AG Nessel to investigate individuals profiting from election fraud claims

(The Center Square) – Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office announced it will investigate bad actors peddling lies about the 2020 presidential election for personal profit.

Sen. Ed McBroom, R-Vulcan, requested the investigation in a report in which he found no fraud in the 2020 presidential election after eight months of research spanning nearly 30 hours of public hearings, 87 eyewitnesses, and more than 400 pages of testimony.

McBroom recommended Nessel investigate Michiganders making “misleading and false information about Antrim County to raise money or publicity for their own ends.”

For example, a crowdfunding website claims attorney Matthew DePerno, who has led the charge in Antrim County, has raised $384,000 of a $1 million goal for an “Election Fraud Defense Fund.”

Despite losing an Antrim County lawsuit in May, DePerno has continued sharing false claims about the election.

Similarly, former Senator Patrick Colbeck has raised $16,550 of a $25,000 goal for his legal defense fund.

McBroom described those people still promoting Antrim County conspiracies to steal the election as “in a position of zero credibility.”

Nessel’s press secretary Lynsey Mukomel told The Center Square: “After reviewing the report in full, the Department has accepted Sen. McBroom and the Committee’s request to investigate.”

Mukomel noted the AG’s office is conducting an open investigation.

Michigan State Police will assist Nessel’s office, Mukomel said.

The report followed less than a week after hundreds of Republicans delivered 7,000 affidavits claiming election fraud and demanding a “forensic audit,” which McBroom wrote is “not justifiable” based on his findings.

Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said the GOP report “confirms what 250 audits, numerous courts, countless election officials and the majority of Michiganders already know to be true: our 2020 election was secure and the results are accurate,” Benson previously said. “The report is only noteworthy because it affirms this truth and comes from a committee chaired by a Republican legislator, but the fact that this is the case, that so few legislators have definitively stated the truth about the 2020 election, says less about the report than it does the travesty and peril of our current democracy.”

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