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A Saudi dissident sued Twitter for a 2nd time, saying spies at the firm hacked his account and leaked his contacts’ names to the kingdom

Ali al-Ahmed
Ali al-Ahmed.

AP

  • Two Saudi nationals who worked at Twitter from 2013 to 2016 are accused of spying for the kingdom.
  • They are accused of hacking the account of dissident Ali al-Ahmed and exposing his sources.
  • Al-Ahmed sued Twitter for damages in California this week. He sued the firm in New York last year.

A Saudi dissident in the US is suing Twitter for a second time, alleging that Saudi spies working at the tech firm hacked his account and exposed his sources to the kingdom.

Ali al-Ahmed, who was granted asylum in the US, sued Twitter in the Southern District of New York last year, alleging that the Twitter employees Ahmad Abouammo and Ali al-Zabarah hacked his account between 2013 and 2016 and leaked the personal details of his sources to Saudi intelligence.

US prosecutors charged Abouammo and al-Zabarah with spying for a foreign government in July 2020.

However, the judge overseeing al-Ahmed’s claim in New York recently refused to accept that New York was a suitable venue for the case.

Now, al-Ahmed is suing Twitter again on its home turf.

On Wednesday, Al-Ahmed filed a complaint seeking damages in the US district court in the Northern District of California.

“I am doing this for the many victims that were lost to Saudi executions and prisons who followed my account,” he told Insider on Friday.

“The entire truth about the Twitter Saudi spies must come out.”

‘Enabled … and/or otherwise turned a blind eye’

In the complaint, lawyers for al-Ahmed said Saudi Arabia “was successful in using Twitter’s internal resources to identify Mr. Al-Ahmed as a critic of the government and ultimately silence him.”

“Twitter have enabled, collaborated, colluded, conspired with, aided and abetted, and/or otherwise turned a blind eye to KSA’s efforts to suppress, torture, falsely imprison, terrorize, and murder dissenters both within Saudi Arabia and around the world,” the complaint said.

The lawsuit also held Twitter accountable for allowing the alleged spies to access Al-Ahmed’s account.

“On numerous occasions, Alzabarah and Abouammo mined Twitter’s internal systems for, inter alia, personal information regarding Mr. Al-Ahmed, email addresses, contacts, phone numbers, birth dates, and internet protocol (‘IP’) addresses,” the complaint said.

Twitter declined to comment.

In a previous interview, Al-Ahmed told Insider that the hack had led to his sources back in Saudi Arabia being killed, tortured, or disappeared.

“It is very distressing and it really hurts me greatly because I know some of them have died, many have been tortured, and remain behind bars,” al-Ahmed told Insider.

“The difference between their being free, or not free, is our connection on Twitter.”

One of those killed, al-Ahmed told Insider, is Abdullah al-Hamid, the founder of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association, a human-rights group in the kingdom. Al-Hamid died in Saudi state custody in April 2020.

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Jen Psaki took a dig at Trump’s role in the Capitol riot, saying Biden ‘has no intention to lead an insurrection’

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki holds a press briefing at the White House in Washington, U.S., October 14, 2021.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki at a press briefing.

REUTERS/Leah Millis

  • Psaki was asked whether Biden would regret releasing Trump-era documents about the Capitol riot.
  • A reporter said Biden may find himself subject to the same treatment by future GOP administrations.
  • She responded: “This president has no intention to lead an insurrection on our nation’s Capitol.”

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki made a pointed reference to former President Donald Trump’s role in the Capitol riot, telling a reporter that President Joe Biden had “no intention” of leading an insurrection like his predecessor.

Psaki was asked by the CBS News reporter Ed O’Keefe at Thursday’s regular press briefing whether Biden would regret waiving executive privilege on a set of documents from the Trump White House.

Trump had tried invoking executive privilege to stop the confidential documents from being released, but they are now set to be sent to the congressional committee investigating the insurrection.

