THE TIMELINE: How the FBI Thwarted the Investigation into the Hacked Georgia Election Machines and Targeted the Whistleblowers Instead
On Friday, in a Federal Court In Atlanta, Georgia, University of Michigan Professor of Computer Science and Engineering J. Alex Halderman testified in front of Judge Amy Totenberg’s courtroom in the Culling vs. Raffensperger lawsuit on the insecure Dominion voting machines used in Georgia elections since 2020.
As reported earlier, during his testimony, Halderman was able to HACK A DOMINION VOTING MACHINE and change the tabulations in front of U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg and the entire courtroom!
Halderman USED ONLY A PEN TO CHANGE VOTE TOTALS!
His testimony was part of a long-running lawsuit by election integrity activists set as a bench trial.
The plaintiffs seek to remove what they say are insecure voting machines in Georgia in favor of secure paper ballots.
This lawsuit was launched after the 2017 Kennesaw State University election hacks in Georgia.
As we continue to follow this explosive lawsuit on election integrity today The Gateway Pundit looked into the FBI’s role in this operation.
We can finally explain what happened over the years.
Here is a timeline of the Georgia voting machine hacking scandal:
In August 2016 cyber security researchers Logan Lamb and Christopher Gray discovered it was easy to access the Georgia voting databases. This included staff passwords, access to software that runs the devices, and data on their 6.7 million voters. Lamb notified KSU of the security vulnerabilities. KSU asked Lamb to keep quiet. Over the next few months, KSU elections IT staff noticed intrusion attempts by DHS. KSU Elections Systems answered to Brian Kemp, Georgia’s Secretary of State at that time.
In December of 2016, to appease the KSU IT staff, Kemp sent a letter to DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson. He asked why the DHS tried to penetrate Georgia’s election servers at least 10 times. Other DHS attacks were documented to be Nov. 7th and 8th, the day before and the day of Trump’s election win. But Kemp’s letter only asked about one specific attempt, a week after the election, on November 15th at 8:43 AM. He did not mention these other attacks. The Digital Forensics and Analysis Unit of the DHS OIG were tasked to investigate this one instance. Was it deliberate to focus on just this one instance?
In March 2017, a few months later, the KSU servers were breached. They were hacked, data was deleted, and altered. Because of the previous whistleblower warnings, Kennesaw State’s CIO Stephen Gay was forced to alert their Center for Elections Systems about this “data breach”. Gay also had to contact the FBI. The FBI opened an investigation into the hacking. The FBI went to KSU and made forensic images of the election servers.
In June 2017, Republican Karen Handel beat Jon Osoff by 3.8% in a District 6 runoff election. Liberal activists alleged the system might have been hacked. On July 3rd 2017, they filed a lawsuit in Fulton County Superior Court (Curling v. Kemp). Their lawsuit wanted Georgia to replace the outdated (DRE) election machines. The lawyers who defended SOS Kemp in this lawsuit were from the Georgia AG’s office.
Two days later after the (Curling v Kemp) lawsuit was filed, the DHS responded to Kemp’s KSU intrusion letter, sent 7 months earlier. The DHS OIG concluded the “November 15th scan” was residual traffic from an employee at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. They said that the employee was just checking the Georgia firearms license database. The OIG said Microsoft Engineers even agreed. That was it, case closed. There was no investigation into intrusion occurrences that occurred the day before, during, and day after the 2016 election.
Three days after the (C v K) lawsuit was filed, the administration at KSU had their staff delete all the election servers. Their IT staff admitted they DBAN’d (nuked) the servers. Their internal KSU emails showed on July 6th 2017, that “election hard drives were degaussed three times”. The backup servers were deleted on August 9th. This data removal was kept from the public, until October 2017, when journalists obtained those KSU’s internal emails.
The Georgia AG’s office, those defending Kemp, continued to lie to the Plaintiffs. The AGI said the server data could not be provided, it was deleted before their lawsuit. But the AG’s office knew KSU ordered the servers to be wiped after the lawsuit was filed. These AG lies were made public when the “Georgia Wipes Servers” story broke on October 26th 2017 and showed the KSU emails. A few days later, Assistant AG Cristina Correia withdrew the entire AG’s office from the (C v K) case due to “newly found” conflicts of interest. The Plaintiffs immediately requested the FBI turn over their copy of the KSU servers. The FBI stalled this release for 26 months, with no justification why.
In December 2017 after the GA AG’s office withdrew, the U.S. House held a hearing. FBI Director Wray refused to answer if the FBI was investigating the Georgia KSU election hacking. He wouldn’t even admit if they had the server data. In early 2020 a judge hearing a FOIA case forced the FBI to turn over communications. It was then provided to the Associated Press. It showed why FBI Wray was silent. The docs show the FBI never examined the KSU server for tampering by malicious outsiders.
