03 May Hit Piece Coming on an Election Fraud Investigator?
Washington Post reporter Jon Swaine emailed me on Thursday April 29, 2021, with a list of questions about my interview of Russ Ramsland on my AmericaCanWeTalk show. Mr. Ramsland has appeared on the show several times, but I believe the focus of Mr. Swaine’s interest is on Mr. Ramsland’s appearance on November 23, 2020. The interview topic was election fraud, specifically electronic manipulation of voting machines, in the 2020 elections, as investigated by ASOG, the Allied Security Operations Group headed up by Mr. Ramsland.
Rumors have swirled for weeks about an impending hit piece on Mr. Ramsland by the Washington Post. I don’t know whether the rumors will prove true, and I applaud Mr. Swaine for the professionalism involved in reaching out to me for comment on an as yet unpublished article in which he openly acknowledges his intent to mention me and my show. That’s the way journalism should be done. I’m also hopeful that the rumors will prove half-true, in the sense that a story will be published regarding Mr. Ramsland, but that after taking into account all Mr. Swaine will have learned about the facts and circumstances surrounding election fraud concerns raised by Mr. Ramsland and others, the story will not be a hit piece.
I have set forth below the email text questions sent to me by Mr. Swaine, and my emailed responses. I have done so in order to avoid the usual dynamic of responding/reacting to a hit piece after its publication, when everything then said by a respondent is viewed with a jaundiced eye as the product of defensive scrambling. Instead, you can read for yourself what I wrote to Mr. Swaine, and, if the Washington Post eventually runs a story on Mr. Ramsland, you can then read for yourself how Mr. Swaine and his editors chose to fold my input into (or leave it out of) their story.
Despite the deep cynicism many feel toward the bias and agenda of the legacy media, I am hopeful at this writing to be pleasantly surprised by the fairness and objectivity a professional journalist could bring to this important subject.
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By way of background, in November 2019 my husband posted a piece titled “Election Fraud on a National Scale?” on the American Thinker website. He described the findings reported by Russ Ramsland with respect to electronic election irregularities discovered in Dallas County regarding the November 2018 mid-term elections (and the Kentucky gubernatorial election of 2019). So I have been very aware of Mr. Ramsland’s work in this area since long before the November 2020 election.
About a year after that American Thinker post, Mr. Ramsland appeared on my show, America, Can We Talk? , and described in considerable detail the investigation conducted by ASOG’s cyber security experts, and the conclusions they reached, regarding election fraud in the November 2020 election. You can view that episode here. I believe that interview is the central focus of Mr. Swaine’s questions, which follow below.
Dear Mrs. Georgatos,
I’m a reporter at the Washington Post. We are working on a story about Russ Ramsland and ASOG and their claims about election fraud both before and after the 2020 election. We plan to mention that Mr. Ramsland made some of these claims during appearances on “America Can We Talk?” and would like to invite you to comment for our article. My questions:
– Why did you decide to host Mr. Ramsland and his views on election fraud on the show?
I invited Mr. Ramsland on my show because the findings of his ASOG organization regarding electronic election fraud in the 2020 elections are newsworthy, relevant, and in my view, credible. The American people have the right to know what took place in that election, and to freely discuss those issues, especially because of the many anomalies surrounding the election.
I had been aware of ASOG’s conclusions regarding electronic election fraud, or vote machine hacking, which they uncovered with respect to the 2018 mid-term elections. Also, I have known Mr. Ramsland for many years, and have known him to be an intelligent, conscientious, honest, and decent man who cares deeply about America. He also genuinely cares about preserving honest, free and fair elections, as I hope all Americans do, regardless of political leanings.
I have never understood him to be an “IT expert” by educational background or life experience, but have understood his capacity to speak on the subject of voting machine irregularities to have been derived from his role as CEO of ASOG, working daily with ASOG employees and contractors who do have backgrounds in cyber security.
– Did your membership of the Council for National Policy’s board of governors have anything to do with that decision?
No.
– Did you attend any briefings or meetings at ASOG’s offices in Addison?
I have not attended any briefings or meetings at ASOG’s offices or elsewhere. I have been given one short tour of the ASOG offices in Addison.
– False claims about election fraud have resulted in a significant section of the country refusing to believe the results of the 2020 election. Some even stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 in protest. Do you think you helped to spread such false claims?
I firmly condemn violence and rioting by any group.
