'You funded this': DePerno left a trail of comments about tabulator 'operation'

Matt DePerno and his closest allies repeatedly and publicly discussed examining voting tabulators last year and, on one occasion, the future Republican attorney general nominee described his team's efforts as "a far more expansive operation than I can tell you about."

The Detroit News reviewed more than 12 hours of recorded public comments made by DePerno and his associates that amplify allegations leveled by Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel's office that the GOP candidate played a key role in a tabulator tampering scheme.

DePerno's own words in the recordings describing a months-long operation to gain access to tabulators lend credence to allegations leveled by Nessel's staff on Aug. 5 when they sought the appointment of a special prosecutor to consider an array of potential charges against DePerno and eight others. The Attorney General's office alleges DePerno helped direct "a coordinated plan to gain access to" five vote-counting tabulators, transporting them to rental properties in Oakland County and running tests on them.

Many of the remarks, reported for the first time, reveal DePerno and his allies taking credit for a team that analyzed voting equipment in Michigan and attempting to use the work to raise money. In one newly surfaced video, DePerno told a crowd he "put together a team of experts" who "spent months looking at these machines, studying them, telling us how they run."

In an April 2021 podcast interview, DePerno described his group as a "team of misfits, running around the woods" like Robin Hood. During that interview, DePerno also detailed how the group gained physical access to an Election Systems & Software tabulator and discovered a modem inside a machine that state officials say they shouldn’t have had access to.

"We found it," DePerno said. "It's there."

Of the three counties where tabulators were released to unauthorized third parties, only Roscommon County used Election Systems & Software equipment, according to the Michigan Secretary of State's office.

DePerno, a lawyer from Kalamazoo, has denied doing anything illegal, previously describing the claims as "total garbage." He's also refused to say whether money he raised funded the work of self-described cybersecurity experts who examined tabulators as part of a push to advance unproven claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

However, during a May 4, 2021, interview with a conservative podcaster, DePerno's client for his 2020 election lawsuit in northern Michigan's Antrim County, Bill Bailey, drew a connection between the fundraising and a report from One America News that featured a so-called expert, Jeff Lenberg, running ballots through a tabulator in a Royal Oak apartment.

"Everybody that's been giving money. This is you guys. You funded this," Bailey said during the two-hour interview that focused on the Lenberg video. "What's coming out is because of you."

Asked about Bailey's comment and other remarks made in 2021, DePerno said in a statement to The Detroit News that he was "done rehashing the Antrim County case."

Recordings reviewed by The News show DePerno's pursuit of election machines went beyond his lawsuit in Antrim County over erroneous election results in 2020 caused by human error.

"My work has been thoroughly analyzed and vetted by the courts, this paper and the entire Michigan press corps," DePerno said. "I stand by it and I look forward to fixing the issues I have brought forward when I am elected the next attorney general of Michigan.

"Articles like this hide the real story that is going on — Dana Nessel is scared and won't debate the real issues plaguing Michiganders."

Nessel has said she won't debate DePerno.

But election experts and DePerno's opponents contend the alleged campaign to gain access to voting tabulators in Michigan raises serious concerns about whether laws were followed by the person running to be the state's top law enforcement official.

David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research and the co-chairman of the Michigan Election Security Advisory Commission, said maintaining the chain of custody of voting technology is critical to maintain confidence in election results. While Becker declined to talk about specific situations, he said among some individuals, there appeared to be a "general openness" about illegal activity.

"To see people bragging about lawlessness that could minimize election confidence is dangerous," said Becker, a former U.S. Department of Justice attorney and co-author of a new book entitled, "The Big Truth."

'Incredible evidence'

During the interview on May 4, 2021, someone asked Bailey to identify the person in the One America News video who runs the ballots through a tabulator.

"We won't give his name. But he is a cyber specialist," Bailey said of Lenberg. "And I can't go into detail because there's been an operation. And we've gleaned incredible evidence."

At another point, a person asked Republican former state Sen. Patrick Colbeck, a DePerno supporter, if the tabulator in the video was from Antrim County, the lone county where DePerno and his legal team were granted a court order to examine voting technology.

"The machine is a Dominion voting machine. I can't go into any details beyond that," Colbeck said.

Then Bailey interjected, "We don't want to say even where we were doing this at."

Bailey didn't respond to a request for comment. In a Monday email, Colbeck said he couldn't go into detail about the tabulator because he "had no further details to give."

"I have no reason to believe that the tabulator was not obtained lawfully," said Colbeck, a Canton Township Republican.

The Lenberg video, which was posted on DePerno's website and highlighted during the interview, also caught the attention of investigators from the Attorney General's office and the Michigan State Police.

Christina Grossi, Michigan's chief deputy attorney general, noted in an Aug. 5 letter to Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson that the video "clearly shows a tabulator with red tape placed in a distinctive manner over the serial number and other identifying information."

In April, according to Grossi, when state authorities examined a Dominion tabulator that had been taken from a township in Missaukee County and transported to Oakland County, they found "the seal number on the machine was covered over with red tape in the same manner as that of the tabulator shown in the video."

