Dominion says OAN's 'expert mathematician' who claimed to prove election fraud had a job 'setting up swing sets'

• 
  In January, One America News Network presented an "expert mathematician" in an interview.

• The "expert" claimed to have uncovered evidence that the 2020 election was rigged against Trump.

• He was a swing set installer on Long Island at the time of the interview, a Dominion lawsuit says.

• See more stories on Insider's business page.

The right-wing media organization One America News Network presented a Long Island swing-set installer as an "expert mathematician" who claimed to uncover evidence that the 2020 election was rigged, a new lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems says.

OAN's Christina Bobb interviewed the man, Ed Solomon, on January 27 in a segment about the 2020 election, which President Joe Biden had won nearly three months earlier.

In the interview, Solomon said he conducted a mathematical analysis showing that the results in Fulton County, Georgia, "can only have been done by an algorithm." He added that the probability of Biden's victory in the county was "1 over 10 to an exponent so large there's not enough stars in the universe, there aren't enough atoms in the universe, to explain the number."

It's not clear where Solomon got his data set. Factcheck.org compared the numbers he used in his analysis with the data available from Georgia's secretary of state and found that they did not match. An audit of the ballots cast in Georgia in the 2020 election found that the results were correct.

Posted by bronxcheer on 8/11/2021 5:31:00 AM (view original):

Dominion says OAN's 'expert mathematician' who claimed to prove election fraud had a job 'setting up swing sets'

• 
  In January, One America News Network presented an "expert mathematician" in an interview.

• The "expert" claimed to have uncovered evidence that the 2020 election was rigged against Trump.

• He was a swing set installer on Long Island at the time of the interview, a Dominion lawsuit says.

• See more stories on Insider's business page.

The right-wing media organization One America News Network presented a Long Island swing-set installer as an "expert mathematician" who claimed to uncover evidence that the 2020 election was rigged, a new lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems says.

OAN's Christina Bobb interviewed the man, Ed Solomon, on January 27 in a segment about the 2020 election, which President Joe Biden had won nearly three months earlier.

In the interview, Solomon said he conducted a mathematical analysis showing that the results in Fulton County, Georgia, "can only have been done by an algorithm." He added that the probability of Biden's victory in the county was "1 over 10 to an exponent so large there's not enough stars in the universe, there aren't enough atoms in the universe, to explain the number."

It's not clear where Solomon got his data set. Factcheck.org compared the numbers he used in his analysis with the data available from Georgia's secretary of state and found that they did not match. An audit of the ballots cast in Georgia in the 2020 election found that the results were correct.

Judge refuses to toss out Dominion defamation suits against Powell, Giuliani and Lindell

A federal judge has rejected bids by three top promoters of President Donald Trump’s election fraud claims to throw out defamation lawsuits they face over a slew of allegedly false statements they made about the election-technology firm Dominion.

Lawyers for former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and My Pillow founder Mike Lindell argued that the suits were legally deficient, but U.S. District Court Judge Carl Nichols ruled on Wednesday that the suits could proceed.

The three defendants’ arguments found little resonance with Nichols, a Trump appointee who seemed disdainful of their conduct and of suggestions that their statements were within the bounds of freewheeling political debate.

“As an initial matter, there is no blanket immunity for statements that are ‘political’ in nature,” Nichols wrote in his 44-page opinion. “It is true that courts recognize the value in some level of ‘imaginative expression’ or ‘rhetorical hyperbole’ in our public debate. … But it is simply not the law that provably false statements cannot be actionable if made in the context of an election.”

Nichols said many of the statements cited in the suit qualified as comments that could be seen as making factual claims capable of being proved true or false.

“The question, then, is whether a reasonable juror could conclude that Powell’s statements expressed or implied a verifiably false fact about Dominion,” the judge wrote. “This is not a close call.”

The judge noted that Powell repeatedly said the founder of Dominion claimed he could change vast numbers of votes at his whim.

“These statements are either true or not; either Powell has a video depicting the founder of Dominion saying he can ‘change a million votes,’ or she does not,” Nichols said.

Nichols also dismissed Powell’s defense that her allegations could not have met the “actual malice” standard because she was relying on sworn statements from people claiming to have knowledge of alleged improprieties and vulnerabilities in Dominion’s software.

