Golfer Bernhard Langer Features In Trump Voter Fraud Claim

Donald Trump has been pressed to give evidence supporting his baseless claim that millions of illegal votes led to Hillary Clinton winning the popular vote. According to the New York Times, President Trump justified this claim to congressional leaders with an anecdote told to him by former golfer Bernhard Langer.

Per the Times, Trump said that Langer, a German citizen ineligible to vote, attempted to vote in Florida. Langer noticed multiple Hispanic people trying to vote. According to 2010 U.S. Census data, Hispanic people make up 22.5 percent of the Florida population.

"The witnesses described the story this way: Mr. Langer, a 59-year-old native of Bavaria, Germany — a winner of the Masters twice and of more than 100 events on major professional golf tours around the world — was standing in line at a polling place near his home in Florida on Election Day, the president explained, when an official informed Mr. Langer he would not be able to vote. Ahead of and behind Mr. Langer were voters who did not look as if they should be allowed to vote, Mr. Trump said, according to the staff members — but they were nonetheless permitted to cast provisional ballots. The president threw out the names of Latin American countries that the voters might have come from."

A White House official told the Times that Langer had told a story to Trump relayed to him by one of his friends.

Langer, 59, won The Masters twice in 1985 and 1993. The Times reached Langer’s daughter who said he is not a friend of President Trump.