'Hands on some machines'

Overall, Michigan authorities said DePerno and the eight others named in the petition for a special prosecutor obtained five tabulators: one from Lake Township in Missaukee County, one from Irving Township in Barry County, one from Roscommon County and two from Richfield Township in Roscommon County.

On Sept. 8, the Prosecuting Attorneys Coordinating Council announced the assignment of Muskegon County Prosecutor D.J. Hilson as special prosecutor for the tabulator case.

The Michigan Secretary of State's office has said local clerks should never allow access to voting equipment to entities other than election officials, licensed vendors and voting system test laboratories.

"Providing unsupervised or unauthorized access to equipment to other individuals may terminate the chain of custody for the equipment," Jonathan Brater, Michigan's elections director, wrote in an August 2021 letter. "This, in turn, would render it impossible for the bureau to verify that voting equipment remains in the base configuration in which it was certified for use."

However, DePerno repeatedly boasted in 2021 about getting access to tabulators.

On June 17, 2021, for instance, speaking on the steps of the Michigan Capitol, DePerno said his team demonstrated "exactly how to manipulate the vote at the tabulator level," according to a video obtained by The News.

"I can only do so much," he said later in the speech. "I can assemble a couple of attorneys in Michigan. I can get some forensic experts. We can get our hands on some machines. We got forensic images. We can run tests ..."

The comments appeared to align with allegations made by the Attorney General's office that DePerno helped orchestrate unauthorized access to voting machines.

Likewise, during a previously reported May 6, 2021, episode of the podcast "Information Operation," DePerno said his team "got access to a tabulator, and we were able to simulate elections."

In an April 10, 2021, interview with a conservative podcaster who goes by the name CannCon, DePerno said his team had "looked at" a tabulator from a different county, other than Antrim County.

In his Antrim County lawsuit, a judge only granted DePerno and his team access to a tabulator in the clerk's office to take forensic images of the machine. They weren't granted permission by the judge to take a tabulator downstate for testing.

'Team of experts'

At a May 2021 press conference featuring DePerno and Bailey, DePerno said his team had been "able to flip votes at the tabulator level," referring to the Lenberg video.

"We've shown that across the state of Michigan in certain tabulators, and it doesn't matter which company is operating these tabulators, we've shown trace source of internet connections to Germany and Taiwan," DePerno said.

Bailey and DePerno spoke at a June 14, 2021, event, according to multiple videos posted on YouTube. DePerno said he "put together a team of experts" who "spent months looking at these machines, studying them, telling us how they run."

✂️ DePerno's 'experts' spent months study tabulators

Four self-described experts — Ben Cotton, Lenberg, Doug Logan and James Penrose — are listed in the Attorney General office's petition for a special prosecutor.

After the tabulators were taken to Oakland County, the four individuals broke into the tabulators and performed “tests” on the equipment, according to the Attorney General's office.

The potential charges listed on the petition included using a computer system to commit a crime, willfully damaging a voting machine and fraudulent access to a computer or computer system. 

Following the money

Citing attorney-client privilege, DePerno has refused to say how his team used hundreds of thousands of dollars raised to support its Antrim County lawsuit. Antrim County, a conservative area, gained the spotlight because initial results incorrectly showed Democrat Joe Biden beating Republican Donald Trump.

The problem was because of human error and was corrected, but DePerno and others have tied it to the voting technology itself.

As of July 26, 2021, a web page, which asked donors to make checks payable to DePerno, reported having collected $389,050. In an April 10, 2021, interview, DePerno and Bailey said they hoped to raise $1 million.

During his appearance in Oakland County in June 2021, DePerno talked about the fundraising of a group linked to conservative Texas attorney Sidney Powell called Defending the Republic.

Powell led an unsuccessful effort to try to overturn Michigan's 2020 election, which Biden won by 3 percentage points or 154,000 votes.

"Call them up and ask for your money back," DePerno told the crowd of Defending the Republic. "Because I need the money. Don't let her sit on $20 million, people, and not do anything with it.

"Because what we're doing is more than anyone else has ever done. And we're doing it on a shoestring budget."

DePerno continued later, "We're the only ones out there talking to local sheriffs, talking to local counties. We've expanded our footprint into other states. This is a far more expansive operation than I can tell you about. So don't lose hope is what I am saying."

Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf was one of the nine individuals listed in the Attorney General's petition for a special prosecutor.

Steve Liedel, a longtime Michigan attorney with the firm Dykema whose areas of practice include election law, said if DePerno's fundraising bankrolled criminal activity, it's possible he can be held responsible for the activity.

Another key question is what right DePerno had to those voting machines his team examined, Liedel said.

Just because clerks provided DePerno's team access doesn't mean those clerks had the authority to do it, added Liedel, who served as general counsel for Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's transition team in 2018.

In an interview with The News on Aug. 29, DePerno countered that the allegation against him didn't matter because access to tabulators was given freely by local clerks. Leaf made a similar argument in an interview this month with The News that experts say is not legally sound.

"I don't have any first-hand knowledge of that," DePerno said. "But that's my understanding. And if that's true, because we're a home rule state, where local municipalities have autonomy, they can give permission or access to their equipment."

cmauger@detroitnews.com