Unsigned Trump order told Pentagon to seize voting machines: Politico
The document reprises many of the debunked conspiracy theories about hacked voting machines that were pushed by figures in Trump’s orbit now being targeted by congressional investigators, including right-wing attorney Sidney Powell.
She falsely told reporters the election had been targeted by “communist money through Venezuela, Cuba, and likely China”.
Powell and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani led unsuccessful efforts to have courts throw out election results in key swing states in the weeks after Trump’s defeat.
The ex-president and his allies spent months pressing false claims of widespread fraud, despite experts in his own government affirming that it was the most secure vote in US history.
The claims were also rejected by Trump-appointed attorney general Bill Barr, and Trump was eventually impeached for inciting the attack on the Capitol by a mob of his supporters.
The draft order bears similarities with a plot outlined in a Powerpoint presentation to keep Trump in office that former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows turned over to the select committee last year.
That document envisaged US Marshals seizing ballots for a 50-state hand recount.
The draft executive order that emerged Friday focuses specifically on touchscreen ballot-marking devices made by Dominion that were used in Georgia, where a hand recount and machine recount affirmed Biden’s win.
It repeats false allegations about Dominion being “owned or heavily controlled and influenced by foreign agents, countries, and interests” and alleging that its machines are deliberately designed to create “systemic fraud”.
Powell and Giuliani are fighting billion-dollar defamation lawsuits from Dominion and Smartmatic, another voting machine company.
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