Politics

By Karen Freifeld and Kanishka Singh

(Reuters) – Former U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to testify on Wednesday in a civil investigation by the New York attorney general into his family’s business practices, as he deals with a flurry of other legal woes.

New York State Attorney General Letitia James is conducting a probe into whether the Trump Organization inflated real estate values. Trump and two of his adult children, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump, fought for months to avoid testifying.

Late Tuesday, Trump said in a posting on his app Truth Social that he would see the New York attorney general on Wednesday. A source also told Reuters that Trump is scheduled to testify in the probe on Wednesday. Trump’s children were already deposed, the source said.

The deposition will not be public.

A spokeswoman for James has declined to comment, and a lawyer for Trump did not respond to requests for comment.

James has said her investigation uncovered significant evidence that the Trump Organization, which manages hotels, golf courses and other real estate, overstated asset values to obtain favorable loans and understated the values to get tax breaks.

Trump has denied wrongdoing and called the New York investigation politically motivated. James is a Democrat.

“In New York City tonight. Seeing racist N.Y.S. Attorney General tomorrow, for a continuation of the greatest Witch Hunt in U.S. history! My great company, and myself, are being attacked from all sides. Banana Republic!”, Trump said in a post on Truth Social late on Tuesday.

It is unclear how much Trump will say during the long-anticipated deposition. He may decline to answer questions on the grounds that he might incriminate himself, according to a person familiar with the matter.

But the testimony could help determine where the probe goes. No case has been filed.

Separately, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) searched Trump’s Florida estate on Monday, an escalation of the federal investigation into whether the former president illegally removed records from the White House as he was leaving office in January 2021.

Trump has been flirting publicly with the question of running again for president in 2024 but has not said clearly whether he will do so.

The warrant to search Trump’s Florida estate relates to the National Archives and Records Administration, which is charged with safeguarding presidential records that belong to the public, and whether there were classified documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Several investigations have focused on Trump since he left office, after his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an unsuccessful bid to overturn his election loss. Trump continues to claim falsely that the election was stolen through widespread voting fraud.

Trump remains the Republican Party’s most influential voice, and some observers said the FBI search could bolster his standing with Republican voters.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington and Karen Freifeld in New York; Editing by Robert Birsel, Noeleen Walder and Andrew Heavens)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – FBI agents on Tuesday seized the cellphone of Republican congressman Scott Perry, according to media reports that cite a statement from the Pennsylvania lawmaker.

Perry did not say why his phone was confiscated by the FBI agents, who he said handed him a warrant while he was traveling with his family.

A supporter of former President Donald Trump, Perry has been the subject of a congressional investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters.

Perry’s office and the FBI did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Reuters. A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment.

“They made no attempt to contact my lawyer, who would have made arrangements for them to have my phone if that was their wish,” Perry said in the statement, first reported by Fox News.

“My phone contains info about my legislative and political activities, and personal/private discussions with my wife, family, constituents, and friends. None of this is the government’s business,” he said.

Perry, who helped spread Trump’s false statements of 2020 election fraud, was in contact with the Trump White House in the weeks before the 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol.

During a congressional hearing in June, lawmakers heard testimony that Perry sought a pardon from Trump. Perry has denied seeking a pardon.

(Reporting by Eric Beech and Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Ross Colvin and Daniel Wallis)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The House panel investigating the U.S. Capitol insurrection interviewed former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and met briefly with Pennsylvania’s Republican nominee for governor Doug Mastriano on Tuesday as it probes Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Pompeo is among several of Trump’s former Cabinet officials the committee wanted to talk to after it was disclosed that some of them raised concerns about former president’s actions — going so far as having considered invoking the 25th Amendment process to remove Trump from office after the riot. Pompeo’s appearance was confirmed by a person familiar with the situation but unauthorized to discuss it publicly.

Mastriano, who was outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and helped organize efforts in Pennsylvania to submit alternate presidential electors beholden to Trump, cut his interview short without answering questions. He disputed the validity of the committee and the terms of the appearance, his attorney said.

The committee is working through August, deepening its probe after blockbuster public hearings this summer that began to outline its investigation into Trump’s multi-pronged effort to reverse his election loss to Joe Biden and the subsequent storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The meeting with Pompeo, who is considering a 2024 presidential run, comes as the panel’s Vice Chair Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., has publicly disclosed that the committee has several former Cabinet officials in mind for interviews. Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s treasury secretary, testified before the committee last month.

The scheme to compile alternative electors has involved Republican officials in battleground states across the nation who are now facing questions, from the Jan. 6 committee and federal investigators. The “fake electors” emerged as a last-ditch plan by Trump’s team to stop Biden’s victory when Congress met for the typical routine job of certifying the state election results.