“There is no rule that a defendant cannot act in reckless disregard of the truth when relying on sworn affidavits — especially sworn affidavits that the defendant had a role in creating,” the judge wrote. “And Dominion alleges that Powell’s ‘evidence’ was either falsified by Powell herself, misrepresented and cherry-picked, or so obviously unreliable that Powell had to have known it was false or had acted with reckless disregard for the truth.”

The ruling is far from the final word on the cases, which are several in a series of suits Dominion has filed against its critics and the news outlets that gave them prominent platforms. However, the decision was something of a rout for the Trump allies.

One measure of that is that Nichols even allowed the election technology company to press claims of deceptive trade practices against Powell and Lindell over their actions. Powell’s lawyers argued that she couldn’t be liable on that theory because she wasn’t “engaged in trade and commerce of goods” at the time of her statements.

However, the judge said the company had viable claims that Powell, Lindell and Lindell’s company, My Pillow, sought to profit financially by spreading false and inaccurate information.

A lawyer for Powell, Howard Kleinhendler, expressed disappointment in the decision, but signaled that the ruling opened up the possibility of court-ordered access to information about Dominion’s machines and how they performed last fall.

“We are disappointed with the Court’s decision,” Kleinhendler said in a statement. “However, we now look forward to litigating this case on its merits and proving that Ms. Powell’s statements were accurate and certainly not published with malice. We also anticipate taking full discovery of Dominion including a thorough review of its election software and machines used in the 2020 election.”

Attorneys for Giuliani and Lindell did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

A spokesperson for Dominion said in a statement, “We are pleased to see this process moving forward to hold Mike Lindell, MyPillow, Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and Defending The Republic accountable.” Defending the Republic is a group run by Powell.

Mike Lindell Updates ‘Attack’ Claim, Now Says It Was An Aggressive Selfie Seeker

Like his outlandish tales of baseless election fraud, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s story about being “attacked” in a South Dakota hotel by a mysterious member of antifa is getting weirder the more he talks about it.

Lindell claims he was confronted by an aggressive selfie seeker who poked him really hard, causing him pain, as they posed for a photo late Wednesday during his bizarre Cyber Symposium in Sioux Falls.

“I was attacked taking a picture,” he said Thursday on the conservative program “Flashpoint,” which runs on the social media platform Rumble.

Seven months after he was granted a pardon by then-President Donald Trump, Ken Kurson, a friend of Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and a former associate of Rudy Giuliani, was arrested Wednesday in New York on new, state felony charges.

Kurson received the pardon from Trump not long after federal prosecutors in Brooklyn charged him in October 2020 with cyberstalking related to his 2015 divorce.

Kurson now faces charges of eavesdropping and computer trespassing filed by the Manhattan District Attorney's office, which took up the case almost immediately after the pardon was announced on Trump's final day in office.

Manhattan prosecutors looked at the same alleged conduct as federal prosecutors and accused Kurson of spying on his ex-wife by unlawfully accessing her computer. The alleged eavesdropping and computer trespass occurred from Kurson's work computer while he was still editor at The New York Observer.

"Mr. Kurson's ex-wife wrote on his behalf that she never wanted this investigation or arrest and 'repeatedly asked for the FBI to drop it,'" the Trump White House said in announcing Kurson's pardon on Jan. 20.

MORE: Ken Kurson, hired by Jared Kushner to run the Observer, accused of 'stalking and harassment'

"I hired a lawyer to protect me from being forced into yet another round of questioning," the White House quoted her as writing. "My disgust with this arrest and the subsequent articles is bottomless."

The pardon announcement also said that the investigation was only undertaken because Kurson was nominated for a role within the Trump administration.

According to both the current and prior charging documents, the FBI discovered Kurson's allegedly illegal conduct during a background check after the Trump administration offered him a seat on the board of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Kurson helped manage Giuliani's unsuccessful presidential campaign in 2008, and in 2013 was named the editor of The New York Observer by Kushner, who owned the newspaper. Kurson resigned from that position in 2017.

In the federal indictment, Kurson stood accused of harassing three unnamed people, including his ex-wife and another person he blamed for his divorce. Kurson, who denied wrongdoing, allegedly targeted the individual with negative reviews on Yelp along with threatening messages and anonymous calls.

