In a recent trio of posts to X, Elon Musk wrote that (1) illegal immigrants “are not prevented from voting in federal elections,” (2) “you don’t need government-issued ID to vote,” and (3) Democrats “are importing voters.”

To rebut those statements, the New York Times published an article by Jim Rutenberg and Kate Conger claiming that Musk is “spreading election misinformation” about “illegal voting by noncitizens” and echoing a “conspiracy theory” spread by Donald Trump.

While Musk’s words are imprecise, the gist of what he wrote is correct, and the Times is categorically wrong.

Illegal Voter Registration

In response to Musk’s first two points, the Times argues that “federal law requires identification verification from voters when they register.” The hyperlink in that sentence leads to a document by the liberal Brennan Center for Justice claiming that “new identification requirements” in a 2002 federal voting law “may severely threaten voters’ rights….”

What the Times fails to reveal is that the Brennan Center document describes the identification requirements in the law, which don’t require government-issued ID or proof of citizenship—just as Musk wrote. The document notes that even a “utility bill” or “bank statement” is enough to comply with the law. The text of the 2002 legislation and the current U.S. election code law confirm this.

Furthermore, a 2013 Supreme Court ruling supports Musk and contradicts the Times by explaining that the National Voter Registration Form “does not require documentary evidence of citizenship; rather, it requires only that an applicant aver, under penalty of perjury, that he is a citizen.”

In fact, the Court’s 2013 ruling blocked the state of Arizona from requiring “documentary proof of citizenship” to register to vote. Likewise, a 2020 appeals court ruling prohibited other states from doing the same, and the Obama administration filed a brief arguing for that outcome.

To be clear, federal law and the laws of all 50 states require people to be U.S. citizens in order to register to vote in federal elections, and federal law forbids people from falsely claiming citizenship to register to vote. Penalties for lying about this include up to five years in prison. However, enforcement mechanisms for such laws are limited, and opportunities to get around them are ample.

The situation was summarized by Barack Obama shortly before the 2016 U.S. presidential election when actress Gina Rodriguez asked him if “Dreamers” and “undocumented citizens” would be deported if they voted. Obama replied:

Not true. And the reason is, first of all, when you vote, you are a citizen yourself. And there is not a situation where the voting rolls somehow are transferred over, and people start investigating, etcetera.

After dodging the fact that “Dreamers” and “undocumented immigrants” are not citizens, Obama’s clear message was that there is no effective way to enforce the law that prohibits them from voting.

And when President Trump’s Advisory Commission on Election Integrity asked the states for “detailed, publicly available voter-roll data” that could be cross-checked against other databases with information on citizenship status, states refused to turn over the data and filed a flurry of lawsuits to stop the commission. In the words of California’s Secretary of State:

While the commission is allowed to request the personal data of California voters, they cannot compel me to provide it. Let me reassure California voters: I will not provide the Commission with any personal voter data. …

Yesterday’s ruling is merely the first in a string of lawsuits challenging the Commission. Those lawsuits send a strong message—the Commission will face opposition at every step of the way from those who are fighting to protect our voting rights, our privacy, and our democratic principles.

Note that California alleged the commission asked for “personal data,” but in reality, the commission explicitly requested “publicly available voter-roll data.”

California’s deceptive refusal of the request and the ample openings for non-citizens to vote take on added significance in light of the following testimony by California Senate Leader and Democrat Kevin De Leon in 2017:

I can tell you half of my family would be eligible for deportation under [Trump’s] executive order, because if they got a false Social Security card, if they got a false identification, if they got a false driver’s license … if they got a false green card. And anyone who has family members who are undocumented knows that almost entirely everybody has secured some sort of false identification.

Illegal Voting

The Times also alleges that “instances of illegal voting by noncitizens are rare” and supports that claim with a link to PolitiFact—an outfit with a record of publishing flagrant falsehoods on illegal voting and many other issues.

Although data on violations of laws with weak enforcement mechanisms are rare, scientific surveys of non-citizens have found that roughly:

· 13% of Hispanic non-citizens admitted they were registered to vote in 2013.

· 14% of all non-citizens admitted they were registered to vote in 2012, and 9% stated “I definitely voted” in the 2012 U.S. presidential election.

· 15% of all non-citizens admitted they were registered to vote in 2008, and 8% stated “I definitely voted” in the 2008 U.S. presidential election.

Those rates are only for self-admitted actions, and database matches with voting and registration records show the actual rates are about twice as high. In 2008, the one year for which Just Facts has full data, 27% of non-citizens were registered to vote, and 16% of them actually voted.

The studies that yielded the data above have significant margins of error due to relatively small sample sizes, and there are other sources of uncertainty—some of which may produce overcounts and some undercounts. But given that the Census Bureau estimates there are about 20 million non-citizen adults living in the U.S., a million illegal votes will be cast in every federal election if only 5% of them vote.

