As Donald Trump braces for yet another criminal indictment, this time in Fulton County, Georgia, even more detail has emerged about efforts by his team and allies to access sensitive voting machine software to prop up the former president’s lies about election fraud.
Fulton County prosecutors have emails and text messages for the job, again under Powell’s authorization.
Though the judge warned against sharing the data publicly, the Antrim County images were shared at a 2021 “Cyber Symposium” hosted by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell. Some attendees immediately realized the severity of the situation: “I said, ‘I haven’t seen the Antrim image because I didn’t sign a protective court order to obtain a copy of the image, but I bet they have stolen court evidence here,’” Harri Hursti, a cybersecurity expert who attended the symposium, reflected later that year.
Similar data from Nevada, which, according to The Washington Post, was the scene of another SullivanStrickler arrangement, was also shared at the symposium. But it wasn’t very impressive, as it was apparently recorded from a public Wi-Fi system and didn’t contain any sensitive data, a Clark County spokesperson said. Also in 2021, a breach of a Lake County, Ohio, government office prompted state and federal investigations after data obtained from the office of the president of the county’s board of commissioners was shared at Lindell’s event.
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Colorado
As in Michigan, a former public official is charged in Colorado with allowing improper access to a county’s voting machines.
Tina Peters was accused in an indictment of being part of a “deceptive scheme which was designed to influence public servants, breach security protocols, exceed permissible access to voting equipment, and set in motion the eventual distribution of confidential information to unauthorized people.” Peters has portrayed herself as a martyr, frequently appearing on far-right podcasts to echo Trump’s claims of widespread corruption among voting machine manufacturers and election officials.
Two others have pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate in the case against Peters. As part of the scheme, Peters allegedly directed staff to turn off surveillance videos facing the voting equipment. She also allegedly instructed staff to make a fake government employee ID for an unauthorized person — reportedly the former pro surfer-turned-election conspiracy theorist Conan Hayes — and then allowed that person to be present during a required in-person software update, which granted the person access to the software.
Law enforcement became aware of the scheme after a major QAnon conspiracy theory figure, Ron Watkins, posted information from the voting systems online. This all led to a dramatic moment during Lindell’s Cyber Symposium when Peters announced that investigators had acted upon a search warrant and “raided” her office. At the same symposium, digital images of Mesa County’s voting system were shared with attendees.
Last year, FBI agents seized Lindell’s cellphone as he waited in line at a Hardee’s drive-thru; Lindell subsequently said he’d received a subpoena as part of a federal grand jury’s investigation of the Colorado breach. Lindell sued the Department of Justice over the phone seizure.
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Peters pleaded not guilty to election tampering and has successfully sought to delay trial multiple times, though she was convicted of a separate misdemeanor related to her recording a court proceeding.
Peters and others, including former Trump attorney Giuliani, are set to speak at a Lindell-hosted event this week.
