'No proof at all': CNN catches Trump-loving Florida group red-handed pushing voter fraud misinformation
Trump supporters at Stop the Steal rally outside Minnesota State Capitol. (Photo credit: Chad Davis)
February 21, 2022
On CNN Monday, reporter Leyla Santiago investigated the claims of Defend Florida, a right-wing "voter integrity" group promoted by people including former Donald Trump strategist Roger Stone and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell — and found that their key claims of election irregularities in Florida are disinformation.
"They told reporters they found more than 5,000 instances of voter irregularities and they say they have signed affidavits," said Santiago. "The supervisor of elections, Leslie Wilcox, a registered Republican, is the president of the Florida Supervisor of Elections Association, which represents supervisors in the state's 67 counties."
"I take it as a slap that they're insinuating that we are not following the law," Wilcox told Santiago.
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"So in all of your reporting, were you able to find any, any evidence to back up this group's claims?" asked anchor Erin Burnett.
"No proof at all for some of their claims," said Santiago. "Here's another example, Erin. We looked at the claim they made in their report that they found a voter in Alachua County that voted, went three hours to Broward County, voted again the same day. We reached out to county election officials to look at that claim. They had already looked at it and they realized the group was talking about two separate individuals with similar voting information that voted again. Again, another example without any proof or evidence to back it up. We should mention we reached out to the co-founders on multiple occasions, tried to talk to them about this, but our requests for an interview were denied."
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