Attorney accused of pushing false election fraud claims wants to be Michigan’s next attorney general

Attorney Matthew DePerno

Attorney Matthew DePerno on July 15 announced his candidacy to become Michigan's next attorney general.

Matthew DePerno, a Portage-based attorney whose been accused by Senate Republicans of pushing false election fraud claims, says he’s running to become Michigan’s next attorney general.

DePerno, who identifies himself as a constitutional attorney of 26 years, announced his bid in a statement posted to his Twitter account early Thursday morning.

There’s wasn’t yet a state record of any campaign committee being formed for DePerno’s run, and he did not return a phone call Thursday.

He pledged in his Twitter announcement to “engage in impartial criminal investigations” and to follow and enforce the law. The announcement did not specify a party affiliation.

“What I’ve been seeing over the last six months is (AG Dana Nessel) is a lawless attorney general,” DePerno said during an interview that followed the announcement with Christian conservative radio host Randy Bishop.

DePerno filed a lawsuit last year in Antrim County that later involved Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s Office and claimed that Dominion Voting Systems election software and machines were “corrupted.”

“We have the proof that voting machines used in the 2020 elections can be compromised and votes easily transferred from one candidate to another,” his website said. “We can flip votes at the tabulator/precinct level. We can flip votes at the county level. The American people are losing their voice for the future of our democracy. We must fight together for free and fair elections.”

A report released by a Republican-led state legislative committee in June that reviewed election fraud claims debunked various allegations of fraud. It specifically named DePerno as someone who has pushed “demonstrably false” election claims “based on misleading information and illogical conclusions.”

“The committee finds those promoting Antrim County as the prime evidence of a nationwide conspiracy to steal the election place all other statements and actions they make in a position of zero credibility,” the committee report said.

Nessel’s office announced last week that it would take up the committee’s request to investigate those who may be profiting such false claims.

Related: Attorney General investigating individuals profiting off election conspiracies at request of GOP lawmakers

DePerno filed the lawsuit on behalf of Antrim County voter William Bailey, based on election errors in Antrim County that many President Donald Trump supporters held forth as an example of fraud that led Trump to lost the election in Michigan and the nation.

Republican-leaning Antrim County on election night erroneously reported preliminary results indicating now-President Joe Biden won the county, where nearly 62% of voters cast ballots for Trump in 2016. The results were quickly corrected and eventually a hand count revealed Trump won with nearly 57% of the vote.

The mistake was attributed to human error, a failure by election officials to update software in response to certain ballot and candidate changes, thereby causing votes to be reported for the incorrect candidates. The secretary of state’s office said it was not due to any inherent flaws in the software or malicious tampering and that the errors would have been caught by the canvassing process that matches precinct totals against tabulator results.

The scope of DePerno’s lawsuit expanded to include allegations that the state didn’t spend federal grant money it received to properly train election staff on Dominion Voting Systems software and instead used private nonprofit grant money originating from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to install “so-called Zucker-boxes” throughout Michigan. DePerno requested the judge order Benson to turn over various documents and communications.

While Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, did donate nearly $400 million to help local election clerks across the nation facilitate election last fall -- including millions spent in Michigan -- the funds were given directly to local clerks by a nonprofit named the Center for Tech and Civic Live and not to the secretary of state, an MLive investigation found.

In his dismissal of the lawsuit brought by DePerno, Antrim County Circuit Judge Kevin Elsenheimer did not concede that the claims were untrue, but said issuing a judgement “would have no practical legal effect.”

“By deciding this motion, the court is not saying that there were no problems in the way Antrim County conducted its November 2020 election ... Nor am I saying that the processing of election data here wasn’t corrupted or corruptible,” he said. “I don’t have the facts to make that determination.”

During his Thursday interview with Bishop, who runs the Your Defending Fathers website and is known as “Trucker Randy,” DePerno maintained that “actual fraud” occurred in Antrim County and that election software was subverted for that purpose.

DePerno said an appeal of the dismissal is being filed in the Michigan Court of Appeals.

Nessel has “allowed Governor Whitmer and Secretary of State Benson to run wild, violating people’s constitutional rights, violating the law, dragging people into court and into jail, from all across the state, just because of their political beliefs,” DePerno told Bishop. “And then recently, she started attacking people like myself, claiming that she’s going to investigate people who talk about election fraud.

“All of this stuff is totally unconstitutional. It’s a violation of our civil rights and it’s illegal. Someone has to step up and fight against her Marxist ideas and stop her and stop this Democrat regime right now in Lansing.”

Nessel’s office has not responded to MLive requests for comment on DePerno’s candidacy.

She responded to Deperno’s announcement via Twitter with an image of a dumpster fire.

Deperno called her response juvenile.

“You are the chief law enforcement official in the state who uses her police power to threaten opponents,” he wrote in a tweet responding to Nessel’s image. “Do better.”

More on MLive:

GOP-led report finds no systemic election fraud

Antrim County election fraud case dismissed

Zuckerberg and wife donated millions to Michigan election clerks

SOS ordered to turn over communications with big tech

Plaintiff claims SOS is withholding records

Antrim County hand recount results in 12 new votes for Trump

Software isn’t good at detecting human error

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