Mastriano’s attorney, Timothy Parlatore, said his client’s appearance before the committee was over in less than 15 minutes. He said Mastriano wanted to be able to record the interview and said little during the brief session, Parlatore said they plan to challenge the committee in court.

“Because he’s currently in a general election, we just want some protective measures,” Parlatore said in a phone interview, “to prevent them from putting out a false or misleading quote that would potentially impact the election.”

Committee chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson issued the subpoena for Mastriano back in February as the panel intensified its probe of the “fake electors” scheme, seeking documentation from him and others potentially involved and in close contact with Trump.

The committee “is seeking information about efforts to send false slates of electors to Washington and change the outcome of the 2020 election,” Thompson wrote. “We’re seeking records and testimony from former campaign officials and other individuals in various states who we believe have relevant information about the planning and implementation of those plans.”

Mastriano, who organized two buses from central Pennsylvania for the Trump speech that preceded the violent siege and himself had VIP seating at the rally, walked to the Capitol afterward. He had been scheduled to speak on the Capitol steps that afternoon.

Parlatore said Mastriano “knows nothing about any insurrection” and did not witness any violence or see any firearms. He said his client would be willing to testify publicly before the panel.

A retired Army officer who beat out several candidates to emerge as the GOP nominee for governor in Pennsylvania, Mastriano has previously been willing to talk to the committee. He also spoke with the FBI last year and said he did not know about a planned insurrection, his lawyer has said.

Mastriano has said he had regular calls with then-President Donald Trump in the months between Trump’s reelection defeat and the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

His attorney sought to shield Mastriano from testifying over the alternative electors plan because it was undertaken when his client was a state senator.

Parlatore said much of Mastriano’s contacts with Trump in the lead-up to Jan. 6 involved Mastriano’s capacity as a state lawmaker — a status that complicates the committee’s efforts to interview him about what the lawyer described as “alternative electors” to the Electoral College.

Parlatore said he planned to file a court action in Washington, D.C., federal court, seeking to have a judge determine if Jan. 6 committee’s makeup and procedures violate House rules.

Growing from Trump’s false claims of voter fraud, the fake electors strategy relied on having several battleground states that Biden won submit their tally for the defeated Republican president, rather than the Democratic winner, Biden.

Federal authorities earlier this summer issued subpoenas in several key battleground states across the nation to individuals in Arizona, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Georgia and other Republican officials potentially involved in the strategy to submit electors for Trump.

Prosecutors in Georgia are similarly probing Trump’s attempt to subvert the election results in that state.

The Justice Department has charged more than 800 people in the deadly Capitol riot and is investigating Trump’s actions in the run up and aftermath of the insurrection.

The Jan. 6 attack left at least nine people dead in the riot and its aftermath, including a Trump supporter shot by police and a police officer who died later.

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Scolforo reported from Harrisburg, Pa.

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By David Shepardson and Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Joe Biden on Tuesday signed a landmark bill to provide $52.7 billion in subsidies for U.S. semiconductor production and research and to boost efforts to make the United States more competitive with China’s science and technology efforts.

“The future is going to be made in America,” Biden said, calling the measure “a once-in-a-generation investment in America itself.”

Biden touted investments that chip companies are making even though it remains unclear when the U.S. Commerce Department will write rules for reviewing grant awards and how long it will take to underwrite projects.

Some Republicans joined Biden on the White House lawn to attend the signing of the chips bill that was years in the making in Congress.

The chief executives of Micron , Intel, Lockheed Martin, HP and Advanced Micro Devices attended the signing as did governors of Pennsylvania and Illinois, the mayors of Detroit, Cleveland and Salt Lake City, and lawmakers.

The White House said the bill’s passage was spurring new chip investments. It noted that Qualcomm on Monday agreed to buy an additional $4.2 billion in semiconductor chips from GlobalFoundries’ New York factory, bringing its total commitment to $7.4 billion in purchases through 2028.

The White House also touted Micron announcing a $40 billion investment in memory chip manufacturing, which would boost U.S. market share from 2% to 10%, an investment it said was planned with “anticipated grants” from the chips bill.

Progressives argued the bill is a giveaway to profitable chips companies that previously closed U.S. plants, but Biden argued Tuesday “this law is not handing out blank checks to companies.”

The legislation aims to alleviate a persistent shortage that has affected everything from cars, weapons, washing machines and video games. Thousands of cars and trucks remain parked in southeast Michigan awaiting chips as the shortage continues to impact automakers.

A rare major foray into U.S. industrial policy, the bill also includes a 25% investment tax credit for chip plants, estimated to be worth $24 billion.