As summarized by a 2014 paper in the scholarly journal Electoral Studies, “some non-citizens participate in U.S. elections,” and “this participation has been large enough to change meaningful election outcomes including Electoral College votes, and Congressional elections.”

Some media outlets and “fact checkers” have tried to contest those realities, but a multitude of facts from academic books and journals have shown that their arguments consist of mathematically illiterate notions, half-truths, and outright falsehoods. On top of this, one “fact checker” leveled slanderous accusations against Ph.D. scholars who conducted and vetted seminal studies on this matter.

“The Great Replacement”

The Times also asserts “Musk implied that Mr. Biden and the Democrats were being lax on immigration because ‘they are importing voters,’ an echo of the ‘great replacement’ conspiracy theory that Mr. Trump was sharing around the same time.”

The hyperlink in that sentence leads to another Times article that blames Republicans for spreading a “Great Replacement” narrative “used to justify an act of racist violence” in a mass murder of 10 people in a Buffalo supermarket in 2022.

The Times and other media outlets tar Republicans with such guilt-by-association tactics. However, the press gives itself a pass when similar atrocities are committed by people who parrot their false narratives.

The Times article doesn’t even attempt to rebut Musk’s point but simply calls it a “conspiracy.” However, multiple facts prove that what Musk wrote is true.

For example, 82% of non-citizens who said they voted in 2008 stated that they voted for Democrat Barack Obama, while only 18% said they voted for Republican John McCain.

Citing figures that would dwarf the number of non-citizens who vote illegally, Eliseo Medina, a former executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union, stated in a 2009 speech that:

· the “progressive community” can “expand and solidify the progressive coalition for the future” by putting “12 million” unauthorized immigrants “on the path to citizenship and eventually voting.”

· turning illegal immigrants into citizens will create a progressive “governing coalition for the long term, not just for an election cycle.”

Illegal immigrants and other non-citizens generally have low incomes and exceptionally high rates of not having a high school diploma. The majority of people with these attributes vote for Democrats.

The lopsided votes of non-citizens for Democrats are consistent with the promises and actions of Democrat politicians to give free healthcare, amnesty, and citizenship to people who immigrate to the United States, illegally or legally. The electoral implications of this are further highlighted by facts like these:

· A nationally representative bilingual poll of 784 immigrant Latinos conducted by Pew Research in 2011 found that 81% said they would prefer “a bigger government providing more services,” and 12% said they would prefer “a smaller government with fewer services.” In stark contrast, 41% of the general U.S. population said they would prefer a bigger government, and 48% said they want a smaller one.

· A 2012 poll of 2,900 immigrants who were U.S. citizens found that 62% identified as Democrats, 25% as Republicans, and 13% as Independents.

· A nationally representative bilingual poll of 800 Hispanic adults conducted by McLaughlin & Associates in 2013 found that 59% were born outside the U.S., 53% considered themselves to be Democrats, 12% considered themselves to be Republicans, and 29% considered themselves to be independents or another party.

The fact that illegal immigration, amnesty, and legal immigration help the political prospects of Democrats is incontestable, not a conspiracy.

Conclusion

Beyond attacking Musk for posting genuine facts about illegal voting by non-citizens, the Times article complains that “X’s fact checkers are long gone” and that the previous “complaint line between the [Biden] campaign and the platform is dead.”

The Times bemoans those developments while failing to report that pre-Musk Twitter censored genuine facts and promoted demonstrable falsehoods about Russiagate, Hunter Biden’s laptop, Covid-19, and more.

In short, the New York Times is falsely accusing Elon Musk of the very thing that the Times and the previous owners of Twitter are guilty of—spreading misinformation.

*****

This article was published at Just Facts Daily and is reproduced with permission.

The FBI is reducing hiring standards to the point where it is considering overweight applicants and hiring barely literate agents, a group of current and former FBI agents and analysts allege.

In a report delivered to the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees, the FBI officials describe how Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is being prioritized in the hiring process to the point where standards are being reduced for physical fitness, drug usage, finances, mental health, experience, and integrity, the report states. (RELATED: Empower Oversight Accuses FBI Of Illegal Retaliation Against Suspended Whistleblower Marcus Allen)

READ THE REPORT:

“To more easily accommodate a larger pool of available applicants, FBI Special Agent hiring standards have been relaxed and requirements measurably lowered in categories that include physical fitness, illicit drug use, financial irregularities, mental health, full-time work experience, and integrity,” the report asserts. The New York Post first reported on the FBI hiring document.

