ICYMI: New Video “Raising Questions” About Brad Raffensperger’s Handling of Investigation

Raffensperger’s Office Has “No Idea” Why Staff Was in Videos Related to Potential Coffee County Elections Breach 

As investigations continue into potential election inference in Coffee County, Georgia, new reporting reveals Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s staff appears in videos related to the potential breach – “raising questions” about what Raffensperger knew. This new reporting is also deepening concerns about how the Secretary of State has been “slow-walking” the investigation.

When asked about the videos, a spokesperson admitted that Raffensperger’s office “had ‘no idea’ why its investigators were at the elections office in Coffee County” at the time. 

Raffensperger has previously come under fire for “slow-walking” the investigation and “failing to adequately examine the allegations” after his office neglected to take action “for more than a year after the election.” As recently as April 2022, Raffensperger’s team was still saying nothing happened in Coffee County.

Read more about the allegations of Brad Raffensperger’s mismanagement:

WHAT DID RAFFENSPERGER’S OFFICE KNOW AND WHEN DID THEY KNOW IT?

Videos Show Trump Allies Handling Georgia Voting Equipment

New York Times, 9/20/22

• Newly released videos show allies of former President Donald J. Trump and contractors who were working on his behalf handling sensitive voting equipment in a rural Georgia county weeks after the 2020 election.
• Investigators from Mr. Raffensperger’s office also appear in the new videos, raising questions about what they knew. Along with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Mr. Raffensperger’s office is investigating what took place in Coffee County, 200 miles southeast of Atlanta, but voting rights advocates involved in the litigation have questioned why Mr. Raffensperger, the defendant in the civil case, did not move more aggressively.
• [Raffensperger spokesman Mike] Hassinger said the secretary of state’s office had “no idea” why its investigators were at the elections office in Coffee County in early January.

WHY DID RAFFENSPERGER’S OFFICE NEGLECT TO FOLLOW UP ON EVIDENCE?

Election deniers repeatedly visited Ga. county office at center of criminal probe, video shows

Washington Post, 9/6/22

• Surveillance video reviewed by The Washington Post shows that the consultants [who sought evidence that Donald Trump’s 2020 defeat was fraudulent], Doug Logan and Jeffrey Lenberg, made two visits in January 2021 to the elections office in Coffee County, about 200 miles south of Atlanta.
• Logan, 42, was chief executive of the security firm Cyber Ninjas, which was hired by Republican state lawmakers in Arizona to hunt for fraud in the 2020 vote there. 
• In spring 2021, after [then-Coffee County elections supervisor Misty] Hampton resigned, Logan’s business card was found on her desk by her successor, James Barnes. Barnes sent a copy of the card to the secretary of state’s office, expressing alarm in light of the fact that the Justice Department had raised concerns about the ballot review led by Cyber Ninjas in Arizona, according to an email obtained by The Post. An investigator in the secretary of state’s office was directed to follow up with county officials and “verify what if any contact cyber ninjas had with any election equipment,” emails show. Barnes said in a sworn deposition that state officials never contacted him.
• Cross, the attorney for the plaintiffs, said at that point state authorities should have asked county officials for surveillance footage to determine who had been in the office and when. “They would have had a year and a half before a major midterm election to figure this out,” he said.
• A spokesman for Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) did not directly address questions from The Post about the agency’s response to Barnes’s concern or say whether the agency sought the security-camera footage at the time. 

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