Newly obtained surveillance video shows fake Trump elector escorted operatives into Georgia county's elections office before voting machine breach

The breach is now underneath investigation by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and is of interest to the Fulton County District Legal professional, who is conducting a broader criminal probe of interference in the 2020 election.

The video clip sheds a lot more gentle on how an work spearheaded by lawyers and others all-around Trump to request proof of voter fraud was executed on the ground from Ga to Michigan to Colorado, typically with the aid of sympathetic community officials.

In the surveillance video clip, which was received by CNN, Cathy Latham, a former GOP chairwoman of Coffee County who is below legal investigation for posing as a fake elector in 2020, escorts a team of pro-Trump operatives to the county’s elections workplace on January 7, 2021, the very same day a voting technique there is acknowledged to have been breached.

The two men observed in the movie with Latham, Scott Hall and Paul Maggio, have acknowledged that they successfully obtained accessibility to a voting equipment in Coffee County at the behest of Trump law firm Sidney Powell.

Textual content messages, email messages and witness testimony filed as portion of a lengthy-working civil match into the safety of Georgia’s voting methods display Latham communicated straight with the then-Coffee County elections supervisor about getting obtain to the business, both of those ahead of and just after the breach. A person textual content concept, according to the court docket document, shows Latham coordinating the arrival and whereabouts of a team “led by Paul Maggio” that traveled to Coffee County at the way of Powell.

3 days immediately after the breach, Latham texted the Coffee County elections supervisor, “Did you all complete with the scanner?” According to court docket documents, Latham testified she did not know what Hall was accomplishing in Coffee County. But when confronted with her texts about the scanner, she asserted her Fifth Modification rights.

Maggio did not reply to CNN’s request for comment. As a substitute, the info organization he performs for, SullivanStrickler, which court files present was employed by Powell, claimed in a statement to CNN that it was “directed by lawyers to get in touch with county election officials to get hold of entry to selected data” in Ga and also “directed by lawyers to distribute that details to selected folks.”

In an August 29, 2022, e-mail, an legal professional for SullivanStrickler acknowledges that Latham was the “primary point of call” in coordinating the team’s stop by to Espresso County.

The company said it experienced no purpose to consider these lawyers would talk to or immediate it to “do anything at all possibly improper or unlawful.”

Hall, an Atlanta bail bondsman and Fulton County Republican poll watcher, did not reply to recurring requests for remark from CNN.

Conflicting responses

The freshly acquired surveillance video clip and textual content messages in the civil lawsuit recommend the bogus elector plot and the effort to breach voting equipment in Georgia were being aspect of a larger, coordinated program to subvert the 2020 election. Some of the exact Trump legal professionals and allies who helped orchestrate the exertion to seat faux electors in states Trump misplaced in 2020 were being also concerned in makes an attempt to gain unauthorized accessibility to voting machines in several counties in states all-around the country found as helpful towards the former president.

“The online video reveals that Cathy Latham experienced a much more considerable purpose with the SullivanStrickler team’s get the job done in Coffee County than she claimed,” stated David Cross, an attorney symbolizing election integrity groups suing Ga over its voting units and who has reviewed the video clip. “We can see her escort the staff into the business that early morning, for illustration. And she’s an essential connection to the work to generate a slate of Ga electors who would have wrongly voted for Trump for the 2020 election, which now appears to be to be the subject of a grand jury investigation in Fulton County.”

According to courtroom documents, Latham has delivered conflicting responses during depositions when asked about her involvement in the breach and no matter whether she was at the Espresso County elections business office on the working day it transpired. The video clip confirms she was there when it took put and virtually held the door open up for people who breached the voting units. Beforehand, the Justice Division experienced warned elections officials not to permit exterior accessibility of this sort.

Latham did not respond to CNN’s request for remark. A attorney symbolizing Latham did not dispute the points of the story and claimed that Latham did not have the authority to “authorize anyone to do something with the ballots.”

