The junior senator from Oklahoma says he doesn’t know what President-elect Trump was talking about when he said millions of illegal votes were cast on Election Day.
Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., said on CNN Monday he believes there was probably some voting irregularities in the election, but not nearly to the extent Trump believes. In a series of tweets Sunday, the president-elect cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election he won by saying millions of illegal votes were cast, accounting for his loss in the popular vote.
“I’ve not seen any voter irregularity in the millions,” Lankford said. “There’s always some on the edges, but I’ve not seen anything in the millions. I’m not sure what he was talking about on that one.”
Lankford supported Trump in the campaign from late March onward, but said he wouldn’t hesitate to take oversight action against the incoming president.
The Oklahoma Republican said the first step in oversight of the presidency is with the press, which must ask follow up questions when Trump gives erroneous, misleading or false statements. If more oversight is needed past that, Congress should step in, he said.
“If there’s something that rises to the level of a congressional hearing, that would be appropriate as well,” he said. “Oversight should be the same whether it’s a Democrat or a Republican in the White House, but that begins with a free press that can be engaged and just ask the basic questions.”