Asked if Biden was concerned that an “extraordinary circumstance” would see a future administration releasing confidential documents from his administration, Psaki said: “I can assure you, Ed, that this President has no intention to lead an insurrection on our nation’s Capitol.”

Watch the moment here:

Psaki later said: “I think it is ultimately important for people to understand and remember that January 6 was an incredibly dark day – one of the darkest days in our democracy. There was an insurrection on our nation’s Capitol.”

“What we’re talking about here is getting to the bottom of that. Shouldn’t everybody want to get to the bottom of that? Democrats, Republicans, people who have no political affiliation whatsoever.”

Psaki went on to insist that Biden’s decision to release Trump-era White House documents was not setting a dangerous precedent that would lead to future Republican administrations releasing documents from Biden’s White House.

She said the “uniqueness” of the Capitol riot meant that normal rules did not apply and that the situation was without precedent.

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Putin suggested to a US journalist she was too ‘beautiful’ to understand a point he made about Russian gas supply

putin hadley gamble
Russian President Vladimir Putin with the CNBC reporter Hadley Gamble.

Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images

  • Putin told a crowd that a US journalist was too “beautiful” to understand a point he made.
  • CNBC journalist Hadley Gamble was asking Putin about Russia’s standoff with Europe over gas supplies.
  • Gamble was interviewing Putin during the Russian Energy Week in Moscow on Wednesday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested to an American journalist that she was too “beautiful” to understand his explanation of Russia’s standoff with Europe over gas supplies.

The CNBC journalist Hadley Gamble, who spoke to the president before a live audience at the Russian Energy Week in Moscow, was addressing the recent accusations that Russia was withholding gas supplies to Europe in an effort to drive up prices.

Her questions seemed to irritate Putin, who at one point turned to the audience and said in Russian: “Beautiful woman, pretty, I’m telling her one thing. She instantly tells me the opposite as if she didn’t hear what I said,” The Hill reported.

Watch the full interview here. This particular exchange can be found at the five-minute, 43-second mark:

Gamble appeared to raise her eyebrows at his response, and told Putin she “heard” what he said and that she wanted to know why Russia had taken its time to increase energy supplies, The Hill reported.

“Listen, you’ve just said: ‘You don’t supply gas to Europe through pipelines.’ You are being misled. We are increasing supplies to Europe … We are increasing, not decreasing supplies,” Putin said, according to The Hill.

“Did I really say something so hard to understand?” he added.

Western officials have recently accused Putin of seeking to exploit the rising gas prices in the US and Europe. Russia supplies about half of the EU’s natural gas imports, the BBC reported.

The construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which is to run from Russia to Germany, was completed last month but is still awaiting clearance from Germany’s energy regulator to start operations.

After the interview with Putin, Gamble posted a photograph of a leading Russian newspaper’s front page that showed her extended leg while on stage with Putin.

“My best angle #feminism #Russia,” Gamble wrote in her caption.

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Satellite photos show how Trump wrecked a sensitive sand dune system in Scotland to build a luxury golf course

Before-and-after satellite images showing the destruction of sand dunes after Donald Trump's Aberdeenshire golf course was built on them.
Before-and-after satellite images showing the destruction of sand dunes after Donald Trump’s Aberdeenshire golf course was built on them.

Satellite image © 2021 Maxar Technologies

  • Before-and-after photos show the environmental damage caused by Donald Trump’s Scottish golf course.
  • Trump opened the course on a sand dune system in 2012 despite fierce local opposition.
  • Newly obtained satellite photos show the stark change in the landscape since the course opened.

In 2006, the New York real-estate magnate Donald Trump purchased a stretch of coastal land in Aberdeenshire, northeast Scotland, for the purpose of building “the world’s best golf course.”

There was noisy local opposition to the plan, but Trump had a relationship Scotland’s then-first minister, Alex Salmond. In 2008, the Scottish government stepped in to approve his plan, touting the economic benefits the resort would bring to the country.