I just as firmly believe the American people have every right to discuss and debate all of the facts and evidence surrounding the November 2020 elections, and to seek answers and explanations for the anomalies in that election. These are fundamental First Amendment, free speech rights in America.
The first sentence of your question appears to lump all claims about election fraud together, and to characterize all of them as “false.”
I cannot speak to all of the allegations of election fraud made by every person who has entered the widespread public discussion about such fraud. Some people may have made some false allegations of election fraud, knowingly or unknowingly.
I also believe, based on reports from a variety of sources, that some allegations of election fraud are true.
As to Mr. Ramsland’s claims, I am not trained in cyber security so cannot claim in-depth knowledge and understanding of all points he made. But I believe that he is honest and of good character, and that his statements on the show were based on his good faith belief in the research performed, and in the truthfulness of the conclusions reached, by his ASOG staff, which I believe to be comprised of individuals trained and experienced in cyber security. I would not have invited him to join me on my show if I thought otherwise.
Ironically, the documentary “Kill Chain – The Cyber War on America’s Elections”—in which many Democrat leaders (including Democrat presidential candidates) expressed well before the 2020 elections their profound concern at how vulnerable US voting machines were to the kinds of cyber-attack ASOG’s staff claimed to have uncovered—tends to strengthen the credibility of Mr. Ramsland’s claims.
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Russ Ramsland’s claims of electronic election fraud were not the only reason or even, in my view, a major reason for America’s unrest about the integrity of the 2020 election result. There are many data points and other information upon which informed Americans relied in reaching at least a high degree of suspicion if not outright distrust of the 2020 result. These data points obviously do not constitute proof of specific claims of election fraud, but they lack sensible explanations and are a big part of the reason many Americans bristle at being told to stop asking questions.
Those other data points include but are not limited to:
· The observation plain to everyone that President Trump drew massive crowds at rallies often on very short notice in cities and counties around the country week after week, month after month, while then candidate Biden could not muster even small crowds anywhere.
· The anomaly that 18 of 19 bellwether counties whose voters have accurately picked the winner of presidential elections for decades, overwhelmingly chose Trump over Biden. The 18 counties chose Trump by an average of 16 points, while the one outlier went for Biden by a 3 point margin.
· The data showing that Barack Obama carried the popular vote in 689 US counties when he won re-election with approximately 66 million votes in 2012, while Joe Biden carried the popular vote in just 509 US counties in 2020, and is reported to have won 81 million votes. So Joe Biden carried 25% fewer counties than Barack Obama did in 2012, but received 15 million more votes than Obama—more than any other presidential candidate in US history. Obviously counties vary significantly in voting population, and population centers may have shifted over the 2012-2020 time period, but these anomalies are still extraordinary to the point of appearing dubious to many.
· Donald Trump carried the popular vote in over 2,500 US counties in 2020 (3.6X+ Obama’s 2012 total), increasing his 2016 popular vote total by approximately 12 million votes–an increase beyond any ever attained by an incumbent President running for a second term, and vastly beyond any ever attained by a defeated incumbent President. For example, George H.W. Bush, the last defeated incumbent President, saw his popular vote total decline by nearly 10 million votes when he ran for re-election in 1992. Had his vote total increased by 12 million votes in 1992 over 1988, he would have won a landslide in the popular vote over Bill Clinton.
· The massive use of unsolicited mail-in ballots which even former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker III denounced as “the largest source of potential voter fraud” in their bipartisan 2005 report of the Commission on Federal Election Reform. Last minute rule changes related to mail-in ballots, made by officials other than the elected legislature as the constitution requires, further compounds the suspicion about these ballots.
· The swing-state, late night shutting down of vote counting as the results seemed headed toward a clear Trump re-election victory, followed by a surprise-in-the-morning Biden win in all of those states.
· Information Patrick Byrne wrote in his book “The Deep Rig: How Election Fraud Cost Donald J. Trump the White House, By a Man Who did not Vote for Him (or, What to send friends who ask, “Why do you doubt the integrity of Election 2020?”)”
· Information contained in Mike Lindell’s documentary “Absolute Interference”.
