WASHINGTON — Thought the 2016 presidential election settled the hard-fought campaign once and for all? Not everyone is there yet.

An advisory committee that President Donald Trump created to examine the integrity of U.S. voting systems held its first meeting Wednesday. And its vice chairman, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, said afterward that “we may never know” whether Trump’s rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton, won the popular vote through voter fraud.

Trump himself claimed shortly after taking office in January that he would have won the popular vote if 3 million to 5 million immigrants living the country illegally had not been allowed to vote in the presidential election last Nov. 8.

There has been no evidence of widespread tampering or hacking that would change the election outcome. Throughout the campaign, Trump pushed false claims about voter fraud, repeatedly claiming that the system had been “rigged” against him. He tweeted in late November that he would have won the popular vote “if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.” He also complained that the news media wasn’t covering “serious voter fraud” in California, New Hampshire and Virginia.

Here are the statements from Kobach and how they compare with the facts:

KOBACH, in an interview Wednesday with MSNBC, on whether he believed voter fraud helped Clinton win the popular vote by 3 million to 5 million votes: “We will probably never know the answer to that question because even if you could prove that a certain number of votes were cast by ineligible voters, for example, you wouldn’t know how they voted.”

Asked again whether he believed Clinton won the popular vote, Kobach said: “We may never know the answer to that question.”

Kobach replied “absolutely” when asked whether the votes for Trump were also in doubt.

THE FACTS: Clinton received nearly 2.9 million more votes than Trump, giving her the largest popular vote margin of any losing U.S. presidential candidate.

Certified results in all 50 states and the District of Columbia show Clinton winning nearly 65,844,610 votes, or 48 percent of the total, to Trump’s 62,979,636 votes, or 46 percent, according to an analysis by The Associated Press. She is the fifth U.S. presidential candidate to win the popular vote but lose the Electoral College, and therefore the presidency.

With all states voting, Trump finished with 304 Electoral College votes, to 227 for Clinton. The Electoral College has 538 votes.

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TRUMP, promising that a health-care rewrite he is pressing Senate Republican lawmakers to pass will “provide better coverage for low income Americans.”

THE FACTS: That’s not how the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office sees it. Deep cuts to Medicaid and changes that would shift medical costs to consumers with individual private policies are likely to result in fewer low-income people having health coverage.

In most states, Medicaid coverage is either free of charge or involves only nominal costs for low-income people. The GOP “repeal and replace” bills would phase out a Medicaid expansion that’s mainly for adults, while also limiting future federal spending on the program. According to the budget office, projected federal spending would be reduced by $772 billion from 2017-2026 in the Senate bill, and 15 million fewer people would be covered by Medicaid by 2026.

As for private insurance, the Senate bill envisions a shift to skimpier plans with higher deductibles. “As a result, despite being eligible for premium tax credits, few low-income people would purchase any plan,” the budget office said.

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Associated Press writer Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar contributed to this report.

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Find AP Fact Checks at http://apne.ws/2kbx8bd

EDITOR’S NOTE _ A look at the veracity of claims by political figures

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

On Wednesday the Department of Justice restarted a controversial federal program making it easier for state and local police to permanently take cash and property from people not charged with a crime.

Speaking before law enforcement officials, Attorney General Jeff Sessions described what he saw as the need for the program and offered up the rare full-throated defense of civil forfeiture at a time when it’s come under increasing criticism from the left, the right and center.

We’re annotating the Attorney General’s remarks below, using Genius.

ATTORNEY GENERAL SESSIONS: Good morning, and thank you all for being here. I especially want to thank our law enforcement partners like the Fraternal Order of Police, the National Sheriffs’ Association, the Major City Chiefs Association, the IACP, and so many others from all over the country who are here. Thank you for your service to this country and for keeping us all safe.

As any of these law enforcement partners will tell you and as President Trump knows well, civil asset forfeiture is a key tool that helps law enforcement defund organized crime, take back ill-gotten gains, and prevent new crimes from being committed, and it weakens the criminals and the cartels. Even more importantly, it helps return property to the victims of crime. Civil asset forfeiture takes the material support of the criminals and instead makes it the material support of law enforcement, funding priorities like new vehicles, bulletproof vests, opioid overdose reversal kits, and better training. In departments across this country, funds that were once used to take lives are now being used to save lives.

It also removes the instrumentalities of crimes, such as illegal firearms, ammunition, explosives and property associated with child pornography from criminals—preventing them from being able to use these tools in further criminal acts.

President Trump has directed this Department of Justice to reduce crime in this country, and we will use every lawful tool that we have to do that. We will continue to encourage civil asset forfeiture whenever appropriate in order to hit organized crime in the wallet.

At the same time, we must protect the rights of the people we serve. Law-abiding people whose property is used without their knowledge or without their consent should not be punished because of crimes that others have committed.

Now, let me just say, in the vast majority of cases, this is not an issue. Our law enforcement officers do an incredible job. In fact, over the last decade, four out of five administrative civil asset forfeitures filed by federal law enforcement agencies were never challenged in court.

Even so, we must take every precaution to protect the rights of claimants in that small minority of cases.

And so today, the Department of Justice is issuing legal guidance that will clarify DOJ policy on the adoption of seized assets. It will return us to longstanding DOJ policy—and also provide additional, supplemental protections for law-abiding Americans. This will make us more effective at bankrupting organized criminals and at safeguarding the property of law-abiding Americans.

Under today’s guidance, the federal government will not adopt seized property unless the state or local agency involved provides information demonstrating that the seizure was justified by probable cause. We will accomplish this through a new adoption form that state and local law enforcement must fill out before we will agree to adopt any property, which will include the necessary information to allow Department lawyers to carefully review and determine whether adoption is proper. Further, law enforcement agencies who wish to participate in the Department’s Equitable Sharing Program now must now provide their officers with enhanced training on asset forfeiture laws.

The Department will adopt smaller seizures of cash—between $5,000 and $10,000—only if there exists some level of criminality or with the express concurrence of the U.S. Attorney’s office.

When I was in the Senate, I worked with Senator Schumer to make modifications to the civil asset forfeiture program. We required probable cause for the seizure of property. And we raised the burden on the government, who has the initial burden in all of these cases, to the same preponderance of the evidence standard used in all civil cases. In addition, if the government lost the case, then the government pays attorneys’ fees. I believe those were good reforms that strengthened the program.

Further, to better protect claimants, the Department will expedite the review of civil asset forfeiture cases. State and local law enforcement agencies requesting federal adoption must do so within 15 calendar days following the date of seizure. The adopting federal agency must then send notice to interested parties within 45 days of the date of seizure. This is twice as fast of a review as is required by statute. This streamlined process will ensure that people receive speedy resolutions of their cases, and that rightful owners will get their property back as soon as possible.

In addition to these safeguards on federal adoptions, I am asking Department attorneys to proceed with an abundance of caution when handling all forfeitures involving vehicles and especially residences. I think that Department attorneys should think hard before they agree to forfeit these types of property, or waive any asset thresholds associated with them. Just like with cash seizures, if we operate this program in a careful and responsible way, something I believe the American people expect and deserve with a program such as this, the Department’s federal asset forfeiture program will be an effective tool, while at the same time protecting the rights of property owners.

Finally, I am directing agencies and components adopting seized property to prioritize assets that will most effectively advance our overall goal of reducing violent crime. We need to send clear message that crime does not pay.

This policy is effective immediately and applies to all new requests for adoption.

With this new policy, the American people can be confident knowing that we are taking action to defund criminals and at the same time protecting the rights of law-abiding people.