2020 Election Fallout Part 16: Public Hearings Are Underway

[GreyhoundFan]

He'll probably win in WV:

[SPHASH]

They even broke into my safe!

https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/08/politics/mar-a-lago-search-warrant-fbi-donald-trump/index.html

The FBI executed a search warrant on Monday at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, the former President confirmed to CNN.

Trump declined to say why the FBI agents were at Mar-a-Lago, but the former President said the raid was unannounced and "they even broke into my safe."

"My beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents," he said in a statement.

This story is breaking and will be updated.

[fraurosena]

The investigations are really ramping up now.

Congressman Perry says FBI agents have seized his cell phone

Quote

Republican Congressman Scott Perry of Pennsylvania said on Tuesday that FBI agents had seized his cell phone, in yet another sign that the Justice Department's investigation into the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol is heating up.

In a statement, Perry said three agents seized his phone while he was traveling with his family. He did not say why his phone was confiscated but said he was "outraged."

A supporter of former President Donald Trump, Perry has been the subject of a congressional investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters.

A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment.

"They made no attempt to contact my lawyer, who would have made arrangements for them to have my phone if that was their wish," Perry said in the statement, first reported by Fox News.

"My phone contains info about my legislative and political activities, and personal/private discussions with my wife, family, constituents, and friends. None of this is the government's business," he said.

Perry, who helped spread Trump's false statements of 2020 election fraud, was in contact with the Trump White House in the weeks before the 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol.

During a congressional hearing in June, lawmakers heard testimony that Perry sought a pardon from Trump. Perry has denied seeking a pardon. read more 

Perry has acknowledged introducing Trump to Jeffrey Bossert Clark, a former Justice Department lawyer and Trump loyalist.

Clark wanted then-Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen to send a letter to Georgia falsely claiming the department uncovered voter fraud. When that failed, Clark sought to have Trump install him as acting attorney general.

In June, federal agents seized Clark's electronic devices from his suburban Virginia home.

"My phone contains info about my legislative and political activities, and personal/private discussions with my wife, family, constituents, and friends. None of this is the government's business," he said.

Well, Scottie, it actually is the government’s business when you’ve actively taken part in plotting a coup.

[fraurosena]

Ruh-roh...

 

[fraurosena]

Meanwhile, Lindsey Graham is finding out that sticking his head up Trump's butt wasn't such a good idea as it seemed at the time.

 

[thoughtful]

2 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Meanwhile, Lindsey Graham is finding out that sticking his head up Trump's butt wasn't such a good idea as it seemed at the time.

Of course, Lindsey being Lindsey, he's stuck it up there, then pulled it out, repeatedly. His relationship with Trump has been like a head-up-Trump's-butt Hokey Pokey.

Sorry about that image.

ETA - especially if your earworm got as far as the "shake it all about" part.

Edited August 12, 2022 by thoughtful

[WiseGirl]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Ii hope we see more of this: "Ex-Va. police officer gets more than 7 years for role in Jan. 6 riot"

Quote

A Virginia police officer who prosecutors say lied about his actions before, during and after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, including his military service and his marriage, was sentenced Thursday to 87 months in prison.

Thomas Robertson and Jacob Fracker were members of the police department in the small western Virginia town of Rocky Mount when they joined the mob that stormed the Capitol. Both have since been fired.

“You were not some bystander who just got swept up in the crowd,” Judge Christopher R. Cooper said at Robertson’s sentencing Thursday in U.S. District Court in Washington. “It really seems as though you think of partisan politics as war and that you continue to believe these conspiracy theories.”

Robertson, 49, was found guilty by a jury earlier this year of six crimes, including using a large wooden stick to block police outside the Capitol and destroying his phone when he got home. Fracker, who pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge, testified at the trial.

Cooper said Robertson’s case was similar to that of Guy Reffitt, a member of the far-right anti-government militia group Three Percenters, who confronted an officer outside the Capitol with a gun. Reffitt was sentenced to 87 months in prison by a different judge.

