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(CNN) In mid-January 2021, two men hired on former President Donald Trump’s legal team discussed in text messages what to do with data obtained from a compromised voting machine in a rural Georgia county. State pending Senate run-off results.
The texts, sent two weeks after operatives broke into a voting machine in Coffee County, Georgia, were used by Trump’s allies to not only overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, but also to keep them up. For the first time, it is clear that it was considering using voting data. Republicans control the Senate.
Jim Penrose, a former NSA official working with Trump attorney Sidney Powell to access voting machines in Georgia, told Cyber Ninjaz CEO Doug Logan in an email on Jan. 19 that: It writes like It is intended to conduct audits of voting systems.
Penrose, in an unpublished document obtained by CNN, refers to proving Democrat John Ossoff defeated Republican David Perdue.
“We only have until Saturday to decide whether to use this report to revoke the Senate run-off certification or hold it for longer,” Penrose said, referring to potential lawsuits. Stated.
Coordinated by members of Trump’s legal team, including Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, the plan to compromise Coffee County’s voting system is the result of a broader campaign on the 2020 election interference led by Fulton County District Attorney Fanny Willis. It’s part of a criminal investigation.
Willis’ office is reviewing potential racketeering lawsuits against multiple defendants and is actively deciding who to indict, sources told CNN. It subpoenaed a number of individuals involved in the Coffee County violation, including the two men who carried it out who had been in contact with.
Willis also served subpoenas to Giuliani and Powell as part of the investigation. Giuliani was told he was under investigation by Fulton County, CNN previously reported. The special grand jury convened for the case recommended issuing multiple indictments in its final report, which was completed in February, according to the jury president.
A source familiar with Willis’ investigation told CNN that Willis and her team have used compromised voting data from the state of Georgia to decertify the state’s senator runoff ballot. According to emails obtained by CNN, Penrose and Powell made an advance payment to a cyber forensics firm that sent a team to Coffee County on Jan. 7, 2021. I arranged.
The Coffee County data breach is also being investigated by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
Special Counsel Jack Smith is also investigating widespread efforts to compromise or seize voting machines as part of a federal investigation into efforts to reverse the 2020 election and the attack on the US Capitol on January 6. It seems that It is unclear if he has any evidence related to the Coffee County violations.
Penrose and Logan were also named in a state-level criminal investigation for participating in a conspiracy to seize voting machines in Michigan.
Giuliani’s attorneys declined to comment and referred to CNN his Jan. 6 board interview transcript.
Powell, Penrose and Logan did not respond to requests for comment.
Voting machine compromised in Georgia
On January 7, 2021, a day after mobs stormed the U.S. Capitol, two people walked into a campaign office in Coffee County, Georgia, which voted overwhelmingly for Trump in 2020. to confidential voting data downloaded to a portable hard drive.
According to access logs reviewed by CNN and testimony released by the commission on Jan. 6, the data was uploaded to an encrypted server and shared with Trump supporters and operatives, including Logan, Penrose, Powell and Giuliani. Shared.
The former Trump official, who testified under oath last year to the House Jan. 6 committee that plans to access Georgia’s voting system, was infamous Dec. 18, 2020 in the Oval Office. It was discussed in meetings at the White House, including during the .
Derek Lyons, a former White House deputy attorney who was present at that meeting, told the committee on Jan. 6 that instead of ordering the military or Homeland Security to seize the voting machines, the Georgia ballot could be voted on. He testified that Giuliani had offered him access to the aircraft.
According to Giuliani’s affidavit, Lyons said of Giuliani, “It was his view that somehow the campaign would be able to secure access to the voting machines in Georgia by means other than seizure. ‘ said.
Lyons told the commission that Giuliani suggested that access was “voluntary” and that investigation of those machines would “begin to show evidence of the claims made.”
“That evidence could be leveraged to gain access to additional machines,” Lyons said. “Georgia was a hot topic at the time.”
There is no evidence that Coffee County ballot data was used as part of a lawsuit to decertify the Senate runoff results. But the fact that the data has not yet been restored has raised concerns among election security advocates about how it could be used to disrupt future election results.