The lawyer explained Latham did not “participate individually in just about anything that the elections board and/or its worker … may well have made the decision to do less than their very own authority (or at least their perceived authority) with the ballots.”

“So, irrespective of whether she effectively remembers the details of what time she expended there on January 7, it won’t alter the fact that she experienced no authority to do any of this and was not personally involved in whatever was accomplished,” the law firm additional.

A next attorney symbolizing Latham, Bob Cheeley, explained to CNN, “Cathy Latham has focused substantial time and exertion more than lots of several years shielding the integrity of elections in Espresso County, Ga. She would not and has not knowingly been associated in any impropriety in any election.”

“Latham did not authorize or participate in any ballot scanning attempts, pc imaging, or any related activity in Espresso County in January 2021.”

Operatives related to Trump’s marketing campaign and authorized staff labored with neighborhood GOP officers to gain access to voting programs in counties across numerous states adhering to the 2020 election, including Espresso County. The objective was to generate proof to back up Trump’s baseless promises and in the end upend Joe Biden’s victory — even following it was qualified on January 6.

Amongst them was Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan, who oversaw the partisan election audit in Maricopa County, Arizona, and was not long ago named by the Michigan lawyer basic as a goal in the state-level felony investigation into unauthorized voting machine breaches in that state.

The newly attained surveillance movie exhibits Logan also frequented the Espresso County elections office more than when in January 2021, around two months following the breach took location. CNN has attained out to attorneys for Logan.

Independently, federal investigators have issued subpoenas in search of info about Latham’s interaction with Rudy Giuliani and other users of Trump’s legal crew as section of a DOJ probe, resources said.

On December 30, 2020, eight days just before the January 7 voting machine breach, Latham testified alongside with Giuliani ahead of Georgia condition lawmakers about supposed voter machine irregularities in Coffee County.

At the time, Latham and the Giuliani lawful staff were represented by the similar attorney, according to the minutes from that listening to. When requested during a the latest deposition in the Ga civil circumstance no matter whether she understood or at any time had any interaction with Giuliani, Latham asserted her Fifth Amendment rights.

Latham is a goal of two legal investigations into attempts to overturn the 2020 election, one particular by the Fulton County District Attorney’s Workplace, and a parallel probe by the Justice Section, according to multiple resources and files attained by CNN. Both equally of these investigations are hunting specially at the faux electors plot. Condition investigators in Georgia are also inspecting the Espresso County voting device breach.

Trump allies focus on rural GOP stronghold in Georgia

In the weeks after the election, Espresso County promptly emerged as a central component of the Trump team’s drive to overturn the election. The reliably Republican stronghold of about 43,000 citizens was the only county in Ga that refused to certify its benefits right after the election, even nevertheless Trump won just about 70% of the vote.

Trump and his lawyers had an ally in Latham, who was open to aiding push their statements of fraud and was a leading voice amid those people boosting problems about the Dominion voting programs used in Espresso County.

It was one of two counties referenced in draft executive orders that, if signed by Trump, would have purchased the armed service or Section of Homeland Stability to seize voting devices across the country. They would have also installed a exclusive counsel with the electrical power to examine voter fraud.

Whilst all those files had been by no means signed, the draft orders were being presented to Trump all through a now-notorious Oval Business office assembly on December 18, 2020, which was attended by election deniers, which includes Powell and Michael Flynn, in accordance to preceding CNN reporting and testimony right before the Property Decide on Committee investigating January 6.

In the months just after that meeting, attaining entry to voting machines grew to become a major priority for Trump allies trying to get to overturn the election, as individuals closest to the former President thought it was the only way to truly show there was popular fraud, according to a source with direct understanding of the make any difference.

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Trump’s internal circle was warned by a number of Republican lawmakers that with out evidence of fraud, their approach to subvert the Electoral Faculty would virtually definitely are unsuccessful, text messages obtained by the Home Find Committee investigating the US Capitol assault clearly show.

