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Nov. 5, 2023



Coffee County Voters:

The long-awaited GBI report has been leaked by individuals involved in Fani Willis’s RICO case, and has been published by Lawfare. (The full report is linked here.) The report is almost 400 pages, but doesn’t contain blockbuster national news. The report is more notable for information that is lacking and indicative of a poor investigation, than for anything new it tells us. But for locals, there are certainly new items of interest, some of which we cover here. 

Before diving into the 400 page report, we suggest that you read our two page press release linked here.  Anna Bower’s summary is also essential reading. Next week she will be doing a deep dive into the report with new findings. It promises to be fascinating. 

Keep one caveat in mind as you read our summary points below. There are definitely inaccuracies in the GBI report, so what we report below is what the report says, and is not information we have verified. For example, there are quite a lot of errors, major and minor, in the GBI summary of the 3 hour interview I had with them in December 2022.  (I’ve checked my recording of the interview to be sure.) Many of the GBI interviews were recorded. If those recordings are leaked at some point, we will know more about what was actually said in the interviews. 

GBI Report Contents of Local Interest 

Wendell Stone Meeting (Exh. 34)—On August 8, 2022, just after the GBI took on the case, they held a short meeting with then Vice-Chairman of the Board, Wendell Stone for purposes of an interview about the breaches. Stone had three county-paid attorneys with him (including Tony Rowell) to meet with one GBI agent. Stone declined to cooperate to provide any information to the GBI, refusing the interview. Our questions:

-Why did Stone refuse to give the GBI information he knew about the breaches? 

-Why would the county have a legitimate interest in paying thousands of dollars in legal fees to prevent Stone from talking to the GBI? 

-Isn’t the county board’s interest to be certain that the GBI and all law enforcement had all available information to enforce the law and protect the voting system?

-Why didn’t the GBI follow up and serve a subpoena on Stone for documents he might have? 

-Why didn’t Stone disclose to the public that he refused to cooperate with the GBI? Only a few months ago he was asking the public to be patient to let the GBI complete their "thorough investigation" before the public should demand answers, while he himself, as Vice-Chair of the Election Board refused to the GBI what he knew.

Matt McCullough Interview (Exh. 35) On August 9, 2022 Board member Matt McCullough had a 30 minute interview with the GBI. Our questions:

-Again, the county paid for 3 attorneys to be there. Why was even one attorney needed, must less three?

-How could an adequate interview with a Board member last only 30 minutes given the complex extensive nature of the voting system and breaches, and the role of the board? 

-Did McCollough really say that he had no knowledge of anything that occurred that day? He was certainly in at least one Board meeting where Eric Chaney discussed the events and his views. He had surely read the reports from the press and had talked with his colleagues about what was being reported.

-If McCollough really had no knowledge of the events, why had he not made an attempt as a member of the Board to inform himself thoroughly by the time of this interview? 

Andy Thomas Interview (Exh. 36) The GBI conducted just a 14 minute interview with Board member Andy Thomas. Thomas joined the Board January 1, 2021, and actively participated in the ballot counting activities late into the night along with other board members (including Eric Chaney) on January 5, for the US Senate runoff election. 

The GBI had videos of Mr. Thomas working as a board member at the office on January 5, 2021 alongside other board members and Misty Hampton. Yet, note the inconsistencies in the video and the GBI reported statements below.

Thomas is in the brown jacket, Hampton in the pink shirt, and Chaney seated at table on January 5, 2021.

Thomas regularly attends all meetings and is an active participant on the Board. He is now the acting Chair. 

Our questions:

--Did Thomas tell the GBI that he did not join the Board until 2022 as the GBI states? 

--Did Thomas tell the GBI that he was not acquainted with Eric Chaney after working side by side with him for 19 months on the board as the GBI states? 

--Did Thomas really tell the GBI that he was not acquainted with Misty Hampton? (He spent many hours working with her in a small office on January 5, and attended the February Board meeting with her.) 

--GBI reports that Thomas said he had no conversation with any board member or staff concerning the investigation of the January breach. How could that be given that it was discussed in at least one  board meeting? 

--If Thomas said that he had not had any conversations with Chaney about the events of January 7, 2021, what about the board meeting where these events were discussed after they were made public through the press?

--How could it be that a board member knew so little about the events of January breaches and had not bothered to learn a thing months after the breaches were national news? 

But as we said above, the GBI misstated a lot of things about my interview. Maybe the mistakes were not limited to the report on my interview.

Ed Voyles (Exh. 15) Voyles refused to speak with the GBI per his attorney. Why didn’t the GBI follow up with subpoenas for Voyle’s documents related to the breaches? Interestingly, the GBI did obtain a search warrant in which Google provided 5,400 of Voyles’s emails to the GBI. 