At his sentencing, Robertson depicted his actions on Jan. 6 as an aberration in the life of a respected member of a law-abiding and respectable community. The government’s filings suggest he became radicalized under the influence of those around him, including the chief of a small neighboring police department and a retired FBI agent.

Prosecutors took the unusual step of publishing two detailed FBI investigations into the claims Robertson made in his appeal for mercy.

Retired police chief Dennis Deacon wrote the court saying that he had helped train Robertson as a police officer and that these crimes were “completely out of character.”

The agent produced a text conversation from March 2021, in which Robertson told Deacon, “I can kill every agent that they send for at least two weeks” and that he was “prepared to die in battle.” Deacon replied that Robertson should “be smart, pick battles, plan logistics, very carefully recruit and hope its not going to come down to it … we need a place to go … remote, defensible, water, very rugged terrain.”

Cooper said he found it particularly “disturbing” that Robertson made those comments after law enforcement officers were critically injured at the Capitol.

In an interview, Deacon said he was telling Robertson to recruit “friends” for “whatever inevitable things may happen … a flood or a hurricane,” or in the “extremely unlikely” event that “the government is overthrown by others from outside.”

Deacon retired last year as chief of police in Boones Mill, Va., near Rocky Mount. (When he was promoted in 2013, he said he was also the only officer on the force; there have been as many as seven.)

Another man described as a retired FBI agent went to the Capitol with Robertson and Fracker but did not go inside, according to the court records. That man, who could not be reached for comment, called the Capitol Police “cowards” who “will be on their knees before us” in text messages to Robertson, records said.

Fracker is set to be sentenced on Tuesday.

In his letter to the court, Fracker said he had been labeled a “rat,” a “snitch” and a “back stabber” by community members for testifying against Robertson. “It really is just heart breaking,” he said.

Robertson was a mentor to him and a “once valued father figure,” Fracker wrote.

At least two dozen people with past or current law enforcement affiliations are charged with criminal involvement in the Jan. 6 attack. Michael German, a former FBI agent who has studied far-right radicalization of police at NYU Law School’s Brennan Center for Justice, said the bureau is in “continuing denial” about the problem.

“Law enforcement has a lot of power to harm people,” he said. “Why don’t we see an aggressive project designed to protect the public?”

In a statement from the FBI, a spokeswoman said: “We cannot and do not investigate ideology. The FBI investigates when someone crosses the line from expressing beliefs to violating federal law.”

Robertson’s letter to the court explained his angry social media posts before the riot as a product of alcohol abuse and isolation while his wife was working in New York.

“I was … all alone at home,” he wrote. “I sat around at night drinking too much and reacting to articles and sites given to me by Facebook algorithms.”

However, an FBI agent wrote that Robertson’s wife went to New York after Jan. 6, not before, and that Robertson appeared to be having an extramarital affair while she was gone. Moreover, the agent said that if Robertson was drunk when he wrote the messages on Facebook that he would meet Joe Biden’s victory with violence, he was either drinking on a police shift or just before one.

At his sentencing, Robertson blamed Fracker for destroying their phones after the riot, something prosecutors noted is contradicted by both trial testimony and text evidence.

“Truth has no meaning to this defendant,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Aloi said in court. “He’ll say whatever he thinks he needs to say to get out of a situation.”

Robertson also misled the court, Rocky Mount police, journalists and friends about his military achievements, according to the FBI. He has indicated in various interviews and conversations that he trained as an Army sniper, Ranger and parachutist in the 1990s; served as an infantryman, sniper and sergeant when he reenlisted in the 2000s; and received a Bronze Star and was awarded a Purple Heart after an injury.

The FBI agent said that Robertson was discharged three weeks into basic training in 1991 for “lack of motivation”; he reenlisted in 2006 but served as a military police officer and had no apparent training for any other specialty. He spent about eight months in Iraq with the Virginia National Guard and then went to Afghanistan as a contractor in 2011. He was injured there, but contractors are not eligible for the Purple Heart. The agent also said that Robertson exaggerated his recovery time.

The agent suggested that Robertson may have committed a crime with those falsehoods, under a law that prohibits using “stolen valor” for material benefit.