The legislation authorizes $200 billion over 10 years to boost U.S. scientific research to better compete with China. Congress would still need to pass separate appropriations legislation to fund those investments.

China had lobbied against the semiconductor bill. The Chinese Embassy in Washington said China “firmly opposed” it, calling it reminiscent of a “Cold War mentality.”

Biden noted the United States needs chips for key weapons systems like Javelin missiles. “It’s no wonder the Chinese Communist Party actively lobbied U.S. business against this bill,” Biden said.

Many U.S. lawmakers had said they normally would not support hefty subsidies for private businesses but noted that China and the European Union had been awarding billions in incentives to their chip companies. They also cited national security risks and huge global supply chain problems that have hampered global manufacturing.

(Reporting by David Shepardson and Jeff Mason; Editing by Bradley Perrett and Lisa Shumaker)

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DECATUR, Ga. (AP) — Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams is arguing that it’s time for Georgia to use its budget surplus to invest in its residents, accusing Gov. Brian Kemp and other Republicans of hurting the state by prioritizing low taxes and low spending.

With the state flush with $7 billion in extra funds, Abrams has proposed $1 billion in new spending, including expanding Medicaid and giving raises to teachers, state police and prison guards.

“What I’m saying is let’s put Georgians to work. Let’s invest in Georgians,” Abrams told The Associated Press in an interview ahead of a speech on the economy she’s expected to deliver Tuesday. “Let’s use the resources that are in our state to do what’s right for the people of the state.”

Trailing in the polls, Abrams is focusing on the economy as she looks to press reset on an issue that has emerged as a top vulnerability for Democrats across the U.S. this year amid inflation and high gas prices. Kemp is hoping the economy is an especially potent issue for him in Georgia this year as he points to billions of new investment in the state under his administration.

“This team has put our state on the path to greater economic opportunity for all who call the Peach State home,” Kemp said in a campaign speech last month in the Atlanta suburb of McDonough. “We brought good paying jobs to every corner of Georgia, landed the largest economic development deals in our state’s history, passed the biggest income tax cut on record, and kept government out of your way and out of your pocket.”

Kemp plans to unveil his own plans on Thursday for some of Georgia’s surplus. It’s likely to include another round of state income tax rebates plus a property tax break for homeowners, said a Kemp campaign official with knowledge of the governor’s plans who spoke on condition of anonymity to preview the announcement.

Nodding at Abrams’ work as a voting rights advocate, Kemp said she shares responsibility for the surging inflation and stubbornly high gas prices by helping get Joe Biden elected. He calls it the “Biden-Abrams agenda.”

The question is whether pocketbook issues will take precedent over other concerns for voters, including abortion, particularly in a state where a six-week ban is now in effect.

Abrams and other Democrats hope to pivot away from inflation and toward ways government can help voters. Many of her plans are the same as when she ran against Kemp in 2018, including expanding the Medicaid health insurance program to all low-income adults and expanding state aid to small businesses.

But in 2022, Georgia is flush with cash. The state closed its budget year in June with a roughly $5 billion surplus, atop $2.3 billion in surplus from the year before, and a legally protected $4.3 billion rainy-day fund.

Abrams acknowledges austerity may have been necessary during the Great Recession. Now, though, she says Republicans are inflicting a “poverty of imagination and a poverty of thinking” on Georgia by insisting on low spending and tax cuts.

“I liken it to a company that realizes a windfall,” Abrams said. “You can either give dividends to your wealthiest shareholders or you can invest in the infrastructure of your company so you can create more opportunities and create more revenue. I want to do the latter.”

Kemp warns that increasing spending will worsen inflation and argues Abrams will ultimately seek to raise taxes after spending the surplus.

“What she really believes is more government, controlling more and more of your everyday lives, and taking more of your hard-earned paychecks,” Kemp said in McDonough.

Abrams flatly vows not to raise taxes and says her spending plan is sustainable.

The Democrat weaves her argument with other attacks on Kemp. She says permissive gun laws and a law banning most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy will drive away business.

She’s also trying to eclipse Kemp on some policies, arguing for another round of checks to taxpayers like a billion-dollar state income tax rebate Kemp championed earlier this year. Kemp has repeatedly suspended Georgia’s state gas tax for short periods, but Abrams calls for Kemp to pledge now to suspend it until the end of the year. And Abrams has pledged not to repeal a state income tax cut that begins in 2024 and could ultimately reduce taxes by $2 billion.

Kemp said Abrams’ support for his proposals shows voters he’s the one to trust.

“I’m running on my record. You know what Stacey Abrams’ record is? It’s going to be different tomorrow than it was today, I can tell you that,” Kemp said Thursday during a northeast Georgia campaign stop in Toccoa. ”She keeps changing it based on the way the winds are blowing or the way the polling is.”

