A group including leaders of the organization Free Speech for People, which helped lead constitutional challenges to the eligibility for re-election of several Republican officials with ties to what happened on January 6, has requested federal investigations of the multi-state scheme by supporters of Donald Trump following the last election to copy data from election systems.
The point was apparently to try and uncover evidence of the kind of imaginary fraud that Trump and allies of his have claimed was responsible for his 2020 loss, but among other problems, doing so could expose the computer systems used for voting in locales nationwide to attack. Authorities in multiple jurisdictions have already needed to replace some of what’s used in running elections following incidents like a substantial security breach in Coffee County, Georgia, and another in a county in Colorado, where a county clerk who assisted with copying data from the local election system has been criminally charged. That outgoing official, Tina Peters, also ran unsuccessfully in Colorado’s GOP primary for Secretary of State, a position in which she could have exerted control over the entire state’s handling of its elections.
A letter recently made public from the coalition seeking expanded federal action on the issue is addressed to Attorney General Merrick Garland, Special Counsel Jack Smith, and officials at both the FBI and federal Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). One of those leading Free Speech for People connected plotting that affected states including Georgia, Michigan, and Nevada to what Smith is currently investigating. “This plot was orchestrated by individuals currently under investigation for their attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and their coordinated and illegal effort to obtain voting system software may have been part of that plot. This calls for a vigorous and swift investigation by the Department of Justice, the Special Counsel, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Ron Fein, who’s Legal Director at Free Speech for People, said this week.
Sidney Powell, an attorney tied to Trump who has been involved in high-profile attempts at challenging election results, was personally involved with the targeted efforts and was kept updated about what was transpiring in Coffee County by Paul Maggio of SullivanStrickler, a firm involved in the work. Those involved in the efforts in Coffee County were also paid by a Powell nonprofit, according to recent reporting from The Washington Post. SullivanStrickler was also part of collecting data from election systems in Nevada and Michigan, work it completed at least partly under court order — although it appears some of the Michigan data was distributed beyond the bounds set by the court. The same company was also apparently involved in an attempt to assemble election data in Wayne County, Michigan, which includes Detroit and where local officials recently received a subpoena in the Smith investigation. Powell, meanwhile, is also among those whose communications with officials in multiple locales have been sought with recent subpoenas from Smith’s probes.