In a letter to the FBI in December 2022, Susan Greenhalgh, senior counsel for election security at the advocacy group Free Speech For People, described how copies of Coffee County voter data could be used by an “unknown number of people.” Is it secretly shared with election deniers?” The letter warned that the data “could be used to sow distrust in elections, fabricate evidence to challenge legitimate election results, and manipulate election results in the future.” .
The advocacy group is one of several groups involved in a civil lawsuit focused on election security in Georgia. Greenhalgh has asked the FBI to investigate the Coffee County breach.
Broader Efforts
After the 2020 election, Trump allies called Allied Security to investigate allegations of voting machine fraud in a handful of battleground states Trump lost, looking for evidence to support baseless claims of voter fraud. We hired a little-known Texas-based security company called Operations Group. , including Michigan, Arizona, and Georgia.
Weeks before the Coffee County violation, in late December 2020, Trump supporters were granted access to voting machines in Antrim County, Michigan. Antrim County has a population of about 24,000 and Trump won 61% of the vote.
The team then took that data and, with the help of ASOG, created a report claiming vulnerabilities for Dominion Voting Systems. The report, which has since been widely debunked, was the basis for a lawsuit filed by Powell challenging the election results in Michigan in December 2020. The lawsuit is his one of more than 60 lawsuits filed by Trump’s legal team challenging the election results.
Still, Logan and Penrose, who were part of the team that produced the Antrim County report, considered using Coffee County data in a similar way to challenge the Georgia Senate runoff ballot. In the Jan. 19 text, the two men planned to do the report with the help of his ASOG top attorney, a man named Charles Bundren.
As part of a January 19 text message, Penrose told Logan, “It would be best if I could draft a report for review with Charles Vandren on Friday morning.
Vandoren was part of the team hired by Trump’s attorneys to find evidence of widespread voter fraud following the 2020 election. According to several documents obtained by CNN, Vandoren helped oversee the push of multiple states to access voting machines on behalf of Trump’s legal team.
According to sources with direct knowledge of Vandoren’s role, Vandoren also took the most extreme actions considered by Trump aides, including helping draft an executive order directing the military and DHS to seize voting machines in December 2020. I had a hands-on role in developing some of the best options. in plan. The order was never signed by Trump.
Even after reports from Antrim County, Michigan, were repeatedly debunked by local, state, and federal officials, senior Trump supporters, including Giuliani and Powell, called the ASOG to conduct an audit of the 2020 election results. specifically recommended to legislators across the country that they should hire .
In Pennsylvania, Republican Senator Doug Mastriano, one of Trump’s more trusted advocates for overturning the 2020 election results, told county officials in his state that he could only initiate an external audit. rather than urged them to hire an ASOG to carry it out. Letter obtained by CNN.
In Arizona, state Republican officials initially attempted to hire the ASOG to conduct a partisan audit in Maricopa County, but ultimately, due to public scrutiny of Antrim’s report, Logan’s cyber I chose Ninja.
However, Vandoren remained closely involved in the process, coordinating directly with Republican officials overseeing the bogus audit. even
Vandoren and other ASOG employees also quietly participated in the audit itself after being hired as subcontractors working under a company with a different name, acquired by the group American Oversight and shared with the CNN show. I had text messages and other documents.
On all fronts, Vandoren worked closely with fellow ASOG member Phil Waldron. Phil Waldron was part of Giuliani’s team investigating allegations of voter fraud following the 2020 election and was central to a broader effort to access voting machines in key battleground states. .
Logan testified in the Georgia lawsuit that he prepared a report on Coffee County data for Vandoren, which apparently reached Giuliani. According to a transcript of his testimony released by the panel.
Asked before a House committee whether anyone in Coffee County had access to the machine and filed the report, Giuliani said “yes,” recalling that the person was Waldron.
Vandoren and Waldron did not respond to requests for comment.
CNN’s Sarah Murray, Jason Morris and Paula Reid contributed to the report.
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