Defense attorney Mark Rollins said that while Robertson “may have boasted about his background” and “made some clear mistakes,” he served his country and community in ways that cannot be faked. “He has always served his fellow man,” Rollins said. “He’s bled for this country.”

Robertson was released after his arrest in January 2021 but was jailed months later after going on what Cooper described as a “remarkable shopping spree for high-powered assault weapons” while becoming “further radicalized.” Robertson could be charged with illegal firearm possession, the judge noted.

 

[47of74]

Ugh

 

At this point I'm not sure if it was just some mentally disturbed individual looking to take himself out in a flashy manner or if it was some branch trumpvidian lone wolf attack.  I think we'll need to know more first.

[onekidanddone]

54 minutes ago, 47of74 said:

Ugh

 

At this point I'm not sure if it was just some mentally disturbed individual looking to take himself out in a flashy manner or if it was some branch trumpvidian lone wolf attack.  I think we'll need to know more first.

When The Fucking Git was in the hospital with COVID a few supporters were interviewed across the street. I clearly recall one TD saying he loved TFG and would die for him. 
Scary shit. 

[GreyhoundFan]

Good. I can't wait to see more of this:

[47of74]

Gym said 14 FBI agents have come to him to whine about the search of Malware-a-Tugjob

Quote

Ohio Representative Jim Jordan claimed that 14 agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have come forward to Republican investigators following the raid on former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence last week, prompting a wave of doubt and jokes on Twitter.

In a conversation with Fox News host and former Republican Representative Trey Gowdy and former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe on Sunday night, Jordan argued that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has been dangerously politicized, claiming that amid the raid at Mar-a-Lago, some FBI agents began figuring that out, too.

"Fourteen FBI agents have come to our office as whistleblowers, and they are good people," Jordan told Gowdy on Sunday. "There are lots of good people in the FBI. It's the top that is the problem. Some of these good agents are coming to us, telling us what is baloney, what's going on—the political nature now of the Justice Department, God bless them for doing it."

His claim sparked a wave of skepticism on social media, as many doubted that 14 federal agents would come to him.

One guy on Twitter said one of the agents probably looked like this

 

[AlmostSavedAtTacoBell]

38 minutes ago, 47of74 said:

Gym said 14 FBI agents have come to him to whine about the search of Malware-a-Tugjob

One guy on Twitter said one of the agents probably looked like this

 

Their main spokesmen were Agents George Glass and John Barron.

[thoughtful]

3 hours ago, AlmostSavedAtTacoBell said:

Their main spokesmen were Agents George Glass and John Barron.

Whenever one of these liars cites an actual number, all I can think of is the "57 Communists in the defense department" from The Manchurian Candidate.

Spoiler

 

 

[fraurosena]

Operative word here is 'consider'... but still. I'll totally be there for that hearing! If it were public, that is, which I'm not all that sure about.

 

[fraurosena]

Cuffari should be removed from office asap.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

He's right. Can you imagine the circus the J6 committee would be if Gym and the others Qevin wanted on it were participating?

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"A Capitol rioter tried to bond with a Reagan judge, then got a lecture"

Quote

“Can you guess who my favorite president is?” asked the man about to be sentenced for his role in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

Senior Judge Thomas F. Hogan did not respond. So John Cameron, a real estate agent from the Seattle area, answered his own question. “Ronald Reagan,” he said during the hearing Monday, suggesting the judge might agree. Hogan was appointed to the federal bench in Washington by Reagan 40 years ago.

Cameron, 55, went on to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, which Reagan made part of Flag Day ceremonies that same year.

The judge was not impressed. He had questions of his own. How, he asked, could Cameron claim to have seen no violence or clear sign he could not enter the Capitol during the riot? Did he not hear murderous chants and blaring alarms, smell tear gas, see people climbing up scaffolding and through windows? Did he think, as he said on Facebook, that it was all “fun”? And if so, was he withdrawing his plea to a misdemeanor charge?

“No,” Cameron replied, after a moment’s hesitation. “I picketed within the Capitol, and that was illegal. ... I would never do it again.”