Powell was between people who took the direct in the hunt for evidence of voter fraud, turning her awareness to Espresso County in the times prior to January 6, emails made as part of the civil accommodate and received by CNN demonstrate. Like Latham, Powell was in immediate call with customers of the group that travelled to Coffee County and Powell seems to have hired them for the task, the e-mail demonstrate.

In accordance to the civil lawsuit, users of the team integrated Corridor, the Atlanta bail bondsman who is viewed on the surveillance footage remaining escorted into the Coffee County elections business by Latham.

In an audio recording received by CNN, Hall statements that he “chartered the jet to go down to Coffee County to have them examine all of people pcs.”

“I went down there, we scanned each freaking ballot,” Hall states in the recording. Hall also implies that the identical group of persons who orchestrated the breach in Coffee County also acquired obtain to voting machines in Antrim County, Michigan months prior to.

“The identical people today that went up to Michigan, Alright, and did all that forensic things on the desktops. And they despatched their crew down to Coffee County, Georgia, and they scanned all the equipment, imaged all the challenging drives, and scanned each and every single ballot,” Hall says in the recording.

Maggio was amongst those people who was included in both attempts, according to formerly described documents linked to the inspection of voting units in Antrim County and his individual testimony in a civil court situation associated to the Espresso County breach.

Hall also statements that he and the crew of individuals who traveled to Espresso County experienced permission from regional elections officials to obtain the voting units.

Evidence of a coordinated plot

It is really unclear if federal authorities are investigating no matter if makes an attempt to acquire access to voting equipment following the 2020 election were being portion of a coordinated, multi-condition effort carried out by Trump allies. But state investigators in Ga are inspecting the risk of a broader plot.

And investigators in Colorado and Michigan are sharing evidence they have gathered about unauthorized breaches in those people states with the FBI, in accordance to numerous resources acquainted with those people investigations.

Previously this calendar year, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson shared details with members of the Residence Choose Committee, as well as Lawyer Common Merrick Garland, to assist in the investigation of regardless of whether pro-Trump operatives received access to voting devices in Antrim County as element of a coordinated plot overseen by the former President’s lawful group.

Considering the fact that then, evidence has emerged linking quite a few persons who received entry to voting methods in Antrim County to the breach in Espresso County — such as Powell and Maggio.

In a recent court docket submitting, Phil Waldron, a retired Army colonel who was deeply involved in endeavours to overturn the election, claimed that a federal grand jury has been empaneled and that a workforce of federal prosecutors and FBI agents are “conducting a sweeping prison investigation into people, between many others, who have ‘worked in the cybersecurity place on election- and voting-associated challenges.”‘

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The filing arrived as element of Waldron’s months-long court docket struggle with the Residence Pick Committee investigating January 6, which has subpoenaed Waldron’s mobile phone information. Waldron has argued that if the House Committee receives his cell phone information, they could end up in the hands of federal prosecutors that he states are also investigating endeavours to attain election info by seizing and tampering with voting machines.

CNN formerly claimed that Waldron was aspect of the crew that reviewed election knowledge obtained from Antrim County, helped craft the draft government orders for seizing voting equipment and coordinated attempts to accessibility voting techniques in numerous states to bolster Trump’s statements about common election fraud.

He also testified during a December 2020 listening to on election fraud held by condition lawmakers in Ga and was launched by Giuliani.

A supply acquainted with Trump’s legal protection tactic expressed worry about the prospect of federal prosecutors concentrating on cyber investigators like Waldron, since they could endeavor to flip them in get to bolster their opportunity circumstance versus the previous President.

On August 25, Waldron and Powell have been ordered to testify as element of the Fulton County District Attorney’s probe.

In a court docket filling, Fulton County District Legal professional Fani Willis specially notes that Powell can likely provide information about the breach in Coffee County as very well as similar endeavours in Michigan and Nevada connected to voting devices.

This story has been up to date with added reporting.