago thanks to e-mails released against the aclu that he wanted to require that people show proof of citizenship in order to register to vote. and we can't forget about all the states rejecting the commission's request for voter role data, including his own state of kansas, which is rejecting a part of the request. joining me now to talk about this, a man who is very passionate about voting rights. rolan martin. rolan, this thing is turning around on chris kobach and donald trump because what started as an effort to prove donald trump's unsubstantiated claim that millions of people voted illegally, we do have voting problems in this country and it's largeby because of restrictive voting things that guys like chris kobach are trying to put into place. >> this commission on voter fraud is a fraudulent commissio

the fact that he is on this commission, the fact that kris kobach is on it shows it has nothing to doter fraud, this is a committee designed for one purpose, to suppress the vote in advance of the 2018 and 2020 elections. >> people forget in the george w. bush administration, the u.s. attorney firing scandal was u.s. attorneys fired for refusing to find and prosecute phony voter fraud cases. they've done this before. >> they did a massive v investigation into voter fraud, didn't find a single person of someone impersonating another at the polls, i think the trump administration is a dramatic escalation of this. we have seen states like wisconsin and texas and north carolina suppress the vote. you talked about this extensively on the show. now they're trying to do it at the federal level, trying to use the resources of the federal government. it is the beginning of this voter suppression effort and why it is so disturbing. >> clear kobach got in with trump because he gave him what he wanted, a way to claim he won the popular vote. what he wants is some weird documentary proof something

kris kobach, vice chair of the panel, disputed the existence of resistance. is this setting up a legal showdown between states and federal officials over the integrity of our elections? eric, last segment, you made a very rational and understandable point that for president trump the 26th 202016 election is ine rearview mirror. >> eric: i spent the majority of today trying to figure out why they are making this portion i can only think that they're looking forward to 2018 and certainly 2020 for reelection. remember, this could be solved if we push through a voter i.d. law. >> eboni: we can say it's not going to happen. >> eric: in the absence of that, all they are requesting is publicly available information. >> eboni: social security numbers and things like that? >> eric: okay, you want to guarantee the integrity of the voting process. as you aptly point out, why now, why this? >> eboni: kat, i will go to you. we know the statistic. dead voters on the roles, even if that's the case, let's say we concede that point but doesn't justify what people feel is an i

and it is not just secretary kobach. look at the other appointees of the commission. ken blackwell, j christian adams, these gentlemen have, it is clearly been documented, have spent decades working to roll back the clock on voting rights. they are going backward on voter registration, the voting rights act itself. you know, when the commission -- even before meeting, by the way, first sent a letter to state requesting an unprecedented amount of personal information on every voter in america, the letter was signed by secretary , not the vice president. it was a dangerous request, and an invasion of privacy for every voter in america. california was one of the first, but thankfully, we are not by far the only state to push back and say no. you have seen republican and democratic secretaries alike push back on this dangerous request for sensitive voter data on all americans. just yesterday, in court papers, the commission has admitted that what do they intend to do with the data they can collect? they want to start, on white -- store it on white house that is unacceptab

chair kobach: there is a motion and a second. actually, one of the items in the bylaws is that we don't require a second. [laughter] chair kobach: so mr. blackwell and mr. adams moved and seconded respectively. now the issues before the commission, is there any discussion of the by-laws? -- bylaws? they seem to straightforward to me, as well. is there a move to call at will? if there is no discussion we can call the question. the question is called, all those in favor of the -- of adopting the bylaws say aye. opposed, say nay. the bylaws of been adopted unanimously. the next topic is a forward-looking question and , that is what topics might the commission wish to address in future meetings? i took the liberty of just putting together some ideas on paper, just as a starting point. and that is all this is, just to get the discussion moving. i will pass these up to people and read them into the record. again, this is nothing more than a topic -- my thoughts on a topic. i would invite any additions or deletions or we can scrap it en

kris kobach, christian, and hance vonn spakovsky. superteam of vote suppressers are working to nationalize their attacks on voting rights all to substantiate his invented ideas of voter fraud and a rigged election. first he'll have to get after a wall of opposition in the form of seven separate lawsuits. the most recent one coming from the naacp legal defense fund which claims in its lawsuit, quote, the work of the commission as described by its cochairs are grounded on the false premise that black and latino voters are more likely to perpetuate voter fraud. joining me now is president and ceo of the naacp legal defense fund. no two better people to talk to on this issue. i want to put this back of of the so-called injustice league. all of whom have a history on this matter. and play you one of them. kris kobach saying something pretty extraordinary to our own katy tur. >> you think that maybe hillary clinton did not win the popular vote. >> we may not know the answer to the question. >> really? you really believe that? >> let's supp