Abrams notes Georgia ranked 24th among states for per-capita income in the early 2000s but has slid to 40th. Although close observers debate the cause of that, Abrams ascribes it to steering too many benefits to the rich.

She said it’s time to quit subsidizing out-of-state companies to set up shop and pay low wages, the traditional Southern approach to economic development.

“As long as our plans rely on sucking dry our people, then that’s the wrong approach,” Abrams said.

Instead, she said she envisions a focus on small businesses, helping minority-owned businesses catch up and promoting economic mobility in a region of the country where poor people are the least likely to get ahead.

“We can invest in every level of our economy, and everyone can thrive,” she said.

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Follow Jeff Amy at http://twitter.com/jeffamy.

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By Joseph Ax

(Reuters) – A week after Kansas voters firmly rejected an attempt to restrict abortion, the issue will play a key role in Wisconsin and Minnesota midterm primaries on Tuesday as Republican candidates for governor vow to ban the procedure if elected.

In Wisconsin, the two top contenders for the Republican nomination to run for governor on Nov. 8, construction magnate Tim Michels and Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch, say they will enforce a 19th-century abortion ban that has prompted providers to stop offering the procedure since the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated the nationwide right in June.

With a Republican-majority legislature, either candidate could push through abortion restrictions as governor. Democratic incumbent Tony Evers and his administration have filed litigation challenging the 1849 law while promising not to prosecute doctors who violate it.

The contest between Kleefisch and Michels is the latest proxy battle between Donald Trump and more moderate Republicans. The former president has thrown his support behind Michels, who has poured millions of dollars of his own money into the race, while former Vice President Mike Pence and former Governor Scott Walker have endorsed Kleefisch.

A similar dynamic is at play in Minnesota, where Republicans on Tuesday will select a nominee to take on Democratic Governor Tim Walz in November.

The leading Republican is former state Senator Scott Jensen, a physician who has pledged to try to ban most abortions and has cast doubt on the seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic. Abortion remains legal in Minnesota, where Democrats control one of the two legislative chambers.

Last week’s Kansas ballot, which saw about 60% of voters support abortion rights, has raised Democrats’ hopes that the issue will mobilize their base in November and attract votes from independents and moderate Republicans. This follows the Supreme Court’s overturning of the Roe v Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide in 1973.

Unlike the Kansas initiative, which was open to voters of all parties, Tuesday’s Republican primaries will reflect the preference of just Republican voters.

2024 PREVIEW

November’s election could serve as a preview of 2024, when Wisconsin will likely again be a major swing state in the presidential election. Trump, the former president who still maintains falsely that Democratic President Joe Biden’s statewide win in 2020 was fraudulent, has strongly hinted that he intends to run for a third time.

Republicans on Friday named Milwaukee as the site of their 2024 national convention, underscoring the state’s strategic importance.

Kleefisch and Michels have both questioned the 2020 election results, following Trump’s lead. At a Friday night rally with Trump in Waukesha, Michels declared that “election integrity” would be his top priority if elected.

The winner should avoid focusing too much on 2020 in the fall, when the general electorate will include more Trump-skeptical voters, said Bill McCoshen, a veteran Republican strategist based in Madison.

“It’s manifestly in the winner of the primary’s interest to focus on the future, not the past,” he said.

Trump-backed candidates have recently prevailed in statewide races in Arizona and Michigan, though his overall endorsement record is somewhat mixed.

Also in Wisconsin, Democrats will choose a candidate to take on U.S. Senator Ron Johnson, who is perhaps the most vulnerable Republican senator. Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes, who would be the state’s first Black U.S. senator, is widely expected to win the nomination.

The battle for Johnson’s seat could determine which party controls the Senate. The chamber is currently split 50-50 with Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris casting tie-breaking votes, as she did on Sunday to advance a sweeping domestic bill intended to fight climate change, lower healthcare costs and raise taxes on the biggest corporations.

While it is unclear if Democrats will be able to hold their razor-thin Senate majority, Republicans are favored to win back control of the U.S. House of Representatives, which would enable them to block much of Biden’s legislative agenda and initiate politically damaging investigations. Biden’s low approval ratings, coupled with persistent inflation and recession fears, have weighed on Democrats’ chances.

Tuesday also brings a special election in Minnesota for the U.S. House seat left vacant when Republican Jim Hagedorn died in February after a battle with cancer. Democrat Jeff Ettinger, the former CEO of Hormel Foods, is running against Republican Brad Finstad, a former agricultural official in the Trump administration.

Voters in Connecticut and Vermont will choose nominees for congressional and statewide races as well.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Scott Malone and Cynthia Osterman)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Voters in states including Wisconsin and Minnesota will pick candidates for the U.S. Congress and other offices in primaries on Tuesday, in another test of former President Donald Trump’s influence in the Republican Party ahead of the Nov. 8 midterms.