But his depiction of himself in court and on social media as a peaceful observer targeted for political reasons prompted an angry lecture from the judge.

“I keep hearing from Jan. 6 defendants, ‘We’re being prosecuted,’ like it’s a surprise, or ‘We’re being persecuted,’ like it’s unfair. I do not understand that psychology,” Hogan told him. “What irritates me most is that all of you are claiming you’re patriots; you’re not patriots when you attack the Capitol of the United States.”

He compared the Jan. 6 rioters to “a lynching mob” in which the support and encouragement of more passive members like Cameron was crucial: “A mob doesn’t act alone.”

Numerous federal judges in D.C., including Hogan, have lamented before that many Jan. 6 defendants appear not to have truly accepted responsibility for their actions that day even when pleading guilty. Earlier this month, Judge Dabney L. Friedrich, a Trump appointee, warned one conservative activist she had sentenced to probation that he might be exposing himself to new charges by suggesting his plea was a lie.

“Exercise some discretion,” she told Brandon Straka. Two days later, Straka set up a fake jail cell at the Conservative Political Action Conference and demanded a congressman do more for Jan. 6 defendants.

Hogan suggested that sentences meted out thus far “have not impressed.” Like most of his colleagues, he has given lighter punishments than prosecutors requested in the majority of the Jan. 6 cases he has handled. All have been misdemeanors, and Hogan has ruled that active jail time cannot be combined with probation in those cases.

Hogan told Cameron that he was lucky prosecutors had not moved to charge him with a felony after his recent social media statements.

“If you had pleaded to a felony, I would just put you in jail for a long time,” he said. Instead he gave him 30 days in jail and three years of probation, as requested by the government, with the incarceration made intermittent to conform with his understanding of the law.

“The court at least hopes that in this three-year period, you don’t engage in any such conduct again,” Hogan concluded.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

[AlmostSavedAtTacoBell]

51 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Captain America would disapprove- and mightily kick his ass. Once for Jan. 6th, then after he healed, a second time for being an abuser. And maybe even a third time for putting a Cap shield on a broom. Honestly, who puts a shield on a broom? 

[GreyhoundFan]

Johnson is a real piece of work:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

From the Washington Post: "Files copied from voting systems were shared with Trump supporters, election deniers"

Quote

Sensitive election system files obtained by attorneys working to overturn President Donald Trump’s 2020 defeat were shared with election deniers, conspiracy theorists and right-wing commentators, according to records reviewed by The Washington Post.

A Georgia computer forensics firm hired by the attorneys placed the files on a server, where company records show they were downloaded dozens of times. Among the downloaders were accounts associated with a Texas meteorologist who has appeared on Sean Hannity’s radio show; a podcaster who suggested political enemies should be executed; a former pro-surfer who pushed disproved theories that the 2020 election was manipulated; and a self-described former “seduction and pickup coach” who claims to also have been a hacker.

Plaintiffs in a long-running federal lawsuit over the security of Georgia’s voting systems obtained the new records from the company, Atlanta-based SullivanStrickler, under a subpoena to one of its executives. The records include contracts between the firm and the Trump-allied attorneys, notably Sidney Powell. The data files are described as copies of components from election systems in Coffee County, Ga., and Antrim County, Mich.

A series of data leaks and alleged breaches of local elections offices since 2020 has prompted criminal investigations and fueled concerns among some security experts that public disclosure of information collected from voting systems could be exploited by hackers and others people seeking to manipulate future elections.

Access to U.S. voting system software and other components is tightly regulated, and the government classifies those systems as “critical infrastructure.” The new batch of records shows for the first time how the files copied from election systems were distributed to people in multiple states.

Marilyn Marks, executive director of the nonprofit Coalition for Good Governance, which is one of the plaintiffs in the Georgia lawsuit, said the records appeared to show the files were handled recklessly. “The implications go far beyond Coffee County or Georgia,” Marks said.

In a statement to The Post, SullivanStrickler said the attorneys who hired the firm directed it “to contact county officials to obtain access to certain data” from Dominion Voting machines in Georgia and Michigan.

