As of Friday, a motive in the bombing remained under investigation by the FBI, the ATF and Metro Nashville police. Dominion was the first to snap. Owens, the other co-founder of Staple Street Capital,did not work for Cerberus, despite the post's claim. 2023 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Satellite Information Network, LLC. No amount of transparency at the county and state level can really combat the sort of megaphone that Trump wields, Kiniry says. A public relations firmtold the Associated Presson behalf of Dominion that the company "has no connection to AT&T, the building, Nashville, family members of the Bidens or the Clintons, and Staple Street is not owned by Cerberus. You cansubscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here. But companies that specialize in the subject said it is getting exponentially worse. Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. More:Fact check: Joe Biden legally won presidential election, despite persistent contrary claims. Cerberus Capital Management, the firm named in the posts, does not own Dominion, nor does it own the company that does own Dominion, Staple Street Capital. The full text on this page is automatically extracted from the file linked above and may contain errors and inconsistencies. Singer reportedly funded the original investigation Full Story. Authorities still dont know the reason for the Christmas day bombing, but theres no evidence it was election related. CNN didnt report that Anthony Warner, the person authorities have identified as the bomber, died from COVID-19. Posts include debunked conspiracy claims attempting to tie the Nashville explosion Dominion voting systems. By the time the news conference occurred on Nov. 19, Mr. Trump's campaign had already prepared an internal memo on many of the outlandish claims about the company, Dominion Voting Systems, and. The company, which sells electronic voting hardware and software, contends that some Fox News employees deliberately amplified false claims by Trump supporters that Dominion machines had changed . "I'm in fear for my family's safety. These are real, tangible things coming out of these baseless accusations.". Recently, however, there are signs that elections companies, like some election officials, are pushing back against the false accusations. Others are not so sure, and the state has set up an advisory committee. Didi Martinez is an associate producer with the NBC News Investigative Unit. Both Dominion Voting Systems andAT&T confirmed the communications company was not contracted to audit Dominion's machines. Social media users have been sharing content online that claims AT&T had a contract to do a forensic audit on Dominion Voting Systems machines and that the Dec. 25 explosion in Nashville, which damaged an AT&T building, was tied to this audit. The post displays a headline from a fabricated story by the Genesius Times, a satirical news website, that reads: "BREAKING: Nashville Bomber died from COVID-19 shortly after blowing himself up. The company put the building back on the market shortly thereafter; MetLife Inc., throughsubsidiary Prefco Fourteen, now owns the building, public records show. Hismotive is unknown. Jim Greer, associate vice president for corporate communications at AT&T, was blunt in an email response to PolitiFact: "That is not true," he wrote. Coomer said the first barb aimed at him came five days after the election. The explosion disrupted AT&T wireless and internet services, leading to widespread 911 issues in the Nashville area, The Tennessean reported. Dominion provides election equipment and software to 28 states, including many of the swing states on which Trump has focused his post-election ire. The Genesius Times describes itself as the "most reliable source of fake news on the planet" and that it strives "to provide the most up-to-date, accurate fake news on the Internet,", "Nashville explosion a missile strike??" He claimed on his podcast that he'd infiltrated a call with Denver-area antifa members that included a man identified as "Eric from Dominion.". Coomer oversees product strategy and security for Dominion Voting Systems, the Denver-based company that has suddenly found itself at the center of many of President Trump's false claims about November's election, spread by allies and pro-Trump media. Here are the facts: CLAIM: President-elect Joe Biden's sister is married to Stephen Owens, the co-founder of the private equity firm Staple Street Capital, which owns Dominion Voting Systems . The post was flagged as part of Facebooks efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. Videos from law enforcement officials and local businesses show that the explosion occurred on 2nd Avenue North in downtown Nashville. John Bazemore/AP It was an assurance designed to bolster public confidence in the way America votes: Voting machines are not connected to the internet.. Once they had identified such systems, they contacted the relevant election officials and also provided the information to reporter Kim Zetter, who published the findings in Vices Motherboard in August. The bomb was located in a recreational vehicle owned by Warner. Tre Hargett was elected by the Tennessee General Assembly to serve as Tennessees 37th secretary of state in 2009 and re-elected in 2013, 2017, and 2021. In . The bomb squad was en route. In a letter obtained by NBC News sent to the EAC on Tuesday, the nonprofit public interest group Free Speech for People and the National Election Defense Coalition asked the agency to look into whether ES&S violated agency regulations by implying that DS200 voting machines with modems are EAC certified. Its true that an AT&T-owned building in Nashville was one of many buildings damaged in Fridays. ", Dominion Voting Systems Employee Sues Trump Campaign And Allies, Alleging Defamation, Former Election Security Official Says It Will Take Years To Undo Disinformation, Barr Says No Need For Special Counsel For Hunter Biden Probe, Election Fraud Claims. Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. Posted By: Dreadnought, 2/28/2023 9:52:47 PM Dominion Voting Systems' $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News highlights former House Speaker Paul Ryan's alleged influence over Fox News Channel's (FNC) editorial control, reportedly urging . It is true Kennard serves on the board of Staple Street Capital (not Staple Street execs as the posts say). False. According to Dominion, vote-switching and software malfunction allegations are "all baseless claims" that "have been debunked by election officials, subject matter experts and third-party fact. His top goal right now is pretty simple hoping one day it'll be safe to return home. Last week, Dominion filed its fourth defamation lawsuit, this one a $1.6 billion whopper charging that Fox News spread the bogus conspiracy claim in order to boost ratings that plummeted after. Dominion Voting Systems previously sent OAN letters threatening to sue, accusing the network of spreading the unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that the election-technology company manipulated. The printing business took to social media to debunk the claim itself. Shortly afterwards, social media users began circulating variants of a conspiracy theory holding that AT&T had been engaged to undertake a "forensic audit of Dominion voting machines," the latter of which were frequent targets of false election fraud claims made by President Donald Trump and his supports after Trump lost his re-election bid in November 2020: The implication of the conspiracy theory was that the explosion had been intended to destroy the machines before they were audited in order to cover up evidence of massive voting fraud. https://archive.is/qqjBh Paul E. Singer-Elliott Management, aka "The Vulture", reportedly controls CNN parent, AT&T, as well as Twitter. The post implies that the bombing was an attempt to stop the audit and cover up voter fraud. DNA found at the scene matched Warner's, according to an FBI press release. AT&T did not have a contract to audit Dominion machines and was not holding Dominion machines in its Nashville building, both companies confirmed to The Associated Press. "So, the explosion just happened to be at the AT&T location where they just so happen to control the cooling system for the super computer and house the dominion voting machines and drives for forensic audit", "Wait, the bombing in Nashville was at the AT&T data center right after they got the contract to audit the Dominion voting machines?,"onefrom Dec. 26 reads. He has independently become part of the broader Dominion conspiracy theories, though, with some claiming he's Joe Biden's brother-in-law. It wasn't meant to kill people, but to destroy a building. Claims that two buildings that were destroyed on Christmas Day were both holding evidence related to the 2020 U.S. presidential election are untrue. Did City Blue Imaging Print Voting Ballots, Then Burn Down? While the investigation is ongoing, the Federal Bureau of Investigation concluded that a man named Anthony Warner was responsible for the bombing and was killed in the blast ( here , here ). Nashville's date on June 7 at GEODIS Park will feature Kelsea Ballerini and BRELAND -- and now, The Boykinz. A post on Facebook theorized that the two disasters were connected by a plot to steal the election. The House Committee on Administration held a congressional hearing yesterday which was the first time the heads of the three major vendors, representing at least 80 percent of U.S. voting machines, appeared together for questioning. The AT&T building the posts likely refer to was not the one outside which the bomb exploded on Christmas morning. Smartmatic, a competitor of Dominion's that has also been the subject of wild rumors, has demanded that numerous news networks take back their allegations against it. "You can see as theres a line flying in, theres a little bit of a glow and then theres the explosion," a narrator says in the video. NewsGuard, which vets news sources based on transparency and reliability standards, found recently that among the top 100 sources of news in the U.S., sources it deemed unreliable had four times as many interactions this year compared with 2019. Their evidence: a grainy black-and-white video. That's false. Powell is named in Coomer's suit, along with the president's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. With unfounded fraud claims swirling, red California county dumps Dominion voting machines. The Company offers voting systems and scanning devices, as well as resource planning, training management, quality control . Even in an election where almost all the voting was recorded on paper ballots and rigorous audits were done more than ever before, none of that helps if millions of people are working with an alternative set of facts, said Joe Kiniry, chief scientist of the open-source election technology company Free & Fair. More:Fact check: No, Joe Biden's brother-in-law does not own Dominion Voting Systems. The media intelligence platform Zignal Labs, in an analysis performed at NPR's request, found that misinformation narratives related to vote-by-mail systems alone were mentioned across the media spectrum more than 40 million times since Election Day. With the 2020 presidential election only ten months away, Appel and Skoglund believe all modems can and should be removed from election systems. "Bombing investigations can take years," Darrell DeBusk, an FBI