Vermont and Connecticut also hold nomination contests, while Minnesota holds a special election for its currently vacant 1st Congressional District. Following are four key races:

WISCONSIN REPUBLICAN GOVERNOR’S PRIMARY

In its final stretch, the Republican nomination contest for Wisconsin’s gubernatorial race has become a proxy battle in the rivalry between President Donald Trump and his former Vice President, Mike Pence.

Trump endorsed construction company owner Tim Michels in June, upending a race that until then was led by former state Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch. By the end of June, Kleefisch and Michels were neck-and-neck in a poll by Marquette Law School.

Pence then endorsed Kleefisch in late July, setting up the third high-profile race this year in which Pence and Trump backed opposing candidates. In the previous contests, Pence-backed Georgia Governor Brian Kemp won the party nomination for his re-election bid, while Trump-backed Kari Lake, a former news anchor, won the Republican nomination for the Arizona governor’s race.

Pence, who like Trump is considering running for president in 2024, has recently distanced himself from Trump’s repeated falsehoods about a stolen 2020 election.

MINNESOTA SPECIAL CONGRESSIONAL ELECTION

Democrats on Tuesday face an uphill battle to gain the U.S. House of Representatives seat left vacant following the death in February of Republican U.S. Representative Jim Hagedorn.

Ahead of Tuesday’s special election, Republican Brad Finstad, a former agriculture official in the Trump administration, was ahead of Democrat Jeff Ettinger 46% to 38%, according to a public opinion poll conducted in the last week of July by Survey USA.

Political observers have said the race could be close after Ettinger, a former CEO at Hormel Foods, spent early on television ads making the case that his business experience set him up as a problem solver on run-away food prices.

WISCONSIN DEMOCRATIC U.S. SENATE PRIMARY

In the race to challenge Republican U.S. Senator Ron Johnson, Wisconsin’s Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes, a progressive backed by U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, is expected to win the Democratic nomination after a leading moderate opponent dropped out of the race in late July. The focus now shifts to Barnes’ ability to appeal to moderate voters in the race against Johnson, which could be one of November’s tightest and most consequential Senate races.

MINNESOTA REPUBLICAN GOVERNOR’S PRIMARY

Former Minnesota state senator Scott Jensen, the Republican frontrunner to win the party nomination for the governor’s race in November, vows he will try to ban most abortions in the state.

Despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, abortion remains legal under state law in Minnesota. Jensen recently said he supports abortion rights in cases of rape or incest.

Jensen, a physician who has cast doubt on the seriousness of COVID-19, would challenge Democratic Governor Tim Walz if he wins the nomination. Walz is seen as potentially vulnerable in November.

(Reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Alistair Bell)

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By Nathan Layne

(Reuters) -The Republican nominee for Michigan attorney general led a team that gained unauthorized access to voting equipment while hunting for evidence to support former President Donald Trump’s false election-fraud claims, according to a Reuters analysis of court filings and public records.

The analysis shows that people working with Matthew DePerno – the Trump-endorsed nominee for the state’s top law-enforcement post – examined a vote tabulator from Richfield Township, a conservative stronghold of 3,600 people in northern Michigan’s Roscommon County.

The Richfield security breach is one of four similar incidents being investigated by Michigan’s current attorney general, Democrat Dana Nessel. Under state law, it is a felony to seek or provide unauthorized access to voting equipment.

DePerno did not respond to a request for comment.

The involvement of a Republican attorney general nominee in a voting-system breach comes amid a national effort by backers of Trump’s fraud falsehoods to win state offices that could prove critical in deciding any future contested elections.

In Arizona last week, three Trump-backed candidates who claim the 2020 election was stolen won Republican primary elections for governor, attorney general and secretary of state, the top official overseeing elections. In Pennsylvania, Republican gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano has vowed to decertify any election he considers fraudulent through his appointed secretary of state. Michigan, Arizona and Pennsylvania are all presidential election battlegrounds.

Trump lavished praise on DePerno before a large audience this weekend at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas. “He’s going to make sure that you are going to have law and order and fair elections,” Trump said, pumping his fist as DePerno stood up in the audience and waved. “That’s an important race.”

Reuters established the connection between Michigan’s DePerno and the Richfield voting-system breach by matching the serial number of the township’s tabulator to a photograph in a publicly released report written by a member of DePerno’s team. The photograph showed a printed record of a vote-tabulator’s activity, which also included a string of ten digits. Reuters confirmed that those numbers matched the serial number of a Richfield vote tabulator through public records obtained from the township. State officials had previously identified Richfield as the site of a voting-equipment security breach.