Despite warnings that the construction of an 18-hole course would destroy the sand dunes around it, Trump had pressed ahead, saying: “We will stabilize the dunes. They will be there forever. This will be environmentally better after it [the course] is built than it is before.”

But as conservationists predicted, the part of the highly sensitive ecosystem on which Trump International Golf Links was built was largely ruined. Officials announced in December 2020 that the coastal sand dunes Trump’s the resort would lose their status as a protected environmental site because they had been partially destroyed.

Insider has obtained before-and-after photos from the satellite technology firm Maxar, which show the dramatic destruction of the prized Foveran Links sand dunes between March 2010 and April 2021.

March 2010

Satellite images taken in March 2010 of Foveran Links show the dunes in their full unspoiled form:

Overview of the area where Donald Trump's Aberdeenshire golf course would be built, taken in March 2010.
Overview of the area where Donald Trump’s Aberdeenshire golf course would be built, taken in March 2010.

Satellite image © 2021 Maxar Technologies.

The site contained areas of mobile sand and dunes that were semi-fixed in position, as well as marshes, dune grassland, and low-lying areas called dune slacks, according to a government document designating Foveran Links as a site of special scientific interest.

A closer image of the dunes shows some of these features in more detail:

A closer view of the area containing the sand dunes at Foveran Links where Donald Trump's Aberdeenshire golf course would be built.
A closer view of the area containing the sand dunes at Foveran Links where Donald Trump’s Aberdeenshire golf course would be built.

Satellite image © 2021 Maxar Technologies.

NatureScot, Scotland’s conservation agency, said that Foveran Links was “a very high-quality example of a sand dune system characteristic of north east Scotland, and was of exceptional importance for the wide variety of coastal landforms and processes.”

April 2021

Images taken of the course in April 2021 show how many of the sand dune features at the southern third of Foveran Links, where Trump’s golf course was built, had been partially destroyed.

Here is a general overview of the area:

An overview of the area containing Donald Trump's Aberdeenshire golf course, taken in April 2021.
An overview of the area containing Donald Trump’s Aberdeenshire golf course and the destroyed sand dune ecosystem, taken in April 2021.

Satellite image © 2021 Maxar Technologies

These side-by-side photos show a zoomed-in view of the 18-hole links course (right), along with what it looked like before the course was constructed (left):

Before-and-after photos of the coastal stretch of land where Donald Trump built his Aberdeenshire golf course.
Before-and-after photos of the coastal stretch of land where Donald Trump built his Aberdeenshire golf course.

Satellite image © 2021 Maxar Technologies.

‘They’ve just killed it as a natural environment’

Bob Ward, policy and communications director at LSE’s Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, explained to Insider earlier this year how building on top of the dunes had resulted in their destruction.

“Sand dunes are a dynamic system, they’re wind-driven, so they go backward and forwards,” he said.

“Building a golf course on top means you can’t have the dunes moving around, so they have to stabilize them. So they’ve essentially planted vegetation on top of them and put physical constraints on them so the dunes can’t move and it’s not a dynamic system anymore.”

“The argument the Trump International Golf Links used was that they’d protected them by stabilizing them. But essentially what they’ve done is they’ve just killed it as a natural environment.”

The Trump Organization did not respond to Insider’s request for comment.

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A judge held 2 DC jail officials in contempt after they left a Capitol riot suspect with a broken wrist for 4 months without surgery

A picture of Christopher Worrell released by the FBI
A picture of Christopher Worrell released by the FBI.

FBI

  • Christopher Worrell, a Capitol riot defendant, has been in jail with a broken wrist for four months.
  • A federal judge said jail officials violated his civil rights by denying him appropriate medical care.
  • The judge referred the case to the DOJ for a civil rights investigation.

A federal judge Wednesday held two Washington, DC, jail officials in civil contempt of court after ruling that they had violated a Capitol riot defendant’s civil rights by denying him access to medical care.