I am well aware of the popular trend to mock Lindell for his crack addict past, and his Christian faith. But for purposes of evaluating election fraud claims, I am much more interested in the claims in this documentary by Dr. Douglas Frank, who presents a compelling analysis of actual voting data being predictable by an algorithm derived from census data. If Dr. Frank’s claim is false or inaccurate, I would like to see a mathematician’s explanation for why. If Dr. Frank’s claim is true, it appears to be decisive evidence of election fraud. Additionally, and importantly, Mr. Lindell’s findings indicate the principal culprit in the election fraud of 2020 was and is a foreign country—China—which under the CCP clearly had an overwhelming motive to see Trump removed from office and almost certainly had and has the technical knowhow to engage in cyber-hacking to accomplish it. That ought to be of concern to all Americans, regardless of political affiliation.
· The overwhelming effort to shut down investigations of election irregularities, such as the Democrat Party’s ongoing opposition to the audit and recount of the election in Maricopa County, AZ.
· The effort by DHS under President Biden to characterize Americans who question the outcome of the 2020 elections as domestic terrorists, especially in light of the fact that Hillary Clinton and other Democrats repeatedly and baselessly questioned the 2016 election outcome throughout Trump’s presidency.
Assuming you do not mean to imply that all election fraud claims are false, but only that whatever claims are true were not enough to change the result, I can only observe that because neither the DOJ/FBI, nor the courts, nor any major media outlet in America chose to seriously investigate the electronic election fraud claims, no one is in a position to say that this type of election interference was or was not significant enough to have changed the election outcome.
The absence of formal law enforcement-directed investigation is itself a major reason Americans doubt the election result. Had the FBI/DOJ opened a Mueller-type investigation into claims of 2020 election fraud with the relentlessness the FBI showed in the Russia collusion investigation, perhaps the American people would not be so suspicious and distrustful.
The attempt to silence discussion of the evidence and the idea of electronic election fraud is especially curious in light of the fact that hacking into computers for nefarious reasons is almost commonplace and certainly not some far-fetched futuristic or outlandish concern.
If hacking happens in other supposedly secure computer systems—where the motive is often money or maybe doing damage to a competitor—why wouldn’t responsible adults be concerned that it could happen with voting machines and software? The motive for hacking into voting machines and software is monumentally more significant than mere money or economic competition: it is to capture and control the most powerful office in the world.
Legitimate concerns about the 2020 election exist, and they demand rigorous investigation by law enforcement authorities without a political agenda and determined to get to the truth. There has been no such investigation. No wonder there is such unrest among the American people.
One more point: various government officials denied the possibility of electronic election fraud via voting machines by asserting that voting machines used in US elections are not connected to the internet. However, the findings of Messrs. Ramsland, Byrne and Lindell specifically refute that assertion and show that the voting machines can be and were connected to the internet, before, during and after the November 2020 election. The producers of Kill Chain also offered concrete proof in 2019 that voting machines can and do connect to the internet.
This is a critical point. If everyone knows computer hacking in general and in other contexts is possible and in fact widespread, and voting machines are connected to the internet despite government officials denying that fact, but no significant federal or state investigations of election fraud involving voting machines occurred—there is no basis for anyone to claim that the more detailed election fraud claims of Messrs. Ramsland, Byrne and Lindell have been proven false. They can’t be proven or disproven absent detailed cyber analysis of what internet communications took place with the voting machines.
My America Can We Talk? show is devoted to sharing and spreading the truth about the greatness and goodness of America and Americans. I do not knowingly spread false claims about anything or anyone, and if I ever discover that by mistake I have done so, I am happy to correct whatever I may have said that is proven to be false.
I believe strongly that First Amendment rights are vital to the preservation of America, including and especially in the arena of politics. Of course those rights are not absolute, and courts have continually refined the scope of exceptions to those rights. As a conscientious person and talk show host I would never knowingly spread theories or accusations that lack any foundation or that do not strike me as credible. But your question seems to imply that discussing evidence of election fraud should be banned because that discussion might provoke some people to engage in violence. There are a wide range of topics that are highly controversial, and when discussed potentially cause supporters or opponents of some stated position to engage in violence. The correct reaction in our constitutional republic is to punish the violent, not silence free speech.
Common sense and common decency say the best way to refute any and all claims of election fraud is not to tell those with questions to shut up, or to threaten them, but to answer them substantively. And that would be best done if all those involved welcomed and encouraged full and transparent audits and cyber investigations by trusted law enforcement experts, and then shared the results with the public. A victorious party or candidate would have everything to gain by validating the legitimacy of the election in this way, and the country would greatly benefit, too.
Thank you for inviting me to comment for your article.
Debbie Georgatos