DePerno had submitted the report as evidence in a failed lawsuit challenging the 2020 election results in a different Michigan county, Antrim. The report claimed that Dominion and ES&S election equipment was vulnerable to hacking and vote-rigging.

Reuters asked an election-security expert to review the materials. Kevin Skoglund, president and chief technologist for the nonpartisan Citizens for Better Elections, an election-security advocacy organization, said the matching numbers indicate that DePerno’s team had access to the Richfield Township tabulator or its data drives.

DePerno led the “Michigan Antrim County Election Lawsuit & Investigation Team,” which included himself, Detroit attorney Stefanie Lambert, private investigator Michael Lynch, and James Penrose, a former analyst for the National Security Agency, according to promotional material for a July 2021 fundraising event in California sponsored by a conservative group that advertised appearances by DePerno’s team members. Penrose, who had assisted other prominent Trump allies in their efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, authored the report that Reuters tied to a tabulator involved in the Richfield Township security breach.

Lambert, Lynch and Penrose did not respond to requests for comment.

The previously unreported link to GOP attorney general candidate DePerno and his associates comes as Democratic incumbent Nessel advances her probe, which she launched in February 2022. Nessel is seeking re-election, which would create a conflict of interest if her political opponent became a suspect in her office’s investigation.

The attorney general’s office declined to comment on the specifics of its investigation but said Nessel would “take appropriate steps to remove herself and her department should a conflict arise.”

Those steps include requesting a special prosecutor to look into the election breaches, according to a letter from the attorney general advising the secretary of state of the request. The request was sent to the Prosecuting Attorneys Coordinating Council, an autonomous entity within the attorney general’s office that would decide whether a special prosecutor is warranted.

Nessel’s office started investigating the voting-system security breaches after a request from Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. In a February statement, Benson said that “at least one unnamed third party” had gained access to tabulation machines and data drives from Richfield Township and Roscommon County.

Jake Rollow, a spokesperson for the secretary of state, said the office does not believe DePerno’s team had legal approval to access ES&S voting equipment. Rollow declined to comment further on the attorney general’s investigation but emphasized its importance. “To ensure Michigan’s elections are secure in the future, there must be consequences now for the people who illegally accessed the state’s voting machines,” he said.

ES&S did not respond to requests for comment.

SEIZING ON A GLITCH

Voting and vote-counting equipment is subject to strict chain-of-custody requirements to ensure accuracy and guard against fraud. Access to tabulators is tightly restricted, and any machine compromised by an unauthorized person is typically taken out of commission.

The four cases being investigated by Nessel are among at least 17 incidents identified by Reuters nationwide in which Trump supporters gained or attempted to gain unauthorized access to voting equipment. Michigan accounts for 11 of them, reflecting how conspiracy theorists sought to capitalize on an error in the initial reporting of 2020 results in Antrim County to allege widespread fraud in the state, without evidence.

A state review of the Antrim County incident found that a failure to properly update software caused a computer glitch that resulted in county officials initially reporting Joe Biden as the winner of the reliably Republican county. The officials quickly acknowledged and corrected the mistake, and Trump’s victory was affirmed by a hand tally of every vote cast.

DePerno seized on the confusion, filing a lawsuit making the unfounded claim that tabulators made by Colorado-based Dominion Voting Systems had been rigged to flip votes from Trump to Biden in Antrim County.

“No evidence of machine fraud or manipulation in the 2020 election has ever been presented in Michigan or any other state, and courts in Michigan and elsewhere have dismissed such claims as baseless,” Dominion spokesman Tony Fratto said.

In early December 2020, 13th Circuit Court Judge Kevin Elsenheimer granted DePerno’s legal team permission to take forensic images of Antrim County voting equipment to search for evidence of election fraud. The court order was limited to Antrim, where only Dominion equipment was used. The order did not extend to other jurisdictions or machines made by other voting-system providers.

Yet DePerno’s team submitted two reports in April 2021 to the court that revealed they had also examined equipment made by Election Systems & Software (ES&S).

The report written by Penrose, dated April 9, contained a photograph of a “summary tape” with information about a tabulator’s activity on election night, such as when results were submitted to the county. Among other things, the tape showed a sequence of figures: 0317350497.

That is the serial number for one of two ES&S DS200 tabulators Richfield Township used during the 2020 vote, according to copies of documents obtained by Reuters through a public-records request.

Skoglund, the election-security specialist consulted by Reuters, said the matching numbers indicate that the report’s author had access to either Richfield’s tabulator or a data drive containing the results and other information on the machine.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that the Penrose photograph is output from that same DS200 — that he had physical hands-on access,” Skoglund told Reuters.