"We will not accept presidential pardons as get-out-of-jail-free cards for the well-connected in New York," District Attorney Cy Vance said in a statement. "As alleged in the complaint, Mr. Kurson launched a campaign of cybercrime, manipulation, and abuse from his perch at the New York Observer, and now the people of New York will hold him accountable. We encourage all survivors and witnesses of this type of cybercrime and intimate partner abuse to report these crimes to our Office."

Seven months after he was granted a pardon by then-President Donald Trump, Ken Kurson, a friend of Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and a former associate of Rudy Giuliani, was arrested Wednesday in New York on new, state felony charges.

Kurson received the pardon from Trump not long after federal prosecutors in Brooklyn charged him in October 2020 with cyberstalking related to his 2015 divorce.

Kurson now faces charges of eavesdropping and computer trespassing filed by the Manhattan District Attorney's office, which took up the case almost immediately after the pardon was announced on Trump's final day in office.

Manhattan prosecutors looked at the same alleged conduct as federal prosecutors and accused Kurson of spying on his ex-wife by unlawfully accessing her computer. The alleged eavesdropping and computer trespass occurred from Kurson's work computer while he was still editor at The New York Observer.

"Mr. Kurson's ex-wife wrote on his behalf that she never wanted this investigation or arrest and 'repeatedly asked for the FBI to drop it,'" the Trump White House said in announcing Kurson's pardon on Jan. 20.

MORE: Ken Kurson, hired by Jared Kushner to run the Observer, accused of 'stalking and harassment'

"I hired a lawyer to protect me from being forced into yet another round of questioning," the White House quoted her as writing. "My disgust with this arrest and the subsequent articles is bottomless."

The pardon announcement also said that the investigation was only undertaken because Kurson was nominated for a role within the Trump administration.

According to both the current and prior charging documents, the FBI discovered Kurson's allegedly illegal conduct during a background check after the Trump administration offered him a seat on the board of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Kurson helped manage Giuliani's unsuccessful presidential campaign in 2008, and in 2013 was named the editor of The New York Observer by Kushner, who owned the newspaper. Kurson resigned from that position in 2017.

In the federal indictment, Kurson stood accused of harassing three unnamed people, including his ex-wife and another person he blamed for his divorce. Kurson, who denied wrongdoing, allegedly targeted the individual with negative reviews on Yelp along with threatening messages and anonymous calls.

"We will not accept presidential pardons as get-out-of-jail-free cards for the well-connected in New York," District Attorney Cy Vance said in a statement. "As alleged in the complaint, Mr. Kurson launched a campaign of cybercrime, manipulation, and abuse from his perch at the New York Observer, and now the people of New York will hold him accountable. We encourage all survivors and witnesses of this type of cybercrime and intimate partner abuse to report these crimes to our Office."

Report on partisan Arizona audit delayed after pro-Trump Cyber Ninjas contract COVID

A report detailing the results of the much-maligned and partisan audit of 2020 election results in Arizona has been delayed after members of the Florida-based company hired to conduct it contracted COVID-19.

Karen Fann, the Republican president of the Arizona state Senate, announced the news on Monday afternoon.

“Today we are receiving a portion of the draft report from the election audit analysis team,” said Fann. “The team expected to have the full draft ready for the Senate today, but unfortunately Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan and two other members of the five-person audit team have tested positive for COVID-19 and are quite sick.”

WASHINGTON — The leader of the far-right Proud Boys was sentenced Monday to more than five months in jail after admitting that he burned a Black Lives Matter banner taken from a historic Black church in Washington during a pro-Trump demonstration in December.

Henry Tarrio, known to followers as Enrique, was arrested Jan. 4 in Washington on a warrant stemming from an incident on Dec. 12. The Proud Boys and other groups marched in a raucous rally through downtown. The banner was stolen from Asbury United Methodist Church, one of the oldest Black churches in Washington.

Tarrio, 37, of Miami, also pleaded guilty to attempting to possess a high-capacity gun magazine, which is illegal in Washington. Investigators said he had the magazines with him when he returned to the city for the Jan. 6 protests of the electoral vote count in Congress.