In a hearing about medical delays for Christopher Worrell, a Proud Boys members and riot suspect, US District Judge Royce Lamberth said that DC Department of Corrections officials failed to hand over critical documents that were needed to approve surgery for Worrell’s wrist, which he broke in May while in custody.

“It’s clear to me the civil rights of the defendant were violated by the DC Department of Corrections,” Lamberth said, according to the Fort Myers News-Press. “I don’t know if it’s because he’s a January 6 defendant or not.”

He added: “It’s more than just the inept and bureaucratic shuffling of papers. Does no one care? Does no one follow up?” The Daily Beast reported.

Worrell, who was detained shortly after his March 12 arrest in Florida, is accused of pepper-spraying Capitol Police officers during the insurrection and engaging in violence and disorderly conduct, among other charges.

In the Wednesday hearing, Lamberth also issued a show-cause order and said he was referring the matter to the Department of Justice to investigate whether Worrell’s civil rights were violated, the Fort Myers News-Press reported.

Lamberth did not, however, impose any sanctions or penalties on the two jail officials in question, Warden Wanda Patten and DC Department of Corrections Director Quincy Booth.

Worrell’s attorney, Alex Stavrou, did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment. Stavrou told The Daily Beast that he and his clients were “pleased” with the judge’s Wednesday ruling, and “pray” that the investigation would be done quickly.

The surgery has not been performed yet, Fort Myers News-Press reported.

Worrell, 50, was placed in custody in March after another judge said that the evidence against him, including his level of preparation and history of intimidating and threatening behavior, met the government criteria for denying bond, Naples News reported.

In June, Worrell – who also has non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma – applied twice to be freed on medical grounds after saying his condition was “rapidly deteriorating” in jail. However, his attempts were rejected by two separate judges, one of whom was Lamberth.

In the court documents, Worrell did not mention his broken wrist at the time and referred only to his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

The FBI tracked down Worrell at his home in Naples, Florida, in March after someone close to his girlfriend tipped off the bureau, saying they had identified him in pictures from the riot.

He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him.

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Obama’s ethics chief slammed the White House over Hunter Biden’s art sales, saying buyers could use them to gain influence with his dad

Hunter Biden paints in a studio, surrounded by works of art.
Hunter Biden with some of his artwork.

Elizabeth Weinberg/Trunk Archive

  • The Obama White House ethics chief Walter Shaub addressed Hunter Biden’s art sales.
  • He described them as a potential “vehicle for funneling cash to the first family” in exchange for influence.
  • The White House had dismissed questions about the art sales, and defended an arrangement to keep buyers’ identities secret.

Walter Shaub, who served as ethics chief in Barack Obama’s administration, has criticized the President Joe Biden’s White House for dismissing questions about Hunter Biden’s lucrative art sales.

Hunter Biden, the president’s son, is facing scrutiny for selling his paintings for between $75,000 and $500,000 apiece at a private New York gallery. Biden is not known as an artist and is not critically acclaimed, prompting questions abut the high price tags.

The White House has entered into an unusual arrangement with the gallery, whereby Hunter Biden is shielded by the gallery from knowing the identity of the buyers. The idea is that the arrangement will stop buyers from using their purchases to secure influence with the White House.

Shaub, who served as the head of Obama’s Office of Government Ethics, argued that this arrangement was ineffective because there are loopholes whereby Hunter Biden could become aware of the identity of buyers.

He also said that because buyers’ identities are not made public, it shields the sales from scrutiny, further muddying the transparency of the arrangement.

At a Wednesday press briefing, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki brushed aside a reporter’s questions on the arrangement, saying “there’s lots going on in the world” as she sought to switch topics.

Shaub took issue with the response in a lengthy series of tweets.

“These are legitimate questions. It’s disappointing to hear [Psaki] send a message that the WH thinks the public has no right to ask about ethics,” he said.

