Former President Donald Trump’s attempt to gain access to voting machine data was more successful, and broader than previously believed, as revealed by newly acquired emails and records by The Washington Post.
Lawyers allied with Trump had hired a team of experts from a forensic data firm to access election systems in at least three states, Georgia, Michigan, and Nevada. The firm charged an upfront retainer fee for each state, one of which was $26,000, to breach voting machines made by Dominion and Election Systems & Software, according to The Washington Post.
Attorney Sidney Powell, former Trump campaign lawyer, allegedly instructed the firm’s team of experts to copy a rural county’s election data in Michigan, as well as in Detroit. Another Trump campaign lawyer allegedly told the team to go to Nevada, and the team was later in southern Georgia just one day after the January 6 Capitol riot in order to copy data from a Dominion voting system in rural Coffee County, The Washington Post reported. The documents, which were collected through a subpoena issued to the forensics firm, Atlanta-based SullivanStrickler, confirm earlier allegations raised in February that Georgia’s election system had been copied. In June, Michigan State Police issued warrants to seize voting equipment and election records from three towns and one county, expanding an investigation into alleged voting system breaches.
Earlier this year, it was revealed that Trump was more directly involved in attempts to seize voting machines as he struggled to cope with the loss of the 2020 elections, The New York Times reported. The former president allegedly used federal authority to seize control of voting systems on the grounds of voting fraud. The voting machine company Dominion sued Rudy Giuliani in January 2021, among others from Trump’s camp, for spreading unfounded claims that the company had rigged the elections against Trump.
But members of Trump’s team, and his allies, insist that the former president should have won by larger margins in certain states, including the ones where the voting machine breaches allegedly took place, in a desperate attempt to deny the presidential election results.