The current and former FBI agents and analysts received the anecdotes described in the report from 20 sources and sub-sources who are either currently employed by the FBI or retired. (RELATED: FBI Investigation Of Alleged Child Predator Was ‘Halted’ To Hunt Down January 6 Rioters, Court Docs Show)

Many of the sources and sub-sources had first-hand knowledge of the information and are all highly credible, according to the report. Sources and sub-sources are protected by code names to shield them from FBI retaliation.

Reduced hiring standards have allowed applicants to advance through the FBI’s hiring process despite struggling with relaxed fitness standards, multiple credible sources cited in the report said.

For example, one of the sources “disqualified another applicant because she was more than 50 pounds overweight using the FBI’s body fat index and could not pass the PFT,” according to the report. However, the FBI headquarters instructed the source to continue considering the candidate, the report alleges.

The overweight candidate was a black woman who allegedly told the source she “hates working out and was never active” despite the physical requirements for being in the FBI.

One 20-year FBI veteran with experience teaching New Agent Trainees (NATs) stated “NATs often fail to utilize proper capitalization, punctuation, and sentence structure,” the report states. Conversations with the source took place over the course of years, and the individual’s reliability was verified.

All new FBI agents and intelligence analysts are subject to more than 800 hours of training in academics, firearms, operations, and case exercises at the FBI academy.

DEI hires are being selected over higher quality candidates, and the FBI employees running the hiring process are being chosen for their DEI credentials, according to the report.

“FBI Special Agent DEI hires are selected over other FBI Special Agent candidates who are more qualified based on criteria unrelated to DEI priorities,” the report alleges. “FBI Special Agent Assessors who are responsible for evaluating FBI Special Agent candidates are themselves selected based on their propensity to prioritize diversity and inclusion over the qualifications of the applicants.”

Hiring numbers are declining, and first-hand reporting contradicts FBI Director Christopher Wray’s assertions that recruiting is going well for the bureau, the FBI officials found.

“Despite these findings from highly credible and reliable Sources and Sub-sources with direct access and first-hand knowledge, FBI Director Christopher Wray reportedly continues to assert within FBI circles that FBI recruitment for Special Agents is ‘going extremely well,’” the report notes.

In order to strengthen the FBI’s hiring practices, the group of active and former FBI agents and analysts recommend the Judiciary Committee and Oversight Committee conduct a 90-day audit, work with government agencies to develop recommendations for fixing the problem and collect FBI recruiting data over the past two decades.

Further, they recommend lawmakers investigate the FBI and hold public hearings with testimony from the FBI director and other senior officials. Lastly, they suggest proposing legislation to strengthen the FBI’s oath to ensure agents do not prioritize political activism over protecting the American people.

The FBI disputed the findings of the report and defended its recruiting practices in a statement to the Daily Caller.

“The FBI continues to maintain the very highest standards in selection and hiring. Any notion that standards have been lowered is both inaccurate and an affront to the talented and patriotic men and women who dedicate their lives to serving others. Random and anonymous allegations devoid of any supporting data or other evidence cannot change the facts: the FBI continues to recruit the best and brightest candidates from all walks of life, and year over year only a small percentage of applicants ultimately make it through our difficult process to become a special agent,” the FBI said.

“This is indicative of the selectivity and rigor of our process, and the suggestion that we are lowering standards to increase diversity is both offensive and not true. The average age of new agents has remained steady at about 31 years old, which means they bring a wealth of experience and well-developed skills to the Bureau. The number of agents with prior military and law enforcement experience has remained steady at around 20-30% of each new class, while the number of new agents with advanced degrees has swelled to nearly 40% of each new agent class. Our agents continue to meet the highest standards of personal and professional conduct and rigorous physical fitness requirements.”

Beginning in 2013, the FBI opened its office of diversity and inclusion separate from its equal employment office, the bureau’s website touts. Two years later, the FBI created a diversity and inclusion policy directive outlining its diversity and inclusion section and various internal bureaucratic organizations and roles designed to promote diversity.

Inside the FBI, employees are permitted to form employee groups for specific demographics such as black Americans and Jewish Americans. Similarly, the FBI offers recruitment events intended to recruit racial minorities and women across the country.

The FBI’s Beacon Project is a separate initiative with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to develop relationships and bring students into the bureau.

As of May 2023, 27% of the FBI workforce are racial minorities and 45% female, representing substantial increases over the past five years, according to FBI hiring stats.

Conservative legal organization America First Legal (AFL) is investigating the FBI’s chief diversity officer Scott McMillion for alleged racial and sex discrimination in hiring based on the hiring statistics. Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits employment discrimination based on race, sex, and additional factors.

McMillion became the FBI’s chief diversity officer in 2021 and heads the Office of Diversity and Inclusion. He chairs the black affairs diversity committee designed to recruit and accommodate minority employees.

*****

This article was published by the Daily Caller News Foundation and is reproduced with permission.