 Mike Lindell (My Pillow) (Exh. 18) Eddie Chaney who works part time at the local airport was interviewed by the GBI on October 5, 2022. He witnessed the events of January 7, 2021 in the Elections Office. He told the GBI about meeting Mike Lindell when he landed in Douglas in February, 2021. (It was February 25, 2021 (Exh. 8), the evening that Misty was terminated.) 



GBI had documents from us showing that Lindell’s attorney had contacted Misty the evening before, and also that Misty had been looking at the My Pillow website that evening as she learned that she might be fired the next day. 

Lindell arrives for a few hours the evening of her “resignation.”  GBI does not undertake any follow up to determine why Lindell showed up in Douglas after his attorney contacted Misty the night before. 

SOS Investigator Blanchard and Jeffrey Lenberg (Exh. 30, 64).  One of the unindicted co-conspirators involved in the breaches is Jeffrey Lenberg who spent portions of 7 days in Misty’s office testing his theories and accessing the voting system. On January 26, 2021 SOS Investigator Blanchard runs into Lenberg  in Misty’s small office where machines were accessible by Lenberg. 

Yet, the GBI never even seems to ask Investigator Blanchard about the encounter with the one of the unauthorized individuals who accessed the system without authority, although they note that the two crossed paths. (Exh. 30) Nor did they follow up with Lenberg to investigate the second and third breach. 

Eric Chaney (Exh. 12) refused to be interviewed. The GBI did not follow up with a subpoena for his documents, although they did obtain a search warrant for his emails. 

Laptops 

The GBI report makes the entire “missing laptop” story murkier. It’s too confusing to try to sort out here, but if Columbo is reading this, please check out all the conflicting stories of the “Toshiba laptop” (not used since 2015) and its whereabouts in 2021 in the GBI report. Was it in the conference room, or in Wesley Vickers safe? Which was the laptop that remained in James Barnes’s office during 2021 that he described when we deposed him? Now the county says that this laptop pictured below was Misty’s personal laptop, although she used it extensively at work.  The answers on the ownership and whereabouts of that laptop are still elusive. 

Many More Questions!

In this local newsletter we have raised only a few of the many questions that the leaked GBI report has generated.  Many people ask whether more people will get indicted who were involved with these breaches. It seems that will be up to the Georgia Attorney General Carr, who has been silent about the investigation. After all, in December 2021, the State Election Board oddly asked AG Carr to investigate the security of the voting system in Coffee County, although they purportedly knew nothing about the breaches at that time. The files sat dormant. Carr did not take any investigative action. But in April 2022, Secretary Raffensperger clawed back the  Coffee investigation file from the AG (without any authority to do so), and the SOS Coffee investigation was left to die on the vine until it was referred to the GBI in August 2022. 

To review the investigation timeline:

Jan. 7, 2021 First breach occurs

Feb. 25 2021 Hampton is forced to resign

Sept. 28, 2021 SOS investigation of miscellaneous Coffee issues concludes with charge for one unlocked door

Dec. 14, 2021 Coffee investigation (of one single issue—unlocked door) presented to St. Elec. Bd., who voted to have A.G. investigate Coffee’s voting system security

Feb. 24, 2022—Scott Hall telephone recording played in Gabe Sterling deposition

April 7, 2022—SOS office tells federal court that Coffee breach investigation was opened in February 2022. 

April 25, 2022—SOS claws back the Coffee investigation back from the AG

April 29, 2022—Gabe Sterling of SOS office announces that Coffee breach “did not happen.” 

June 7, 2022—SOS office tells federal court that Coffee investigation is “active and ongoing.” 

July 1, 2022—SOS takes “first steps” to investigate the breaches

August 2, 2022—SOS asked GBI to assist in investigation

August 10, 2023—SOS closed final interview attempts 

Sept. 14, 2023—Fulton DA Willis turns over GBI Coffee files and report to all 19 defendants

Sept 28, 2023—GBI digital forensics work completed

We hope that Georgia press will aggressively investigate why the largest breach of voting software the nation has experienced has not been rigorously investigated. Calls for the much-needed federal investigation go unheeded. Members of Congress and members of the General Assembly have all resisted calling for a federal investigation, despite the clear need. 

We call on the Coffee Board of Elections to act to seek such an investigation at their next meeting. 

If you would like to be on this email list for the Coffee County updates, please text us at 704 292 9802 with your email address. 

Thank you for your interest. 

Marilyn Marks

Executive Director

Coalition for Good Governance

Marilyn@uscgg.org

704.292.9802

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Coalition for Good Governance is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization focused on election security, integrity, and transparency.