spokesman based inTennessee, told The Tennessean. In 2020, the controversy revolves around Dominion's voting machines, sparked by an erroneous result out of a Michigan county that's been blamed on human error, allegations of rigged Dominion software in Georgia and the fact Texas rejected Dominion's system due to security concerns. Our fact check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook. It's just the latest example of how people's lives are being upended and potentially ruined by the unprecedented flurry of disinformation this year. Spokespeople for both AT&T and Dominion told USA TODAY that AT&T was not contracted to audit Dominion voting machines, and no Dominion voting machines were being held in the AT&T building outside of which the RV exploded. Now, the alleged Dominion Voting Systems tie. Powell was one of the faces of the Trump. He is focused on New Technologies around AI led Predictive Analytics, Smart Machines, IT Process Automation etc.. through . But now, some state officials worry that the machines may pose a security risk and are pushing to have the modems removed. He was present when the bomb went off, and he perished in the bombing," Cochran said. The post also mentions the Kraken or supercomputer and says that the cooling system for this computer was located in the AT&T building. The post implies that the bombing was an attempt to stop the audit and cover up voter fraud. So that unofficial election results can more quickly be relayed to the public. 4 min read. For Coomer, that means his life may be forever changed. Detailed voter instructions for the Infinity voting unit, How to Vote an Optical Scan Ballot with Unisyn Equipment, Public Records Policy and Records Request Form. NBC News asked the two other major manufacturers how many of their tabulators with modems were currently in use. The machines America votes on seem to be capturing the interest of some in Congress. Skoglund says those include the battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Florida. "The voting machine lobby, led by the biggest company, ES&S, believes they are above the law," said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., a member of the Intelligence Committee who co-signed the letter.. The social media post states "AT&T got contract [sic] to do forensic audit on Dominion voting machines and those machines were being moved to Nashville this past week" before the bombing. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. Some shorter posts here and here say: Wait, the bombing in Nashville was at the AT&T Data Center right after they got the contract to audit the Dominion Voting machines? Your California Privacy Rights / Privacy Policy. The claim implies the explosion was an elaborate plot to destroy voting machines that might have yielded evidence of fraud in the 2020 election. The bomb is in this vehicle and will explode." It really is. Then Acting Undersecretary for Cybersecurity and Communications at the Department of Homeland Security Jeanette Manfra said those words in 2017, testifying before Congress while she was responsible for the security of the nations voting system. The AT&T buildingon Second Avenueis owned by BellSouth Telecommunications, an operating company of AT&T, according to local records. "Coincidence? However, both AT&T and Dominion have disclaimed the notion that the former company was engaged in audit of the latter, or that any Dominion-related systems were being moved to Nashville in preparation for a "forensic audit" (by anyone). In counties that used Dominion systems, Biden got 888,259 votes to Trump's 851,069. Social media posts from the event tagged the far-right group the Proud Boys. AT&T got a contract to do forensic audit on Dominion voting machines and those machines were being moved to Nashville this past week, read one post. We kept hearing from election officials that voting machines were never on the internet, he said. Were focusing on moving forward.. Georgia, the site of so much controversy in the 2020 election, hurriedly switched in response to a judge's order in 2019 from all-electronic voting machines to Dominion models that. Federal officials have identified the man believed to be behind the bombing, and they are working to discern a motive. Those networks are among the defendants Coomer is suing. Generally speaking, the media in those locations are kinda clamoring to get unofficial results as quickly as possible., When asked if the desire for speed was at odds with accuracy and security, Burt said, its not my place to judge that.. Then, a plume of smoke rises behind three light poles. Donate State Editions California Florida There is no evidence that suggests that the explosion was election-related. February 28, 2023, 1:26 PM. Behind it is the notion that if voting systems are not online, hackers will have a harder time compromising them. One of the co-founders of Staple Street Capital (staplestreetcapital.com/ ), not Staple Street execs, Hootan Yaghoobzadeh, worked at Cerberus prior to starting Staple Street in 2009 (here). Investigators say the explosion in Nashville was perpetrated by a 63-year-old Tennessean named Anthony Warner, who blared a warning to nearby people from his RV requesting they evacuate before the bomb detonated. Our mission is to exceed the expectations of our customers, the taxpayers, by operating at the highest levels of accuracy, cost-effectiveness, and accountability in a customer-centered environment. We rate thisclaim as FALSE, because it wasn't supported by our research. The FBI confirmed that a man named Anthony Warner was responsible for the bombing and was killed in the blast. It's the first . 