“Likewise, the firm was directed by attorneys to distribute that data to certain individuals,” the statement said. The firm said that it “had [and has] no reason to believe that, as officers of the court, these attorneys would ask or direct SullivanStrickler to do anything either improper or illegal.”

Dominion Voting Systems has been the target of baseless claims from Trump, his advisers and allied news organizations that its machines were hacked and were programmed to flip votes from one candidate to another. The Colorado-based company has filed a host of defamation lawsuits over the statements.

Dominion declined to comment on ongoing investigations but in a statement said: “What is important is that nearly two years after the 2020 election, no credible evidence has ever been presented to any court or authority that voting machines did anything other than count votes accurately and reliably in all states.”

The Post reported on Aug. 15 that an earlier set of records released in response to the subpoena showed SullivanStrickler was hired in late November 2020 to conduct a multistate effort to copy software and other data from county election systems. The effort was more successful than previously known, accessing equipment in Georgia, Michigan and Nevada.

That same day, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) opened “a computer trespass investigation” regarding an elections server in Coffee County, bureau spokeswoman Nelly Miles said. Under Georgia law, knowingly using a computer or network without authority and with the intention of deleting, altering or interfering with programs or data is computer trespass, a felony.

SullivanStrickler’s statement said the firm would be “fully cooperative” with investigators. “We are confident that it will quickly become apparent that we did nothing wrong and were operating in good faith at all times,” it said.

The new documents were disclosed after plaintiffs asked the forensics firm who had accessed the Georgia elections data that the firm had collected, according to two people familiar with the case, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the litigation. The plaintiffs also received copies of the raw elections systems data collected by SullivanStrickler in Georgia, but those were not among records reviewed by The Post.

The new records also inadvertently detailed the sharing of data the firm collected during a separate forensic examination in Antrim County, where a judge in December 2020 had granted access to elections systems in response to a lawsuit challenging the 2020 results. The lawsuit was eventually dismissed.

In the records turned over to the Georgia plaintiffs, some pages, and portions of others, were blacked out. However, the text beneath some of the blacked-out blocks became visible when a Post reporter copied and pasted it into a separate file, showing downloads of files labeled “Antrim.”

In Georgia, Gabriel Sterling, the interim chief of staff in the Secretary of State’s office, told The Post in a statement that wrongdoers would be prosecuted. The secretary is a defendant in the litigation that uncovered the new records. Miles, the GBI spokeswoman, said in emails that Raffensperger’s office on Aug. 2 had asked the agency to join efforts to examine the alleged Coffee County breach.

“Any attempts to illegally access election systems in Georgia will not be tolerated — whether it is rogue election officials, conspiracy-theorist attorneys, or security consultants working for those conspiracy theorists,” Sterling said.

The records show that 10 people downloaded data collected from Georgia or Michigan between December 2020 and February 2021. They also show in more detail the role of Powell, the attorney who pushed false claims about voting machines in a flurry of swing-state lawsuits for Trump, as well as the role of Jesse Binnall, an outside counsel to the Trump campaign. Powell and Binnall signed engagement agreements authorizing SullivanStrickler to carry out “computer forensic collections,” the documents show.

A 16-page agreement signed by Binnall on Nov. 30, 2020, stated it covered data collection in Nevada, where Binnall had won a court order granting limited access to equipment, and in Georgia. The agreement said Binnall would pay SullivanStrickler $19,500 per day for a team of three people to work in Nevada, and listed potential fees for work in Georgia.

Powell did not respond to requests for comment. The newly released records do not show Binnall in discussions about Coffee County.

A legal adviser to the Trump campaign, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said the campaign had not intended to contract the firm in Georgia. “To the extent Georgia was ever mentioned in the agreement, it was an error in wording that was missed because of substantial time pressure,” the person said.

A visit to rural Georgia

SullivanStrickler investigators ultimately copied data from elections systems in Coffee County offices on Jan. 7, 2021, the records show. A senior executive from the firm, Paul Maggio, updated Powell by email on their progress. The firm billed Powell $26,000 for a day’s work by four people.

