The day after Donald J. Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol, a small group working on his behalf traveled to rural Coffee County, Georgia, about 200 miles southeast of Atlanta.
One member of the group was Paul Maggio, an executive at an Atlanta-based firm called SullivanStrickler, which helps companies analyze and manage their data. His firm had been hired by Sidney Powell, a conspiracy theorist and attorney who advised Mr. Trump, who was tasked with combing through electoral systems in Georgia and other states. It was part of an effort by Trump allies in a number of swing states to access and copy sensitive voting software with the help of friendly election administrators.
“We are on our way to Coffee County, Georgia to collect as much of the voting/election machines and systems as we can,” Mr. Maggio wrote to Ms. Powell on the morning of Jan. 7, 2021, according to an email exchange that have recently surfaced in civil lawsuits. Weeks later, Scott Hall, a Trump supporter and bailiff from the Atlanta area, who traveled to Coffee County on a chartered plane, described what he and the group were doing there.
“We scanned every damn ballot,” he said in a recorded phone call in March 2021. Mr Hall said the team had the blessing of the local Elections Committee and “scanned all the equipment, imaged all the hard drives and scanned every single vote.”
This week, court filings revealed that the Coffee County data breach is now part of the broader election-rigging investigation being conducted by Fani T. Willis, the district attorney for Fulton County, Georgia, which includes most of Atlanta.
Though Coffee County is well outside her jurisdiction, Ms. Willis is attempting to build a full-scale conspiracy and racketeering case that encompasses multiple efforts by Trump allies to disrupt and overthrow the legitimate August 16 election of Joseph R. Biden Jr The Georgia Bureau of Investigation also confirmed that it is working with the Georgia Secretary of State’s office on an investigation into Coffee County’s privacy breach, court filings show. Many of the details of the Coffee County visit were contained in emails and texts surfaced in civil lawsuits filed by voting rights activists against the Georgia Secretary of State; News of the breach was previously reported by the Washington Post.
Similar violations coordinated by Trump allies played out in several swing states. This month, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, requested the appointment of a special attorney to investigate data breaches there. She is trying to withdraw from the case because one of the people who may be involved in the scheme is her likely Republican opponent, Matthew DePerno.
Ms Powell did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
SullivanStrickler, in a statement from a law firm representing the company, said that it “was never part of a ‘pro-Trump team’ or a ‘team’ whose goal is to undermine our democracy,” adding it was a “politically agnostic” firm hired to “preserve and forensically duplicate the Dominion voting machines used in the 2020 election.” The statement said it was “categorically false” that SullivanStrickler was part of an effort that “illegally broke into servers” or other voting equipment, adding that they were retained and directed by “licensed, practicing attorneys.”
“The company has decided to discontinue any further new work on this matter after January 7,” the statement said. “In hindsight, and knowing what they know now, they wouldn’t do any more work of this nature.”
Legal experts say the Fulton County investigation could be particularly dangerous for Trump’s allies, and perhaps for Trump himself, given the phone call Mr. Trump made as president on Jan. 2, 2021, with Georgia’s secretary of state asking him about it to “find” enough votes to help him reverse his state election loss.
A special grand jury has been set up with the sole purpose of investigating election interference in the state and has heard testimony from more than 30 witnesses, including Mr Trump’s former personal attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani. Mr Giuliani is one of at least 18 people who have been told by prosecutors they could be charged in the case.
This week, prosecutors filed court documents showing they wanted testimony from a number of other Trump allies, including Ms. Powell and Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff. The petition, aimed at compelling Ms. Powell’s testimony, notes that Ms. Powell coordinated with Sullivan Strickler to obtain “election data” from Coffee County, adding, “There is further evidence in the public domain.” Records suggesting witness was involved in similar efforts in Michigan and Nevada during the same time period.”
As an attorney advising Mr Trump after the election, Ms Powell made a number of spurious allegations of voter fraud, including claims that Democrats “developed a computer system to electronically alter votes.”
Ms. Powell is among those sued for defamation by Dominion Voting Systems, the company that supplies voting machines to Coffee County and the rest of Georgia. As part of that lawsuit, Ms. Powell’s attorneys have argued that “no reasonable person would conclude” that some of her wilder statements “were actually allegations of fact.”
Fulton County prosecutors want Ms. Powell to testify before a special jury next month. In their court filing this week, they said they had “unique knowledge” of post-election meetings that took place at the South Carolina plantation of L. Lin Wood, a pro-Trump lawyer and conspiracy theorist. Mr. Wood, prosecutors wrote, explained that he and a group of other Trump supporters, including Ms Powell and Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser, met at the plantation to discuss “options for influencing the outcome” of the 2020 election to explore. in Georgia and elsewhere.”
Ms. Willis’ office cited the Coffee County data breach in her filing filed Thursday to seek Ms. Powell’s testimony, which was the first time the matter had surfaced in connection with her investigation. It remains unclear how much Ms. Willis’ office will focus its investigation on the Coffee County matter or what charges might result.
“The state has a variety of avenues to bring charges,” said David D. Cross, an attorney representing plaintiffs in a long-running lawsuit brought by community groups against the Georgia Secretary of State’s office over election security. “Georgia has specific laws that specifically prevent access to voting machines,” he said, as well as “general laws about access to computer equipment that doesn’t belong to you.”
Mr Trump gained nearly 70 percent of Coffee County, which is home to just 43,000 people. Trump officials most likely targeted the county’s electoral system because the county was run by friendly officials who were willing to work together. Cathy Latham, who was leader of the local Republican party at the time, was also one of 16 pro-Trump miss-voters who gathered at the Georgia State Capitol on December 14, 2020, despite Mr Trump’s loss in the state. All of them, including Ms. Latham, have been identified as targets of Ms. Willis’ investigation.
The costs of violating election security were high. In Antrim County, Michigan, which has spearheaded efforts to overturn the election, clerk Sheryl Guy said Thursday officials need to rent voting machines to replace machines kept as evidence in civil trials.
In Colorado, the Secretary of State’s office estimated that taxpayers had incurred at least a $1 million bill for replacing voting equipment in Mesa County after a pro-Trump election official was accused of having after the 2020 election the equipment tampered with.
Voting experts noted that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, part of the Department of Homeland Security, recommended that the safest course of action was to decommission compromised voting machines.
“We’re getting close to the point where this is happening at an alarming rate,” Lawrence Norden, senior director of electoral and government programming at the Brennan Center, said in an interview Thursday. “When election officials allow or facilitate unsupervised access to the system by untrustworthy actors, the public is intrinsically questioned as to whether they trust those systems.”
Nick Corasaniti contributed to the coverage.