2023 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Satellite Information Network, LLC. More on Dominion:Fact check: Viral photo shows fake logo and slogan for Dominion Voting Systems. James Murphy, a spokesperson for MetLife, confirmed the company owns the building. The question is.. Joe Bidens Brother in Law, Steven Owens, is the cofounder of Staple Street Execs along with William Kennard (mentioned above).. "To the misinformed people on @Twitter and @instagram #cityblueimaging does not print #ballots, does not do work for #Phoenixgraphics and was never owned by the owner of #phoenixgraphics," the company wrote on its Facebook page on Dec. 27. Coomer oversees product strategy and security for Dominion Voting Systems, the Denver-based company that has suddenly found itself at the center of many of President Trump's false claims about. Some posts have said the Nashville explosion was caused by a missile. Please note the instructions and videos shown here have been prepared by the manufacturers and are general in nature. That team of election security experts say that last summer, they discovered some systems are, in fact, online. The RV was parked on Second Avenue in Nashville, outside an AT&Ttransmission building, among other businesses and residences. Kevin Skoglund, senior technical advisor at the National Election Defense Coalition. Trump has repeatedly made comments about Dominion's voting machines and retweeted reports perpetuating the conspiracy theory, calling the company's voting machines "a disaster all over the . Others add that the explosion took place as the voting machines were being moved to Nashville and provide political links as proof of a conspiracy. Dominion Voting Systems, Inc. provides voting machines and tabulators. "It does appear that the intent was more destruction than death," said David Rausch, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, inan interview on NBC's "Today." Skoglund said that they identified only one company among the systems they detected on line, ES&S. for the blast that rattled downtown Nashville on Christmas morning, social media users have invented their own far-fetched theories. "The specific steps taken would depend on the recommendation and the timeline required to make changes effectively.. All of these businesses were reported to be damaged in the blast (here). Staple Street Capital has a managing director and co-founder named Stephen Owens. Some posts take the claim a step further, alleging that the former owner of the building was a board member of a firm that owns Dominion. CLAIM: AT&T got a contract to do a forensic audit of Dominion Voting Systems machines and those machines were recently moved to Nashville, Tennessee to the same AT&T building that was damaged in a Christmas morning explosion. Coomer said in addition to his own information, the personal addresses of everyone from his parents and siblings to his ex-girlfriends have been posted online. He believes there is time to make real change before the 2020 election. DNA found at the scene matched Warner's, according to an FBI press release. Note that aspects of Tennessee law may differ with what is seen on the videos. The conspiracy theory appears to have originated in a tweet by Lin Wood, an attorney and Trump supporter, who has pushed a number of false election claims. Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems, which sells electronic voting hardware and software, is suing both Fox News Network and parent company Fox Corp. for defamation. causing widespread communications outages. The post reads: In Nashville 2 days ago an RV pulled up to a building and over a loud speaker announced to clear the area..the RV then blew up taking half a building with it..oh, minor detail - inside that building were the Dominion voting machines being audited. While the post does not specify which building they believed the machines were held in, a Dominion Voting Systems spokesperson said by email that none of their machines were anywhere in the area of the explosion or were being audited in Nashville that day. The reason? Posts online claim that the Christmas Day bombing in Nashville was an attempt to cover up election fraud because AT&T was conducting an audit of Dominion Voting Systems machines and that the equipment was recently relocated to the companys building that was damaged in the blast. First, QAnon. More than a month ago, Eric Coomer went into hiding. We should not connect our voting machines directly to the computer networks. Similar claims have been shared in hundreds of public posts, according to CrowdTangle, a social media insights tool. The conservative network has seen its ratings surge in . "And I probably will. (Read more about, Breaking news meme generators are frequently used online to create fabricated headlines and chyrons such as this one. But he has no idea if that will ever be possible. AT&T was not contracted to audit Dominion Voting Systems' machines, and no Dominion machines were being held in the building outside of which the bomb exploded, spokespeople for both AT&T and Dominion confirmed. If you have super majorities, Tennessee is like an R plus twenty state. There may not be answers to the Christmas Day bombing in Nashville anytime soon. Three days later, on November 6th, AT&T named William "Bill" E. Kennard Chairman of its Board of Directors. There is no evidence that the New York printing company whose building burnt down on Christmas Day was under investigation for printing false ballots. Cerberus Capital did briefly own an AT&T building, but the post is wrong about which one. Some of the posts (here) say: Dominion voting is owned by Cerberus Capital Management. Cerberus is run by Staple Street Execs. Newsmax TV aired a stunning fact-check on Monday of claims made on the network about voting companies used in the 2020 