SullivanStrickler sent its statement after The Post emailed Maggio seeking comment.

Misty Hampton, then a local elections supervisor, allowed the group into the Coffee offices so they could prove the “election was not done true and correct,” she previously told The Post. Hampton resigned under pressure last year because she falsified time sheets, according to county officials.

Maggio began uploading the Coffee County data to the company’s file-sharing server on Jan. 9, according to the records. One record appeared to list accounts that were granted access to the server and whether they had permissions to download, upload or delete files.

During the following weeks, the records show, files named in part “Coffee County” were downloaded by accounts in the names of at least four people outside the firm: Jim Penrose, a cybersecurity consultant who has said he formerly worked for the National Security Agency; Doug Logan, whose firm CyberNinjas conducted a Republican election review in Arizona; Conan Hayes, a former pro-surfer from Hawaii; and a fourth person identified as “Scott T.”

Hayes and “Scott T” were listed in the company records as working for ASOG, short for Allied Security Operations Group. The Post previously reported how the Addison, Tex.-based firm rose from obscurity to produce a report on Antrim County that, although discredited, was circulated among senior administration officials and cited by Trump as proof the 2020 election was stolen.

A Twitter account used by Hayes has posted conspiracy theory material and images purportedly of Dominion voting systems in Michigan. In an affidavit first reported by the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, an investigator for the district attorney in Mesa County, Colo., alleged that Hayes worked with local officials there to copy elections software in May 2021. Three local officials were indicted on felony charges over the alleged breach. No charges were filed against Hayes.

Penrose, Logan and Hayes did not respond to requests for comment.

Kevin Skoglund, a cybersecurity expert working for plaintiffs in the Georgia lawsuit, told The Post that copies of elections software and other data like those collected by SullivanStrickler in Coffee County could aid people trying to compromise machines that use similar systems.

“We can’t know how many copies exist or who has them,” Skoglund said. “Someone might distribute it willingly or just fail to keep their copy safe.”

Downloads of data from Antrim

SullivanStrickler’s work in Michigan began after Republican lawyer Matthew DePerno, who had filed the election challenge lawsuit in Antrim County, won a Dec. 4, 2020, court order granting access to the county’s elections systems. Antrim was under scrutiny after initially reporting inaccurate vote tallies that showed Joe Biden beating Trump in a Republican stronghold. DePerno is now the Trump-endorsed Republican nominee for Michigan attorney general.

The judge in the lawsuit, Kevin A. Elsenheimer, issued a protective order “restricting use, distribution or manipulation of the forensic images and/or other information gleaned from the forensic investigation” without further authorization from the court.

A Dec. 6, 2020, engagement agreement signed by Powell said SullivanStrickler would be paid $26,000 per day for work in Michigan by a team of four. It also said the firm would be paid the same rate for work in Arizona, but did not elaborate. That day, the firm made copies from elections equipment in Antrim’s county offices.

Over the following week, two SullivanStrickler employees who worked on the Antrim examination uploaded dozens of files to a folder named “Forensic Images,” the company records show. This folder was stored within another folder, whose name was the project number cited by the firm in emails about elections work. Some of these files were shared with attorneys representing Antrim and Michigan’s attorney general in the lawsuit.

On Dec. 15, Elsenheimer lifted his protective order, ruling that DePerno’s team could release a redacted version of ASOG’s report on Antrim and distribute the findings of the forensic examination “as they see fit.”

After that, the SullivanStrickler records show, Antrim files were downloaded by accounts that the records say belonged to people including John Basham, a Texas-based meteorologist who has pushed false claims about the election on social media; former Michigan state senator Patrick Colbeck, who has promoted conspiracy theories about election fraud and other topics; and “Joe Ottman,” an apparent misspelling of right-wing podcaster Joe Oltmann, who has called for gallows to be built to “take care of all these traitors to our nation.”

The account the records tied to Basham began downloading dozens of files, some labeled “election management server,” in late December. The account that records tie to Colbeck downloaded six files from the same folder on Jan. 5, 2021, according to the records, including files labeled “election management server” and “ThumbDrives.” Colbeck in a film about the election released last year said that he had asked DePerno to take on the lawsuit there.