“After the last 4 years, these questions have never been more important,” he said, referring to former President Donald Trump’s administration. “I know this isn’t a popular opinion, but this stuff matters.”

He said there were serious flaws with the arrangement, and “no ethics program in the world that can be built around the head of state’s staff working with a dealer to keep the public in the dark about the identities of individuals who pay vast sums to the leader’s family member for subjectively priced items of no intrinsic value.”

Walter Shaub
Walter Shaub.

Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Shaub went on to allege double standards in the Biden White House, highlighting Joe Biden’s campaign pledge to end the allegations of corruption that hung over the Trump White House.

“If this were Trump, Xi or Putin, you’d have no doubt whatsoever that this creates a vehicle for funneling cash to the first family in exchange for access or favors,” Shaub wrote, referring to the Chinese and Russian presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin.

“It doesn’t matter that Trump was worse. What matters is that this sets a low bar for ethics. It embraces the mentality that ‘if it’s legal, it’s fine to do.'”

The White House, Hunter Biden’s attorney, and Hunter Biden’s gallery did not immediately comment to Insider’s request for comment on Shaub’s remarks.

Hunter Biden has long faced criticism, especially from Republicans, for seemingly seeking to profit from his father’s political status with his work for the Ukrainian gas firm Burisma and lobbying work in China.

Last month Insider’s Mattathias Schwartz reported that Hunter Biden had sought $2 million for helping to release assets in Libya frozen by the Obama administration, in which his father served as vice president.

His drug addiction and business dealings were also the subject of controversy during the 2020 presidential campaign, when material said to be from an abandoned laptop were published by the New York Post.

Biden said he started painting to work through his addiction and other issues in his personal life.

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Trump claims his supporters won’t vote in the 2022 and 2024 elections unless the GOP backs his groundless election-fraud theories

Trump
Former President Donald Trump.

Win McNamee/Getty Images

  • Trump continues to claim without evidence that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.
  • Trump claimed his supporters would sit out elections if the GOP didn’t back his election fraud claims.
  • “Republicans will not be voting in ’22 or ’24” if the claims were not addressed, he said Wednesday.

Former President Donald Trump has claimed that his supporters will sit out future elections if the Republican Party did not address his baseless claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged against him.

“If we don’t solve the Presidential Election Fraud of 2020 (which we have thoroughly and conclusively documented), Republicans will not be voting in ’22 or ’24,” Trump said in a statement emailed to his supporters Wednesday.

“It is the single most important thing for Republicans to do.”

Since leaving office in January, Trump has continued to claim that last year’s presidential election was rigged in Joe Biden’s favor through widespread voter fraud.

No evidence has emerged to support his claims, which election officials called “the most secure in American history.” Federal judges dismissed a total of more than 50 lawsuits brought by Trump and his campaign in their efforts to overturn the election.

Multiple partisan election audits in GOP-led states, including an Arizona audit of more than 2 million ballots, have also failed to uncover any evidence of voter fraud.

Meanwhile, Trump has continued to float the prospect of running for president again in 2024, and he – along with other senior Republican figures – has expressed confidence that the GOP can retake control of Congress in the 2022 midterms.

Trump’s insistence on the GOP’s prioritizing his voter-fraud theories also exposes divisions in the party about how to approach the midterms.

Two GOP officials this week urged Republican voters to support Democratic candidates in next year’s elections, arguing that Trump’s continued “conspiracy theories and lies about stolen elections” had resulted in the party being taken over by “pro-Trump extremists.”

Republican strategists have also suggested that Trump’s continued claims of voter fraud may already have dampened GOP voter turnout in the Georgia Senate runoffs this January, NPR reported, which saw Republicans lose control of the Senate.

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Video shows Jeff Bezos interrupting William Shatner’s emotional speech to spray Champagne

william shatner talks to jeff bezos
William Shatner tells Jeff Bezos about his spaceflight experience in a screenshot from Blue Origin’s livestream.