Both charges were misdemeanors, punishable by up to six months in jail.

Federal prosecutors recommended a sentence of 90 days in jail followed by three months of probation and an order forbidding him to return to Washington. They said his burning of the banner "had profound emotional and psychological effect upon the church and its members" and that he bragged openly about it, saying on social media, "I'm damn proud I did it!"

A senior pastor at the church, the Rev. Dr. Ianther Mills, spoke during the court hearing before the sentence was imposed. She called Tarrio's conduct "an act of intimidation and racism" and he treated his action as "a trophy on social media."

Tarrio told the judge Monday that he made "a grave mistake" by burning the banner. "I profoundly apologize. I didn't see the consequences of what I did."

But prosecutors said that video taken during the December demonstration showed that he was on and around the church property as other members of the Proud Boys stole the banner. "He surely knew where he was and where the banner he burned — which had Asbury's name printed on it — had come from."

Superior Court Judge Harold Cushenberg said Tarrio "did not credibly express genuine remorse" and sentenced him to a total of 155 days.

Tarrio was ordered to surrender to the Washington, DC jail on September 6.

The guilty plea and sentence were unrelated to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, in which at least three dozen members or followers of the Proud Boys have been charged. Federal prosecutors said in court documents that Tarrio, referred to as the "Proud Boys Chairman," posted messages on social media that members of the group planned to "turn out in record numbers on Jan 6th."

After Tarrio was arrested, prosecutors said, other members of the group took over the planning for what would happen when Congress met to count the electoral vote for president.

Federal law enforcement officials have said Washington police were tipped off that he was coming to Washington for the event and were on the lookout for him, prepared to arrest him for burning the banner.

1st sentence to be handed down in Michigan governor kidnapping plot

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — Prosecutors preparing for the first prison sentence in an alleged plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer are loudly signaling to five other defendants that a key insider has shared extraordinary details about the operation.

Ty Garbin cooperated within weeks of being arrested, willingly putting a “target on his back to begin his own redemption,” the government said in a court filing.

Prosecutors want U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker to take that into consideration Wednesday when he sentences Garbin for conspiracy. The government is recommending a nine-year prison term, a long stretch but one that would be even longer if he had not assisted investigators after being charged.

The FBI last October said it broke up a scheme to kidnap the Democratic governor by anti-government extremists who were upset over Whitmer’s coronavirus restrictions. Six men were charged in federal court, while others were charged in state court with aiding them.

When the kidnapping case was filed, Whitmer pinned some blame on then-President Donald Trump, saying his refusal to denounce far-right groups had inspired extremists across the U.S.

The governor last year put major restrictions on personal movement and the economy because of COVID-19, although many limits were eventually lifted. The Michigan Capitol was the site of rallies, including ones with gun-toting protesters calling for Whitmer’s removal.

Whitmer exchanged barbs with Trump on social media, with Trump declaring in April 2020, “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!”

Garbin, a 25-year-old airplane mechanic, is the only federal defendant to plead guilty in the plot; the others are awaiting trial.

“He filled in gaps in the government’s knowledge by recounting conversations and actions that did not include any government informant or ability to record,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Nils Kessler said.

“Second, he confirmed that the plot was real; not just ‘big talk between crackpots,’ as suggested by co-defendants. Third, he dispelled any suggestion that the conspirators were entrapped by government informants,” the prosecutor said.

In his plea agreement, Garbin said the six men trained at his property near Luther, Michigan, constructing a “shoot house” to resemble Whitmer’s vacation home and “assaulting it with firearms.”

A Tennessee-based group called Parents for Peace said it helps people move away from extremist movements. It is asking the judge for a “minimal” prison sentence, noting that Garbin’s rocky childhood and other factors contributed to his decisions.

The group’s hotline has “received a significant increase in calls during the COVID-19 pandemic,” Parents for Peace said in a court filing. “Extremism has continued to be on the rise, and as more and more people were stuck at home, online and found their social networks broken, people turned to extremism.”

Posted by kermit on 8/11/2021 8:57:00 AM (view original):
Ye need lots of angles and whatchacallit to get them swing sets right.