The “Joe Ottman” account downloaded two files on Jan. 6, according to the records. The email address associated with this account was Oltmann’s, according to filings in a separate court case. Oltmann wrote in a Jan. 6 email filed to that case that he was “sitting with Matt DePerno” and intended to publish “raw data from Antrim County machines.”

During a Jan. 11 hearing in the Antrim case, an attorney for Michigan’s attorney general raised concerns that forensic images from Antrim’s systems had been published online.

DePerno noted that there was no longer any protective order shielding these files.

Elsenheimer stated that anything not included in ASOG’s report was “still subject to” a protective order, a transcript shows. Elsenheimer said DePerno could share Antrim’s forensic images with his expert witnesses — a group that ultimately included Logan, Hayes and Penrose — but that “mass distribution” was not permitted, according to the transcript.

The SullivanStrickler records show that downloads continued. On Jan. 16, an account in the name of Michal Pospieszalski, author of the book “How To Talk To Hot Women,” downloaded a file from the Antrim folder. On Jan. 19, the same account downloaded another folder, which contained multiple files labeled “AntrimEMS” and others relating to Coffee County. A profile for Pospieszalski on a pickup artists website describes him as a “former hacker,” and his online resume states that he worked between 2005 and 2006 as chief technology officer of the Election Science Institute, a now-defunct voter integrity group.

Steven Hertzberg, the group’s director at the time, told The Post he did not recognize Pospieszalski’s name but that he “did employ a white hat hacker around that time” who matched Pospieszalski’s physical description. Pospieszalski is also president of Matter Voting, a company that is developing voting systems based on blockchain technology also used in cryptocurrency, according to the firm’s website.

Basham also downloaded multiple “election management server” files from the same folder between Jan. 27 and Jan. 29, and then again on Feb. 11 and Feb. 12, according to the records.

In emails to The Post, DePerno said he had complied with the judge’s rulings.

“No order prohibited access to the forensic images at any time after December 15, 2020,” DePerno wrote in an email. “If the files were shared with people who were not experts it was not a breech of any order.”

When forensic images from Antrim’s systems were later widely shared during a “symposium” held in South Dakota in August 2021 by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, DePerno emailed Lindell a cease and desist demand, court records show. “Those images are under protective order,” DePerno told Lindell.

DePerno did not respond to a question about when the protective order he cited to Lindell came into effect.

Asked if he had requested access for Oltmann, Basham, Pospieszalski and Colbeck, DePerno said he did not recall who did so and does not know Pospieszalski. About Oltmann, DePerno said in an email: “If SullivanStrickler gave him access then he had every right to have the images.”

Basham said in an email that based on his reading of The Post “I Do Not Expect Anything I Say To Be Represented Honestly.” Pospieszalski said in a message to The Post that he “can’t comment on what I did or did not find as part of my retained work for the Antrim county legal team as I’m under NDA,” a nondisclosure agreement. He characterized his eight years as a seduction and pickup coach as a “giant detour” from a career mostly focused on computer security.

Colbeck and Oltmann did not respond to requests for comment.

Data security expert Harri Hursti said in a court filing after the Lindell symposium that widespread release of server images “lowers the barrier to planning an attack against any election management system running this Dominion software.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I'm glad the feds are continuing to hunt down insurrectionists.

 

[47of74]

A Georgia judge is not down with Gov. Brian Kemp trying to say he's above the law.

 

[AlmostSavedAtTacoBell]

On 8/24/2022 at 2:27 PM, GreyhoundFan said:

I'm glad the feds are continuing to hunt down insurrectionists.

 

Imagine thinking you are totally safe because it's been so long, nobody has arrested you, so you just go about your life business as usual and then one day life will never be the same again.  According to some Reddit threads and posts, there are some very savvy people who aren't in law enforcement who have taken identifying people who were there Jan. 6 on as kind of a hobby and they then turn everything over to the feds once they are able to figure out who a person is.  I don't know if it's true but if so, good for them for assisting in going after these seditionists.