Mike Lindell associates linked to another attempted election breach: report
Alleged associates of MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell have been linked to an attempted breach of an election network in Ohio in May.
The attempted breach in Lake County, Ohio — which is now under investigation by federal and state authorities — "bears striking similarities to an incident in Colorado earlier this year, when government officials helped an outsider gain access to the county voting system in an effort to find fraud," according to the Washington Post.
"Data obtained in both instances were distributed at an August 'cyber symposium' on election fraud hosted by MyPillow executive Mike Lindell, an ally of former president Donald Trump who has spent millions of dollars promoting false claims that the 2020 election was rigged," the Post reports. "Together, the incidents in Ohio and Colorado point to an escalation in attacks on the nation's voting systems by those who have embraced Trump's false claims that the 2020 election was riddled with fraud. Now, some Trump loyalists pushing for legal challenges and partisan audits are also targeting local officials in a bid to gain access to election systems — moves that themselves could undermine election security."
The attempted breach in Ohio reportedly occurred in the office of John Hamercheck, the Republican chair of the Lake County commission. Prior to both breaches, local officials in Ohio and Mesa County, Colorado — including Hamercheck — discussed allegations of election fraud with Douglas Frank, who has done work for Lindell and claims to have uncovered secret algorithms used to rig the 2020 vote. But Lindell told the Post he knows nothing about the breaches. "I have no idea what you're talking about," he said.
In Colorado, Frank met with Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, who is now accused of sneaking an outsider into Mesa County election offices to copy the hard drives of Dominion Voting Systems machines. This week, the FBI raided the homes of Peters and several associates, including Sherronna Bishop, a former campaign manager for U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO). Bishop introduced Frank at a public speech about election fraud in Colorado in April, when he also met privately with Peters.
"In a statement to The Post, Bishop accused the FBI of using 'brute force' in executing the search warrant at her home, including using a battering ram to open her door and handcuffing her in front of her children. She said she had been 'available and transparent to any organization that wanted to speak with me' and accused the Justice Department of 'terrorizing parents,'" the newspaper reports.
According to the Post, another Lindell associate linked to the breaches is Conan James Hayes, a "white hat hacker" who works for the MyPillow CEO. At Lindell's symposium, QAnon influencer Ron Watkins announced that Hayes may have stolen the hard drives from Mesa County. According to metadata, the Mesa County hard drives were copied by someone using the identifier "cjh," which matches Hayes' initials.
"In both Lake and Mesa counties, the data were captured by the same type of gaming laptop, using the same software and same Windows operating system, metadata shows," according to the Post.
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