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A Pennsylvania postal official admitted that he fabricated the bombastic allegations of voting-by-mail irregularities in this year’s election, which were later taken by supporters of President Donald Trump as evidence of fraud, congressional investigators, cited by DPA, said, writes Novini.bg.
Richard Hopkins, an employee of the U.S. Post Office in Erie, Pennsylvania, first said last week that his immediate supervisor had instructed staff to return ballots by mail after Election Day to that could be counted, which would be illegal. These accusations were later raised by Trump and the Republican campaigns in Congress as evidence that the president had strong reasons not to recognize the election of Joe Biden, especially since Hopkins signed an affidavit in support of his accusations.
Yesterday, however, Hopkins admitted to investigators at the Post Office Inspection General that his allegations were false, according to the House Oversight Committee. “The inspector general informed the commission today that he spoke with Hopkins on Friday, but Hopkins yesterday denied his allegations and did not explain why he signed an affidavit with false content,” the Democratic-led commission wrote on Twitter last night.
The revelations come at a time when Trump continues to deny Biden’s victory, citing unsubstantiated allegations of massive voter fraud. Hopkins was not immediately available for comment. Tim Murta, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, said without evidence that Hopkins may have been forced to drop his accusations. “He unequivocally described what happened and we don’t know what kind of pressure he was under at the time he made his public statements, especially since the personal details of our attorneys were posted on Twitter today,” Merta said.
The Post Office’s inspection chief began investigating Hopkins’ allegations after they first appeared Friday in a post on Friday by Project Veritas, a far-right media outlet that has circulated conspiracy theories and false facts in last. The Trump campaign cited Hopkins ‘allegations in a Pennsylvania election lawsuit yesterday and turned over Hopkins’ sworn statement to the chairman of the Senate Legal Affairs Committee, Lindsey Graham, who asked the Justice Department to launch an investigation. Following Graham’s call for an investigation, Attorney General William Barr issued a rare memo authorizing federal prosecutors across the country to investigate “significant allegations” of fraud, although there was no credible evidence that the illegal votes contributed to the Biden’s win.
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