Hopkins has posted videos calling the "recanted" stories outright lies.
Hopkins word means nothing - there was no backdating and only two ballets from the facility in question were dated November 3, if and only if, the postal supervisor actually instructed workers to backdate November 4 ballots to November 3.
Nine were dated November 4 from that facility.
No election fraud here you idiot.
Veritas found a postal worker dupe to lie about a crime of backdating two out of eleven ballots and the liar didn’t witness any crime.
and stupid Trump voters paid the dupe of Veritas $136,000 for two ballots of potential fraud that may have been votes for Trump anyway. -who knows.
Stupid Republicans paid $68, 000 each for two Alleged tampered votes.
my god when do you idiots just give up ?
Pennsylvania Postal Worker Waffles on Election Fraud Claim
By
Saranac Hale Spencer
Posted on November 12, 2020
A postal worker in Erie, Pennsylvania, claimed that his superiors were backdating postmarks on ballots, then told federal investigators that he didn’t actually know that — and then went back to his original position. Despite the flimsiness of the claim, President Donald Trump and his supporters have used it in their effort to blame widespread election fraud for his electoral defeat.
Full Story
A postal worker in Erie, Pennsylvania, who claimed that his superiors were backdating the postmarks on ballots received after Election Day recanted his allegation, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform
announced on Nov. 10, citing information from the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General.
But Richard Hopkins, the mail carrier who made the allegation,
later said that he hasn’t recanted.
His claim was that two days after the election, he heard the Erie postmaster say to a supervisor that they had “messed up” by failing to backdate the postmark on a ballot that arrived after Nov. 3 at the Erie postal facility.
Many aspects of Hopkins’ claim are unclear — from its shaky underpinnings to whether or not it has been recanted — but we’ll lay out what we know since President Donald Trump and his supporters are using it in their
effort to blame widespread voter fraud for Trump’s defeat in the election.
Among those promoting the claim is Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who
pledged on Nov. 7 to request that the Department of Justice investigate Hopkins’ claim.
The Trump campaign also cited Hopkins’ claim in a federal
lawsuit filed Nov. 9 aimed at blocking Pennsylvania from certifying its election results. President-elect Joe Biden holds a more than 53,000-vote lead in the state, according to the
unofficial vote tally so far.
And Trump
retweeted Hopkins’ video denying that he had recanted, calling him a “brave patriot” on Nov. 10.
But the claim is flimsy.
Hopkins first made the allegation anonymously in a
video with James O’Keefe, founder of the conservative activist organization Project Veritas, on Nov. 5. Hopkins provided no evidence to support his allegation beyond repeating a conversation he claimed to have overheard. Erie Postmaster Robert Weisenbach, who was targeted in the allegation, told O’Keefe on a phone call included in the original video that the allegation was “untrue.”
So, initially, the claim amounted to one man’s word against another’s.
But evidence has mounted since then that weighs against Hopkins’ account.
On Nov. 10, the
Erie Times-News reviewed129 mail-in ballot envelopes that were postmarked Nov. 3, which was Election Day, but arrived at the Erie County Board of Elections after that. Election officials oversaw the review, according to the newspaper. Of those 129 ballots, only two were processed through the Erie facility, the newspaper reported.
“A bulk of the ballots were processed at various [postal service] locations across the state and the country, from places as far west as Tacoma, Washington, and as far south as Florida,” the newspaper reported. Those voters were registered in Erie County, but were out of town for any number of reasons, including for work or college.
“Not only did the
Erie Times-News review find that only two late-arriving ballots processed at the Erie postal facility have a Nov. 3 postmark,” the story said, “but it also found that nine late ballots processed in Erie were postmarked Nov. 4 or later.”
Further undercutting Hopkins’ claim is
audio from the interview conducted with him by postal investigators after the initial Project Veritas video. Hopkins secretly recorded the interview (he
revealed to the agents that he had been recording it at the end), and Project Veritas posted it on YouTube.
The recording lasts for about two hours and features two postal investigators who talk through Hopkins’ claim with him.
Hopkins’ allegation rests largely on a conversation he said that he overheard in a common area at the Erie postal facility on Nov. 5 between two of his superiors.
Referring to Weisenbach, the postmaster, Hopkins said in the original Project Veritas video, “I heard him say to the supervisor that they messed up yesterday… and he told the supervisor they had postmarked one of the ballots the fourth instead of the third, because they were supposed to put them for the third.”
