Right-wing activist group Project Veritas and its ex-leader have renounced bogus claims that a Pennsylvania postmaster illegally backdated mail-in ballots during the 2020 US presidential election, highlighting the power of litigation in combating disinformation even years later.
The organization and its founder James O’Keefe, known for sting operations targeting progressives, on Monday admitted in statements they had helped broadcast the lie, after settling a defamation lawsuit brought by the postmaster.
The settlement is the latest in a string of such suits targeting those who intentionally spread lies about the 2020 US presidential election.
Photo: Reuters
Project Veritas admitted to having amplified a mail carrier’s claims that he overheard postmaster Robert Weisenbach discussing a scheme to illegally backdate late mail-in ballots, an allegation that the group spread in articles and videos published after the 2020 election.
“Neither Mr Weisenbach nor any other USPS employee in Erie, Pennsylvania, engaged in election fraud or any other wrongdoing related to mail-in ballots,” both of their statements said, adding that there is “no evidence” fraud occurred.
Previous defamation suits have forced similar retractions from former US president Donald Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani and others who parroted Trump’s false claims about widespread fraud.
“The hope is that some of these defamation verdicts and settlements will play a role in deterring the spreading of election lies,” said Rick Hasen, an election law expert at University of California, Los Angeles. “They help show that people who try to undermine free and fair elections may pay a price.”
The statements are also a reminder of the post-2020 chaos, which experts say could recur this year as Trump eyes a rematch with US President Joe Biden.
“We have seen new and often outlandish claims around every facet of the election process, from absentee voting by mail to the type of pens being used,” said Tammy Patrick of the US National Association of Election Officials. “I imagine that trend will continue.”
A Pennsylvania court ruling in 2020 allowed ballots received within three days of election day to be counted if they were postmarked by that date.
Court filings say Weisenbach, a registered Republican, voted for Trump in 2020.
However, after being branded a “Trump hater” in the Project Veritas interview, he received death threats and was forced to temporarily flee his home, his lawyers said.
The mail carrier who initiated the claims that Weisenbach manipulated ballots, Richard Hopkins, now concedes he “only heard a fragment of the conversation and reached the conclusion that the conversation was related to nefarious behavior.”
Trump has previously praised Hopkins as “a brave patriot” for speaking out, and his campaign had cited the mail carrier’s erroneous allegations in litigation aiming to block Pennsylvania from certifying its results.
US Senator Lindsey Graham, top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, also referenced the claims in a letter to the US Department of Justice calling for a federal investigation.
“As I have now learned, I was wrong,” Hopkins said in a statement apologizing to Weisenbach, whom the US postal service inspector general cleared in a 2021 investigation.
A lawyer representing Project Veritas and O’Keefe did not respond to requests for comment.
Weisenbach’s attorney, David Houck, said the case was “resolved in a manner acceptable to all parties.”
The settlement comes after a jury in December last year ordered Giuliani, who spearheaded Trump’s legal efforts to reverse the 2020 results, to pay US$148 million in damages for defaming two Georgia poll workers with accusations of ballot tampering.
Giuliani still faces lawsuits from companies including Dominion Voting Systems, which secured a US$787.5 million settlement from Fox News after suing over the network’s false claims that its machines altered votes.
For Patrick, a former Arizona elections official, correcting the record is always important — even years later.
“There are voters and members of the public who will only listen to — will only believe — the individuals who made these claims to begin with,” she said. “The unfortunate reality of the situation is that the truth won’t get the same airtime, the same distribution as the inflammatory statements.”
Trump, who was indicted in August last year for his efforts to overturn Biden’s 2020 victory, is already suggesting November’s contest is to be stolen.
“The radical left Democrats rigged the presidential election in 2020,” he said last month at a rally in Nevada. “We’re not going to allow them to rig the presidential election of 2024.”
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
RSS