'Immense pressure': Trump's 'inner circle' reportedly behind revived voting machine theory

Conspiracy theories about hacked voting machines promoted by former President Donald Trump's closest allies after the 2020 election are being revived – but this time the Trump campaign “appears to be largely acting behind the scenes,” according to reports.

Despite past far-fetched claims of hacked election machines being widely debunked – including by a series of judges who dismissed election-related cases brought by the Trump campaign – those closest to Trump are again rolling out the theories “as part of a late-campaign strategy to assert that this year’s election is rigged,” according to The New York Times.

The publication reported Wednesday that it had reviewed text messages suggesting that Trump and his top aides were behind an effort to push Georgia Republicans to raise security concerns about voting machines in a lawsuit. The legal challenge failed last month after a judge dismissed the case as “purely hypothetical,” according to the Times.

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“The lawsuit was filed by a county Republican Party only after the state Republican Party in Georgia refused, despite requests from ‘Trump inner circle/high up in RNC,’ Alex B. Kaufman, the state party’s general counsel, wrote in a text to another Republican official last month,” the Times reported.

Kaufman added: “We had immense pressure from above and below to bring this, and said absolutely not,” according to the paper's review of the messages.

It noted that “the theories are rampant on social media and widely embraced by activists,” even despite Dominion Voting Systems securing a landmark $787.5 million settlement against Fox News over the debunked conspiracy theories in 2023.