A second person familiar with the workings of ES&S voting equipment examined the records obtained by Reuters and concurred that the tabulator tape shown in the Penrose report matches the machine with the same serial number.

MORE MACHINES

The Penrose report was part of a series of submissions from DePerno’s team that failed to convince Judge Elsenheimer. At an April 12, 2021 hearing, the judge shut down DePerno’s attempt to subpoena several Michigan counties for access to election data and equipment.

DePerno gave an interview later the same day to two right-wing websites, Gateway Pundit and 100 Percent Fed Up. DePerno said that Penrose had examined an ES&S machine. He added that the team had also looked at Dominion equipment “outside of Antrim County.” The attorney said he didn’t consider Elsenheimer’s ruling a dead-end.

“Maybe there will be some county somewhere that decides to come forward and cooperate. That would be nice,” DePerno told the websites.

In reality, DePerno’s associates had already taken possession of voting machines from local officials in Richfield Township in Roscommon County and Lake Township in Missaukee County, according to police records and text messages acquired through public records requests.

Lynch, the private investigator who worked with DePerno on his Antrim county case, exchanged texts with Lake Township clerk Korinda Winkelmann on March 20, 2021. Lynch asked for help accessing a Dominion device she had provided to him, according to the messages, obtained by Reuters through a public-records requests. Winkelman shared with Lynch an operational manual and a password for the device, while also speculating on how election systems might be rigged.

Lynch had no authorization to examine the machine, and the incident remains under state investigation. Winkelmann did not respond to requests for comment.

Elsenheimer dismissed the Antrim suit in May 2021, a decision that was affirmed this year by the Michigan Court of Appeals. DePerno’s fraud claims have been widely debunked. A Republican-led Michigan Senate committee issued a scathing report in June 2021 that called DePerno’s various allegations “demonstrably false.”

In September 2021, Trump endorsed DePerno as the Republican nominee for Michigan attorney general, praising his pursuit of “fair and accurate elections” and his ongoing effort to “reveal the truth about the Nov. 3 presidential election scam.”

(Reporting by Nathan Layne; additional reporting by Peter Eisler; editing by Brian Thevenot)

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LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Matthew DePerno made his political reputation on loudly and repeatedly questioning the 2020 presidential election results. It gained him the fervor of Republican delegates and the endorsement of Donald Trump in his bid for attorney general.

But now the political novice is accused of helping obtain improper access to voting machines and intending to use them to further the false claims, just three months before voters head to the polls in this and other key statewide races in battleground Michigan.

The reliability of election systems and equipment was already at stake in the race, given DePerno’s history, but Michigan political experts said the new accusations ensure the issue will play a critical role as voters decide whether to reelect Democratic incumbents or replace them with three Republicans who wooed primary voters by pledging their belief in Trump’s false assertion that he won the election.

The accusations against DePerno became public this week as Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel acknowledged a clear personal conflict and asked that a special prosecutor be appointed to oversee the accusations against her opponent and others.

The Michigan Prosecuting Attorneys Coordinating Council, a state agency, said in a statement that it can take 60 to 90 days for its staff to review a request and select a prosecutor. That could mean the issue isn’t resolved before the Nov. 8 election.

DePerno released a statement Sunday night denying the allegations and saying that the claims were “purely based on political prosecution.”

During a radio interview Monday morning, Deperno said that “90% of the facts that (Nessel) lays out, that she calls facts in her petition, are either false or I have no knowledge of what she’s talking about.”

The Kalamazoo attorney is a political novice whose embrace of Trump’s lies about the 2020 election won him the former president’s endorsement and later the state party members’ nomination for attorney general over a former Michigan House speaker who narrowly lost to Nessel in 2018.

DePerno’s legal career typically focused on tax cases, with rare public scrutiny. As his profile rose following Joe Biden’s 2020 victory, a March report by Bridge Michigan found a series of disagreements with his former law partners over billing, clients and other court officials that caused some Republicans to question his readiness to serve as the state’s top law enforcement official.

DePerno made a name for himself among Michigan activists on the right by suing Antrim County, claiming voting machines there recorded votes for Trump as being for Biden in the 2020 election. He also clashed with GOP leaders of the state Senate and raised money for attempts to challenge election results in other states.

Trump, though, gave DePerno his endorsement in September 2021 and DePerno relied on it to defeat two other candidates for the party’s endorsement in April, despite public acknowledgement that he could be among those investigated by the state for profiting from allegations of election fraud in Antrim County.

The Antrim County suit was dismissed and a Republican-led state legislative panel found no evidence of fraud in Michigan’s 2020 elections, calling DePerno’s claims “demonstrably false.”

