Latest news with #voterfraud
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
Trump ally Mike Lindell reveals who really rigged the voting machines for Biden in 2020
MyPillow mogul and longtime Donald Trump ally Mike Lindell believes that Satan was part of an effort to rig the 2020 election for Joe Biden. Lindell had a closed-door meeting at the White House with Trump as recently as last month, pleading with the president to bring up the enforcement of an obscure tax provision that touched small businesses, including his own, during the pandemic. The CEO has been touring the country for years trying to convince people that voter fraud tipped the scales in favor of Joe Biden four years ago. He spoke outside a courtroom in Denver as he faces defamation charges from Dominion Voting Systems, a company based in the city whom he says help throw the 2020 contest to Biden. While he blamed many of the usual targets for the result that sent Biden to the White House - including the Deep State, globalists and the Chinese Communist Party - he took things to a different level Monday. 'We're in a battle of biblical proportions, of evil and good. This isn't a party thing. This is a thing for our country and our world,' Lindell claimed. 'And when you say who's behind it all? Satan, there's one. You know, this is a nation that turned its back on God.' Despite this, he did warn that whatever happens next is 'up to God' and 'much bigger than all of us,' suggesting a sinister 'computer algorithm' overseeing elections. However, he made it clear that he does not necessarily blame Biden's party for the election. 'When people ask me that, you've never heard me over the last four years bashing the Democrats,' Lindell said. 'The people that did this to our country, I believe it's four: it's the uniparty, the Deep State, Globalists, and the CCP.' Lindell is currently standing in a defamation lawsuit filed in federal court in Colorado by Eric Coomer, former director of product strategy and security for Denver-based Dominion. Jury selection took place Monday, with opening statements set to be delivered on Tuesday. Fox News in 2023 paid $787 million to settle a defamation suit with Dominion Voting Systems after airing claims about the firm's electronic voting machine systems. Lindell says his legal battles have wrecked his finances. 'I'm in ruins,' he told federal District Court Judge Carl Nichols in a hearing last month relating to the Smartmatic defamation suit against him. And he continues to face his own situation with the IRS, although he says it is on a matter he brought to the agency's attention. At issue here is the $10 million Lindell invested in a substance he said was a 'cure' for the coronavirus that he purchased in the spring of 2020. It is now expired and sitting in a warehouse, and Lindell says he wants to take a write-off on the lost value. 'It was Mike Lindell, it's me. I bought the stuff out of my personal money. I put $10 million up to save the country and instead .. was attacked,' he said. He says he tried to send it to Israel, the Philippines, and Brazil, and that the IRS came to view the stockpile. 'So I've been dealing with the IRS on that deduction,' he said, referring to the substance derived from Oleander as both a 'cure' and a 'supplement,' although the FDA rejected it. The Washington Post reported in April that a political appointee at the the Treasury Department contacted the IRS on Lindell's behalf after he got his second audit letter in two years, intervening on behalf of a 'high profile friend of the president.' Lindell denied being under a second audit, calling it a 'big lie,' and saying 'I'm the one that reached out to them.' 'They went there, took pictures of all of my warehouses that had all this stuff in there that never, never got used,' he said of the IRS. 'That became an audit and that's still going on,' he said. 'It's just arguing over that deduction.' He got both issues in front of Trump by asking when he was at the White House for the National Day of Prayer.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Georgia mayor and two others jailed for trying to halt local election
CAMILLA, Ga. (WSAV) — The mayor of Camilla, Ga., and two former election officials have been jailed on felony charges stemming from efforts last November to halt a local election after one of the mayor's allies, Venterra Pollard, was disqualified from a city council race. Mayor Kelvin Owens was held at the Mitchell County jail Friday, two days after a grand jury indicted him on a felony charge of election interference and a misdemeanor count of conspiring to commit election fraud. Camilla, a farming community of about 5,000 people, is about 225 miles from Savannah. The city's former elections superintendent and her former deputy superintendent were also jailed. Rhunette Williford and Cheryl Ford were charged with the same crimes as the mayor, plus misdemeanor counts of failing to perform their duties as public officers. Mayor Owens had blamed the local upheaval on racial politics, saying that Pollard, who is Black, was targeted by white residents trying to wrest power from the majority Black population. The city of Camilla is nearly three-fourths Black. All three defendants remained in jail awaiting a hearing Monday. District Attorney Joe Mulholland, whose circuit includes Camilla, declined to comment on the indictment Friday. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Independent
23-05-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Colorado couple found guilty over cross burning meant to draw sympathy for Black candidate
