joining me now msnbc national security analyst, frank, the former assistant director of counter intelligence for the fbi. and also the author of the fbi way . carol, why do you think the scheme took so long for the secret service to uncover? you know, heavens to betsy, we do not know why it took so long. it s very worrisome that the way it was discovered was not by the secret service, not by polygraphing employees, not by policies that require reporting that you received you know, things of great value, free rent up to $40,000 and luxury apartment in washington. this was found out because a postal inspector was investigating an alleged attack on a mail carrier in the building where these two imposters were living and buying
essentially dozens of miniature trumps in the mid term elections say oh heavens to betsy, this election was rigged. i won the dogcatcher election and it was unfairly robbed from me. and if dozens of people start to do that, that s an erosion that you can t imagine finding enough sandbags to repair. juanita, democrats are seeming to understand for those who didn t understand that everybody seems to understand that this issue about the legitimacy of elections around voting rights is the primary issue. and probably needs to come ahead of other issues as desirable as those other matters are because as you pointed out if this continues through the next election, elections may just not be fair in this country after that. that s exactly right. and to carol s point, i just keep coming back to the reality that this is why accountability matters so much so that the person who does take a page from
intellectual structure from everyone from mcconnell, alito and trump. here s alito. fraud can affect the outcome of an election. fraud can also undermine public confidence in the fairness of elections. heavens to betsy. the perceived legitimacy in the outcome. yes. you see how important the work of voter fraud is so that alito can use it to justify these kinds of laws. yeah. this opinion by alito is really the institutionalization of the big lie and of the myth of voter fraud over the past two decades. in shelby county john roberts invented a principle, equal sovereignty of the states while alito took the republican playbook about lying about voter fraud. he said a state can do whatever it wants if it tries to stop voter fraud, even if there is no voter fraud. if minority voters face all of these burdens, that s not enough