The allegations made public this week went even further — naming DePerno as one of the “prime instigators” of a plan to get improper access to voting machines and use them to dispute the 2020 presidential outcome.

According to documents released by Nessel’s office, five vote tabulators were taken from Roscommon and Missaukee counties in northern Michigan, and Barry County in western Michigan. Investigators found others in the group broke into the tabulators and performed “tests” on the equipment.

“It was determined during the investigation that DePerno was present at a hotel room during such ‘testing,’” the petition to the prosecutors’ council said.

Obtaining undue possession of a voting machine used in an election is a felony punishable by five years in prison.

DePerno and the others named in the Michigan documents join others facing legal jeopardy for embracing Trump’s election lies, including a Colorado county clerk indicted for planning to breach election equipment.

Bernie Porn, a nonpartisan pollster who’s worked in the state for more than 30 years, said public opinion is against Republican candidates in several key areas, including abortion and the veracity of the 2020 presidential race. In a May poll conducted by his Lansing firm EPIC-MRA, Porn said 61% of Michigan general election voters said Biden won “fair and square.”

Among Democrats the total was 97% and among independents 66%

Based on those numbers, Michigan Democrats “would be insane” not to highlight DePerno’s legal woes this fall, along with the Republican slate’s unanimous primary statements backing Trump’s lie about the 2020 outcome, Porn said.

“If I were running a campaign for any candidate running against the Republican candidates for governor, attorney general or secretary of state, I’d advise them to constantly remind voters that these on the Republican side believe the election was stolen and they have yet to prove it,” he said.

Even before the allegations became public, DePerno told Michigan reporters that the attorney general race shouldn’t focus on “the election issue.”

“Let’s start talking about the real issues that are facing people every day in their budget and how they’re managing their families,” he said following a June 30 gubernatorial debate.

Republican leaders in the state stood by DePerno following news of the investigation, with Meshawn Maddock, co-chair of the Michigan GOP party, tweeting that Nessel is “hell bent on going after her political opponents.”

Party Chairman Ron Weiser said he expects the party’s formal nominating convention on Aug. 27 will back all of the candidates previously endorsed by party delegates, including DePerno. He said Republicans “have a great opportunity” this fall in Michigan and questioned the timing of Nessel’s request, accusing her using her office to target a political opponent.

“The public is sick and tired of what happened during the pandemic, as well as what’s happening now between Gretchen Whitmer and her allies,” he said.

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Foody reported from Chicago. Cappelletti is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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By Gabriella Borter

(Reuters) – Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts will not convene the state legislature for a special session to consider stricter abortion laws because Republican lawmakers did not have the votes to pass a ban on abortion after 12 weeks of pregnancy, he said on Monday.

The statement by Ricketts, a Republican, comes as several other Republican-led states have grappled in recent weeks with how far to go in restricting abortion access after the U.S. Supreme Court in June overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide.

Indiana on Friday became the first state to pass a new abortion ban since Roe’s overturn, but Republican lawmakers there were divided over which exceptions to allow.

Nebraska currently allows abortions up to 20 weeks post-fertilization. Ricketts had expressed interest in calling a special session to further restrict abortion access, saying he would support a near-total ban with no exceptions for rape or incest.

But in his statement on Monday, the governor said only 30 state senators would support a ban on abortions past 12 weeks. The legislation requires 33 votes to pass.

Nebraska’s state legislature is unicameral, meaning it only has one chamber, and is comprised of 32 Republicans and 17 Democrats.

“It is deeply saddening that only 30 Nebraska state senators are willing to come back to Lincoln this fall in order to protect innocent life,” Ricketts said. “As Governor, I will continue doing whatever I can in my power to affirm the rights of preborn babies and to support pregnant women, children, and families in need.”

Nebraska state Senator Megan Hunt, a Democrat, wrote on Twitter last week that the 12-week ban proposal was part of an effort by the state’s Republican leadership to seem “moderate” in comparison to the total bans that have taken effect in some 10 other states.

“Abortion is a right. Abortion is health care. And the decision about whether and when to become a parent does not belong to the government,” Hunt tweeted on Monday.

The near-total ban signed by Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb on Friday prohibits all abortions except when the life of the mother is endangered, the fetus develops a fatal abnormality or the pregnancy results from rape or incest but has not advanced beyond 10 weeks of gestation.

West Virginia’s legislature, also led by Republicans, is on the verge of passing a near-total abortion ban during a special session this summer. But lawmakers disagree over whether doctors who perform abortions outside narrow exceptions should face prison time.

The defeat last week of a Republican-backed Kansas constitutional amendment to restrict abortion has boosted Democrats’ hopes that they can harness voter anger to prevail in competitive November midterm elections.

(Reporting by Gabriella Borter; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Josie Kao)

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