Blue Origin

  • William Shatner spoke emotionally with Jeff Bezos about his trip to space on a Blue Origin rocket.
  • Video shows Bezos interrupting him at one point to ask for a bottle of Champagne to spray.
  • Shatner then stops speaking, though Bezos at one point said he wanted to hear what Shatner had to say.

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin sent the “Star Trek” star William Shatner to the edge of space on Wednesday, and the actor spoke emotionally about the experience on his return.

Shatner spoke with Bezos after he landed, where teared up while reflecting on what he described as a profound experience.

Video footage showed Shatner describing his experience to Bezos, when Bezos turns to a group nearby and says: “Give me the Champagne bottle. Come here. I want one.” Shatner stops speaking, and scratches his head, the video shows.

Watch the moment here:

Bezos then says he still wants to hear Shatner’s story, saying: “I want to hear this.”

He offers some Champagne to Shatner, who declines, and Bezos then sprays the Champagne to cheers from the group, while Shatner still has his hand by his head.

Footage also shows Shatner stepping back and turning away while Bezos continues to spray the Champagne, and Bezos then turning to put his arm on Shatner:

Shatner had described his trip to the edge of space to Bezos as being “the most profound experience.”

“I am so filled with emotion about what just happened. It’s extraordinary. I hope I never recover from this. I hope that I can maintain what I feel now. I don’t want to lose it,” he said.

“It’s so much larger than me and life. It hasn’t got anything to do with the little green men … It has to do with the enormity and the quickness and the suddenness of life and death.”

It is not clear if Shatner said these things before or after Bezos asked for the Champagne.

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New study of 2,600-year-old poop suggests Iron Age miners drank beer and ate blue cheese

A drawing of Iron age salt mine workers in the Hallstatt salt mine
An illustrated scene of the Hallstatt salt mountain in the early Iron Age.

Reschreiter_Groebner/NHM

  • Scientists analyzed the DNA in an ancient European salt miner’s poop from some 2,600 years ago.
  • They found the feces contained microbes consistent with the production of beer and blue cheese.
  • Salt miners were previously thought to mostly eat gruel. The finding suggests they were more sophisticated.

A new study of 2,600-year-old feces from an Iron Age salt miner suggested that workers at the time ate blue cheese and drank beer, suggesting they had a much more sophisticated palate than previously thought.

The feces, which was taken from the Hallstatt-Dachstein salt mine in what’s now western Austria, was part of a study published in the peer-reviewed journal Current Biology on Wednesday.

A 2,600 year old piece of feces is seen on some rocks.
2,600-year-old human excrement from the Hallstatt salt mine.

Anwora -NHMW

The study analyzed four feces samples: One from the Bronze Age, two from the Iron Age, and one from the 18th century.

In one of the Iron Age stools, which dates back 2,600 years, the scientists found DNA from Penicillium roqueforti and Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which are microbes used to this day for the manufacture of beer and blue cheese.

Milk fermentation and cheese predate the Iron Age. But the findings suggest that humans were doing much more sophisticated cheese ripening than was previously thought possible at the time, said Kerstin Kowarik, a prehistoric archaeologist at the Museum of Natural History Vienna and an author on the study.

“We’re looking at complex and highly processed foodstuff that must have been produced for preservation but also to achieve a certain taste in mind and texture,” she told Insider.

A man wearing a yellow helmet and blue jumpsuit holds up a light in a narrow rock passage in the Hallstatt mine.
An archaeologist standing in the middle of layers of accumulated mining debris including paleofeces.

D. Brander and H.Reschreiter – NHMW

“This is very fascinating,” said Frank Maixner, a researcher at Italy’s Eurac Research Institute for Mummy Studies and another author on the study. “This could indicate [there was] already a tradition” in food production at that time, he said.

The scientists said the team was also able to identify proteins in the stool that revealed traces of animal blood, suggesting the miners were eating foods like liver or blood pudding.