A Colorado couple who burned a cross in front of a Black mayoral candidate's campaign sign to generate voter sympathy was convicted Friday of conveying false information about a threat. Prosecutors argued that although Ashley Blackcloud, who is indigenous and Black, and Derrick Bernard, who is Black, orchestrated and broadcast the hoax to aid the candidate, their actions still amounted to a criminal threat. The cross burning happened in 2023 during the run-up to the mayoral election in Colorado Springs, the state's second-largest city. Images and video of the episode were emailed to local news outlets to boost the campaign of Yemi Mobolade, now the city's first Black mayor. Blackcloud's attorney did not deny in the trial this week that she participated in setting up the cross burning and defacing the sign. Bernard denied participating but acknowledged during testimony that he disseminated the images even though he knew it was a hoax. Because cross burning is protected by the First Amendment, the case came down to whether the act was a threat. Prosecutors argued that even though Blackcloud's and Bernard's intention was to help Mobolade, he perceived the actions as a threat, with his family buying fire ladders and a medical trauma kit for their house. 'What was Yemi and his family supposed to see through the flames? A joke? Theater?' said Assistant U.S. Attorneys Bryan Fields. The defendants, he said, 'needed the public to believe this was a real threat in order for it to have the effect that they wanted of influencing an election.' Fields likened it to a student who calls in a fake bomb threat at a school in order to avoid taking a test, forcing the school to evacuate and causing other students anxiety. Blackcloud's defense attorney, Britt Cobb, said the cross burning was merely 'meant to be a political stunt, political theater' to show that racism was still present in Colorado Springs. Blackcloud 'did not mean this as a real threat of violence,' Cobb said. Cobb further argued that Mobolade knew it was a hoax early on, because his campaign staff said in text messages that they were confident it was staged and because Mobolade didn't immediately call the police. 'If he knows it's a hoax, there's no way its a threat,' she said. Mobolade has strongly denied any involvement, but Cobb suggested the politician knew something of the plans, citing communications between Bernard and Mobolade before and after the cross burning. The FBI's investigation did not determine that Mobolade had a role in the cross burning. 'You cannot maliciously convey a threat,' added Bernard's attorney, Tyrone Glover, 'when you're trying in your own way to help somebody.' ___
The Independent
21-05-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Charges dropped against conservative activist in Texas over false voter fraud claim
Texas prosecutors on Tuesday dropped charges against a prominent conservative activist in Houston related to allegations he had been part of what authorities have called a baseless voter fraud conspiracy theory in which a man was run off the road and held at gunpoint over claims he was holding fraudulent voter ballots. Dr. Steven Hotze, 74, had been facing four charges related to allegedly helping plan an assault against an air conditioner repairman in October 2020. Prosecutors alleged the repairman was run off the road and held at gunpoint by Mark Aguirre, a former Houston police officer. Aguirre had worked for a firm hired by Liberty Center for God and Country, a nonprofit organization that Hotze runs, to pursue a voter fraud investigation. Aguirre had claimed the repairman was the mastermind of the voter fraud scheme and that the man's truck had been filled with fraudulent ballots when Aguirre ran his SUV into it, according to authorities. Police who responded to the incident searched the repairman's truck and found only air conditioning parts and tools, prosecutors said. Hotze was charged with four counts — aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, engaging in organized crime and unlawful restraint. On Tuesday, the Harris County District Attorney's Office dropped all four counts against Hotze and three of the five counts against Aguirre, who is still facing charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and unlawful restraint. 'This deeply troubling case shows how toxic conspiracy theories can fuel real-world violence that endangers people in our community,' Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare said in a statement. 'We look forward to vigorously prosecuting the remaining charges in this case that stand up to legal scrutiny.' Jared Woodfill, Hotze's attorney, said he was surprised but pleased by the dismissal of the charges. 'It's been a long four-year journey for Dr. Hotze. It cost him a lot of money. Obviously, they tried to destroy his reputation through the negative publicity. But in the end, justice was served and everything's been dismissed,' Woodfill said. Terry Yates, an attorney for Aguirre, did not immediately return a call or email seeking comment. A conservative power broker, Hotze has a long history of filing election-related lawsuits, including unsuccessfully suing to stop the extension of early voting in Texas during the 2022 election. He also sued officials in Harris County to limit in-person and absentee voting, making allegations without evidence that Democrats were engaged in 'ballot harvesting' by gathering votes from individuals who are homeless or elderly. Woodfill said Hotze continues to believe that voter fraud is taking place in Harris County, the state's most populous county and where Houston is located. 'I think everybody will tell you there's voter fraud. Just the question is how much,' Woodfill said. Texas has tightened its voter laws in recent years and increased penalties that Democrats and opponents say are attempts to suppress turnout among Black and Latino voters. Elections in Harris County, a Democratic stronghold, have been heavily scrutinized in recent years by GOP lawmakers, including Gov. Greg Abbott, after problems with ballot and worker shortages, long lines and ballots that were not counted the day of the election. In 2023, Abbott signed a bill that removed Harris County's elections administrator and transferred the responsibility to other local officials. Earlier this month, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced indictments against six people in a rural county southwest of San Antonio as part of a widening elections investigation. ___
Washington Post
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Charges dropped against conservative activist in Texas over false voter fraud claim
HOUSTON — Texas prosecutors on Tuesday dropped charges against a prominent conservative activist in Houston related to allegations he had been part of what authorities have called a baseless voter fraud conspiracy theory in which a man was run off the road and held at gunpoint over claims he was holding fraudulent voter ballots.