Instead, the FBI targeted and attacked the two researchers who earlier alerted KSU about their election security risks (Lamb & Gray). An FBI document dated Oct. 23, 2017 said the FBI planned from the onset for the entire matter to be shelved once the forensic drive image was placed in the case file. FOIA docs show the FBI did nothing for months, closed the case, and no one was ever charged.
Judge Amy Totenberg’s decision in the (C v K) lawsuit gave Georgia the green light it needed to purchase new election equipment.
In July 2019, Kemp who was now governor, signed an $107m agreement with Dominion. In December 2019, only after Georgia took delivery of the Dominion equipment, did the FBI release their KSU server copy to the Plaintiffs (Curling). The Plaintiffs then offered this copy to Brad Raffensperger, who was now the new GA Secretary of State. Raffensperger refused to submit the server data to a forensic examination.
The Plaintiffs created a team to inspect the KSU server data, which included Logan Lamb, the original whistleblower. Lamb’s affidavit says logs were deleted and data altered. “Logs only go back to November 10th, 2016, two days after Donald Trump was elected.” It appears hackers accessed the system and conveniently deleted logs covering all the DHS intrusions. Lamb says he found “scores of files” that had been deleted on March 2, 2017, which is just a few days before KSU handed the server over to the FBI. Numerous other breaches were detected and millions of voter records were accessed. Lamb noted “an attacker obtained full control of the server way back in 2014 by exploiting a bug”.
A protective order was placed on Logan Lamb to prevent him from speaking about his findings. Neither the FBI or DHS did anything about the KSU election server breach. The DOJ did nothing about the corruption by the Georgia AG’s office. It’s probably no coincidence the FBI refused to cooperate until after a Dominion contract was negotiated with GA, and $106 mil worth of equipment was delivered?
Here is an abbreviated timeline.
Georgia election servers were assessed around the 2016 election, and officially hacked a few months later. Back then, Kennesaw State University ran the election servers for the State of Georgia. The FBI, DHS, SOS Kemp, and Georgia AG’s office went to great lengths to prevent any meaningful investigation. Below is a recap and timeline. Note the activity immediately after the Curling v Kemp lawsuit was filed.
Aug. 2016: 2 whistleblowers tell GA (KSU) their election servers can easily be hacked.
Nov. 2016: Several attempts made by DHS to access these servers around election day.
Dec. 2016: SOS Kemp sends letter to DHS, oddly asks about just one intrusion on Nov. 15th.
Kemp oddly doesn’t ask about their many intrusions around Nov. 7th election day.
March 2nd, 2017: Hackers delete many GA election files, including all logs of DHS intrusions.
March 2017: GA (KSU) notifies FBI election severs were hacked. FBI makes a forensic copy.
June 2017: Handel (R) beats Osoff (D) in a runoff. Dems say election probably rigged.
July 3rd, 2017: Dems file Curling v Kemp lawsuit in Fulton Cty. Want new election machines.
July 5th, 2017: DHS responds to SOS, says trainee just trying to access gun licenses on GA server.
July 6th, 2017: KSU officials order IT staff to wipe clean the election servers (nuked).
Sept. 2017: Curling plaintiffs ask AG for copy of server. AG says data not available.
Oct. 2017: AP News story proves Georgia AG lied to “Curling” plaintiffs. Entire AG office leaves case.
AG told everyone the servers were wiped before the case was filed, and knew this was untrue.
Oct, 2017: FOIA docs show FBI planned from onset to never investigate GA (KSU) hack.
Dec. 2017: In DC hearing, FBI Chris Wray refuses to answer if GA hack was investigated.
2017-2019: Curling plaintiffs ask FBI for their copy of the GA server. FBI refuses for 2+ years.
July 2019: Kemp, who is now Gov, signs $107mil deal to buy Dominion equipment.
Dec. 2019: Dominion delivers election equipment to GA.
Dec. 2019: FBI finally releases copy of election servers to “Curling” plaintiffs.
Jan. 2024: Professor Halderman from Michigan demonstrates in court the ease in hacking the Dominion voting machines.
Once again, it appears the FBI was involved in the criminal activity. The Bureau was not there to protect the people. They lied about their lack of an investigation and targeted the whistleblowers.
US District Court Judge Amy Totenberg has previously expressed concerns about the state’s election system and its implementation, according to the Associated Press. However, Totenberg wrote in an order in October that she cannot order the state to switch to a system that uses hand-marked paper ballots. But she wrote that she could order “pragmatic, sound remedial policy measures,” including eliminating the QR codes on ballots, stronger cybersecurity measures and more robust audits. Those changes still do not correct the issue with the machines being insecure and easily hacked even by external operatives.
It will be hard for Totenberg, Raffensperger and Georgia officials to persuade the public that the Dominion machines are safe, accurate, and secure after Professor Halderman’s demonstration in court on Friday.
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