More sophisticated palates than previously thought

Until this discovery, evidence suggested that the salt miners mostly subsisted on gruel.

The Hallstatt salt mine would have been crawling with activity during the Iron Age, and the miners would have been extremely sophisticated and wealthy, partly because they traded salt with other tribes across Europe, said Kowarik.

The idea that they mostly ate gruel didn’t seem to fit with that belief, Kowarik said: “It is very nourishing, but it also seems like a very boring food.”

A schematic shows a cut of the galleries of the Hallstatt salt mine in the mountain.
A graphic reconstruction of salt mines: Bronze Age in green, Iron Age in blue, and medieval to modern in grey.

D. Brandner/NHM

So the evidence that the miners had access to this type of cheese is “something of a game-changer,” she said.

Whether the cheese and beer were produced on site or imported isn’t clear. Existing scientific studies already showed that the miners had access to luxurious foods like walnuts, which would have been imported from Slovenia, Kowarik said.

Scientists wearing hite protective jumpsuits masks are in a laboratory.
A lab at the Eurac Institute for Mummy Studies.

Eurac Research – Ivo Corr

Analyzing 2,600-year-old poop

The Iron Age poop was incredibly well preserved, the study authors said, because the cold air and low humidity in the Hallstatt-Dachstein salt mine offer the perfect conditions to preserve human feces. The salt mine, which is now a UNESCO World Heritage site, had been used by humans since the 2nd millennium BC.

“Sometimes they even smell when they are excavated,” Kowarik said.

Scientists have studied human excrement dating back thousands of years before, but it is only now that genomic testing technology is advanced enough to work on the DNA, said Maixner.

The cave is still being excavated, Kowarik said, adding: “The question is: what else are we going to find?”

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Sidney Powell, who faces $4 billion defamation lawsuits from election-tech firms, baselessly claimed there is a ‘secret server’ where all US votes go to be manipulated

sidney powell
Sidney Powell.

AP Photo/Ben Margot

  • Former Trump attorney Sidney Powell bizarrely claimed US votes are manipulated in a secret server.
  • There is no evidence to support the claim – Powell has shared multiple debunked conspiracy theories.
  • Two election technology firms are already suing Powell for defamation in lawsuits totaling $4 billion.

Former Trump attorney Sidney Powell has shared a baseless claim that all US votes are sent to a secret server where they are manipulated to rig the outcome of elections.

“What I think really has to be discovered is that there is a secret server that all the votes go to where they manipulate the heck out of it,” Powell told “The Ledger Report,” a conservative talk show, on Friday.

“We need to know where their servers are and what they’re doing with them, and we need the data from them and we need the data from the machines.

“But they’re going as fast as they can, right now, everywhere they can to completely revamp the machines with new software that erases everything that shows what they did.”

Powell comments followed her previous claims about widespread voter fraud in November’s presidential election.

She gained prominence as a member of former President Donald Trump’s legal team after sharing outlandish conspiracy theories about voter fraud during the 2020 election, alleging that the election-technology firm Dominion Voting Systems secretly aided its rival firm Smartmatic in a bid to steal the election from Trump.

Trump fired Powell from his legal team after she made the claims publicly.

Legal filings later showed that Trump staffers had warned Powell that her claims about the two firms were false, but that they did not deter her from repeating the claims.

Dominion and Smartmatic are now demanding vast sums from Powell for defamation as a result of her claims against them. Dominion has filed a $1.3 billion lawsuit against Powell, while Smartmatic has filed a $2.7 billion lawsuit against Powell and other Trump allies.

Powell said in a separate interview last week that she didn’t have “tiniest fraction of that amount of assets,” but that she planned to continue litigation to fight the legal cases against her.

She had countersued Dominion in September and doubled down on some of her claims against the company.

Eric Coomer, a former Dominion employee who was embroiled in the conspiracy theories against his firm, is also suing Powell and others for defamation.

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