A congressional committee charged with investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection sent letters to eight different federal agencies on Wednesday with sweeping requests for information and records on the roles that Trump administration officials might have played in the attack on the American democratic process.

The letters from Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the select committee chair, seek to expedite the process of turning over records from the executive branch to Congress. Thompson’s letters renew some requests made by other committees earlier this year, but also build on them to cover a more expansive group of records.

“Given the urgent nature of our request, we ask that you expedite your consultation and processing times,” Thompson wrote to David S. Ferriero, head of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), which has custody of presidential records. “We have some concern about the delay in producing documents requested this past March, and we want to assist your prompt production of materials.”

Thompson’s letter asked NARA staff to meet with select committee staff to “discuss production priorities.” The 12-page letter to NARA includes a long list of topics that the committee is seeking documents, call logs, visitor logs, and other forms of potential evidence about, with lengthy lists of names of persons of interest from inside and outside the Trump administration.

All records related to Jan. 6 are requested, along with numerous documents related to “planning by the White House and others for legal or other strategies to delay, halt, or otherwise impede the electoral count,” as well as “recruitment, planning, coordination, and other preparations” for the rallies and violence that took place during the insurrection. The committee is also looking to acquire documents that could shed light on what then-President Donald Trump was told by his advisers about the integrity of the election, and it wants to compare those internal communications with what he told his followers in the lead-up to the Capitol riot.

In addition to the letter to NARA, Thompson sent letters to the Department of Defense, FBI, Justice Department, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Interior, the Direction of National Intelligence, and the National Counterterrorism Center.

Lawyers allied with Trump penalized over Michigan lawsuit

DETROIT (AP) — Nine lawyers allied with former President Donald Trump face financial penalties and other sanctions after a judge Wednesday said they had abused the court system with a lawsuit that challenged Michigan's election results in favor of Joe Biden.

U.S. District Judge Linda Parker said the lawsuit last fall was a sham intended to deceive the court and the public, just a few days after Biden's 154,000-vote victory in the state was certified.

“Despite the haze of confusion, commotion and chaos counsel intentionally attempted to create by filing this lawsuit, one thing is perfectly clear: Plaintiffs’ attorneys have scorned their oath, flouted the rules, and attempted to undermine the integrity of the judiciary along the way,” Parker said in the opening of a scathing 110-page opinion.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of six Republican voters who wanted Parker to decertify Michigan’s results and impound voting machines. The judge declined in December, calling the request “stunning in its scope and breathtaking in its reach.”

The state and Detroit subsequently asked Parker to order sanctions against Sidney Powell, L. Lin Wood and seven other attorneys who were part of the litigation.

The judge agreed, telling the state and city to tally the costs of defending the lawsuit and submit the figures within 14 days.

Parker said lawyers for Trump supporters filed affidavits stuffed with sinister “speculation and conjecture” about the vote-counting process without checking for evidence to support the claims.

“Individuals may have a right — within certain bounds — to disseminate allegations of fraud unsupported by law or fact in the public sphere," the judge said. "But attorneys cannot exploit their privilege and access to the judicial process to do the same.”

Parker ordered 12 hours of legal education, including six hours in election law, for each attorney. Her decision will also be sent to the states where the lawyers are licensed for possible disciplinary action there.

It was one of the few efforts to wrench fines or other penalties from dubious post-election lawsuits across the U.S. There was no immediate response to messages seeking comment from attorneys for Wood and Powell.

“I appreciate the unmistakable message she sends with this ruling — those who vow to uphold the Constitution must answer for abandoning that oath,” said Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat.

There is no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. Indeed, election officials from both political parties have stated publicly that the election went well, and international observers confirmed there were no serious irregularities.

During a July court hearing, Powell took “full responsibility” for the lawsuit and compared the legal fight to the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision that outlawed racial segregation in schools.

“It is the duty of lawyers and the highest tradition of the practice of law to raise difficult and even unpopular issues,” Powell told the judge, adding that efforts to impose sanctions would diminish the public's view of the court system.

Wood’s name was on the lawsuit, but he insisted he had no role other than to tell Powell that he would be available if she needed a seasoned litigator.

In New York, Rudy Giuliani was suspended from practicing law because he made false statements while trying to get courts to overturn Trump’s election loss.