presidential election. The claim: Dominion Voting Systems is tied up in the Nashville bombing, based on the affected AT&T building's ownership and that the cellular company was contracted to audit Dominion's. The Nashville outlet found . Next theory: The bombing was an attempt to stop an AT&T audit into Dominion software and cover up election corruption. Owners of Dominion Voting Systems,(the company many people are accusing of voter fraud) are former executives from Cerebus," another post reads. Even for elections nights., Appel agreed. This screengrab is being shared on social media without that context. "I've been threatened more times than I could even count. No one is currently working out of the building. Shasta will be the first of 40 California counties that used Dominion in the November 2022 election to drop the voting system, Shasta County Clerk/Registrar of Voters Cathy Darling Allen told the . Last fall, when ES&S gave NBC News an exclusive tour at its headquarters in Omaha, Neb., Chief Executive Officer Tom Burt defended using modems when asked about the Sprint and Verizon modems seen in ES&S's testing area. Reuters debunked this claim here . In an email to PolitiFact, a Dominion spokesperson said the company and AT&T are calling on everyone to reject these baseless rumors: "Americans should continue to seek information from verifiable, trusted sources, such as law enforcement authorities.". Some posts take the claim a step further, alleging that the former owner of the building was a board member of a firm that owns Dominion. On Monday, The Associated Press debunked claims that Dominion has any connection with AT&T. . This is bogus. Social media is home to several conspiracy theories about the explosion in Nashville on Christmas Day. And I don't know that all these jurisdictions are aware of that because ES&S is advertising otherwise.. 1995 - 2023 by Snopes Media Group Inc. False. You cansubscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here. Fact-checkers have debunked claims that the explosion was the result of a missile strike. He also serves on the boards of Ford Motor Company, MetLife and Duke Energy Corporation (here). AT&T and Verizon and so on try and protect as best they can the security of their phone network from the rest of the internet, but its still part of the internet, Appel explained. Spokespeople for both AT&T and Dominion have confirmed that AT&T did not hold a contract to audit Dominion, nor had any of Dominions equipment been moved to Nashville in preparation for such an audit. The claim: Dominion Voting Systems is tied up in the Nashville bombing, based on the affected AT&T building's ownership and that the cellular company was contracted to audit Dominion's. the dominion voting system that was the subject of an enormous amount of controversy, is a dramatic improvement over prior forms of voting. Your membership is the foundation of our sustainability and resilience. "AT&T got a contract to do forensic audit on Dominion voting machines and those machines were being moved to Nashville this past week," one Dec. 27 post says. But none of this is true. The 23-page report signed by a former Republican congressional candidate with a history of spreading misinformation about Michigan's election claims Dominion "is intentionally and purposefully designed with inherent errors to create systemic fraud and influence election results.". The explosion injured three other people and damaged businesses in downtown Nashville, including an AT&T switching center, which resulted in widespread communications outages. Jim Greer, associate vice president for corporate communications at AT&T, was blunt in an email response to PolitiFact: "That is not true," he wrote. Did AT&T Have a Contract to Audit Dominion Voting Systems? No available external evidence suggests AT&T was involved in any such audit, either. The three largest voting manufacturing companies Election Systems &Software, Dominion Voting Systems and Hart InterCivic have acknowledged they all put modems in some of their tabulators and scanners. After that podcast went out, the threats quickly arrived. That is just inviting trouble.. The extent of our relationship is this: In 2009, Smartmatic licensed the use of a Dominion voting machine for use in the Philippines. The AT&T building in downtown Nashville. Theres a small percentage of jurisdictions in the country -- a lot of them are in Florida -- who have decided they want to modem unofficial results to the election office, he said. In the wake of the Christmas morning explosion in Nashville, Tenn., a baseless conspiracy theory started circulating online that claims Nashville's downtown AT&T complex, which was damaged in. The voting rights of more than 55,000 formerly incarcerated Minnesotans were restored on Friday, as Gov. An executive for a voting machine company that has been the target of conspiracy theories in the aftermath of Donald Trump's 2020 election loss and been baselessly accused of swinging the. Some of the posts attempted to further link AT&T to Dominion by claiming a former owner of the AT&T building was a board member of a firm that owns Dominion. This weekend, both Fox Business Network and Newsmax appeared to answer those demands with segments debunking some claims. "The loud speaker was to warn people that the bomb was going to go off.. 5:30a on Christmas morning was picked to ensure that nobody was around.. "Some of the threats that I've gotten have made very clear that these actors are in it for the long haul. Spokespersons for both Dominion Voting Systems and AT&T told Reuters by email that claims that Dominion voting machines related to the election were held in the building were untrue.
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