But in the interview with investigators, Hopkins
said, “I didn’t specifically hear the whole story. I just heard a part of it and I could’ve missed a lot of it. … My mind probably added the rest.”
At one point, the investigators, who conducted the interview at the Erie facility, took Hopkins to the area where he said the conversation had happened, but he was
unable to hear the investigator speaking at the same distance that Hopkins would have been from Weisenbach.
Hopkins
said that the words he actually heard were: “ballots picked up on the fourth … one of them was marked the fourth and the rest were the third.”
He
said that he never heard the word “backdate” and repeatedly acknowledged that he made assumptions about the meaning of the words he overheard.
Agapi Doulaveris, spokeswoman for the U.S. Postal Service inspector general’s office, told us by email the office doesn’t comment on ongoing investigations, so we don’t know if Hopkins made any other statements in the interview about withdrawing or amending his claim. But we do know that in the audio of the interview, posted by Project Veritas, Hopkins revised his claim and no longer stood by his initial assertion.
After that, though, he changed his mind, again, and flipped back to his original accusation. Hopkins appeared in another
video with O’Keefe, posted on Nov. 11, in which he reported being put on unpaid leave from the Postal Service and said of the investigators, “They were grilling the hell out of me. … I feel like I just got played.”
In the audio recording of the interview with investigators, though, Hopkins said that he understood that his participation was voluntary and repeatedly confirmed that he was comfortable with participating. At one point, he
told the investigators that he understood signing a statement that reflected his revised version of what he heard “will save my ass.”
It’s also worth noting that Hopkins’ claim was very similar to another accusation promoted by Project Veritas.
This fact check is available at IFCN’s 2020 US Elections FactChat #Chatbot on WhatsApp. Click here for more.
Sources
House Committee on Oversight and Reform (@OversightDems). “
BREAKING NEWS: Erie, Pa. #USPS whistleblower completely RECANTED his allegations of a supervisor tampering with mail-in ballots after being questioned by investigators, according to IG.” Twitter. 10 Nov 2020.
Project Veritas. “
USPS Whistleblower Richard Hopkins: ‘I DID NOT RECANT.’” YouTube. 10 Nov 2020.
Ruiz, Michael. “
Graham says Judiciary Committee will probe ‘all credible allegations of voting irregularities.’” Fox News. 8 Nov 2020.
“
Federal Prosecution of Election Offenses — Eighth Edition.” Department of Justice. Dec 2017.
Donald J. Trump for President v. Boockvar. 4:20-cv-02078.
Complaint. U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. 9 Nov 2020.
Trump, Donald (@realDonaldTrump). “
A brave patriot. More & more people are stepping forward to expose this Rigged Election!” Twitter. 10 Nov 2020.
Project Veritas. “
Pennsylvania USPS Whistleblower Exposes Anti-Trump Postmaster’s Illegal Order To Back-Date Ballots.” YouTube. 5 Nov 2020.
Rink, Matthew. “
Only 2 ballots that arrived late and had Nov. 3 postmark came from Erie postal facility.” Erie Times-News. 10 Nov 2020.
Pennsylvania Democratic Party v. Boockvar.
No. 133 MM 2020. Supreme Court of Pennsylvania — Middle District. 8 Sep 2020.
Republican Party of Pennsylvania v. Boockvar.
No. 20A84. U.S. Supreme Court. 6 Nov 2020.
Project Veritas. “
RAW AUDIO: USPS Whistleblower Richard Hopkins FULL COERCIVE INTERROGATION By Federal Agents.” YouTube. 11 Nov 2020.
Doulaveris, Agapi. Spokesman, U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General. Email to FactCheck.org. 11 Nov 2020.
Project Veritas. “
USPS Whistleblower Richard Hopkins Gives New Interview Detailing Coercion Tactics Used By Fed Agents.” YouTube. 11 Nov 2020.
Oversight Committee
@OversightDems
BREAKING NEWS: Erie, Pa.
#USPS whistleblower completely RECANTED his allegations of a supervisor tampering with mail-in ballots after being questioned by investigators, according to IG.
Hopkins signed a sworn affidavit claiming that he personally witnessed a discussion between
and other employees in which they plotted to date late-arriving ballots with a November 3rd postmark and then forwarding them to the local election commission.
The accusation was promoted by Project Veritas and was mentioned by Senate Judiciary Chairman Republican Lindsey Graham, who vowed to open investigations into the accusation. Graham has not yet rescinded his call for hearings.
