Revealed: Key election conspiracy theory originated with programmer his own attorney suspects is a 'con man'

Some of the wildest claims about the 2020 presidential election can be traced back to a computer programmer with a history of perjury and fraud.

Dennis Montgomery, a software developer and former intelligence contractor, told a tale of dark forces hacking into voting systems across the country to deprive Donald Trump of a second presidential term, and his unsupported claims were published on the right-wing American Report website as a whistleblower expose, reported Reuters.

Montgomery told the website's Mary Fanning that he had built a supercomputer years ago called Hammer, which was used for surveillance, and software called Scorecard that could manipulate election results, and he claimed someone had hijacked those systems to install Joe Biden as president.

Fanning told Reuters that Montgomery had approached her shortly before the November 2020 election with his claims, which were quickly picked up by Trump ally Sidney Powell, who mentioned the conspiracy theory on Fox News, and others -- and the tales eventually laid blame for the alleged hack on agents of Venezuela and China, among others.

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The origins of the story have long been forgotten, and many Trump supporters have never even heard of Hammer and Scorecard, but the conspiracy theory has endured as an article of faith among election denialists, although many of the details have been changed since Montgomery's first telling.

“It has all the hallmarks of the classic conspiracy theory because it throws in the CIA,” said Krebs, Christopher Krebs, then the Trump administration’s top cybersecurity expert. “It was a trope that became part of the zeitgeist even without the name Hammer and Scorecard.”

The 69-year-old Montgomery sold a tranche of the alleged evidence last year to MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, who calls the programmer the "smartest man I've ever met."

“I own it,” Lindell told supporters in August, after buying the data. “The machines are going to be gone!” he yelled, to uproarious applause. “We’re going to get our country back!”

Montgomery and his attorney Chris Kachouroff declined to answer detailed questions from Reuters, but the lawyer offered conflicting views on the strength of the evidence.

“Dennis has too much information for this to be made up,” Kachouroff said. “Does he have my complete confidence? No. Dennis is either the single greatest con artist this country has ever produced, or he’s telling the truth.”