Post revives unproven claim about Dominion employee and 2020 election | Fact check
The claim: Dominion employee admitted to rigging presidential election on Antifa conference call
A Nov. 1 Instagram post (direct link, archive link) claims to show a supposed quote from a Dominion Voting Systems employee.
“Don’t Worry About The Election, Trump’s Not Gonna Win. I Made … Sure Of That,” reads the quote, which the post attributes to Eric Coomer, a former director of product security and strategy for Dominion Voting Systems.
Text above the purported quote reads, “(Repost) if you don’t trust Dominion voting machines and want paper ballots instead.”
It was liked more than 4,000 times in five days. The post was first shared on X, formerly Twitter, where it was reposted more than 1,000 times.
More from the Fact-Check Team: How we pick and research claims | Email newsletter | Facebook page
Our rating: False
There is no evidence to support the claim, which originally spread in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election. Coomer has said the claim is false.
Dominion employee says claim is ‘wholly fabricated’
The claim started with Joe Oltmann, a conservative podcaster and political activist from Colorado. In the days after the 2020 election, Oltmann claimed he listened to an “Antifa call” weeks earlier and heard an employee of Dominion Voting Systems suggesting the election was rigged for President Joe Biden.
Oltmann said on his podcast that “a person who called himself Eric was on the call,” but he admitted he couldn’t be certain it was Coomer, according to a transcript filed in federal court. He also acknowledged that he doesn’t have a recording of the call.
Coomer started to receive death threats after Oltmann’s claim spread online, and on Dec. 22, 2020, Coomer filed a defamation suit against Oltmann and others, including the Trump campaign, The Associated Press reported.
Oltmann hasn’t presented any evidence to support his claims about Coomer, and he has repeatedly refused to give the court information about the person who gave him access to the “Antifa call,” USA TODAY reported. At one point, a judge ordered Oltmann to pay $1,000 to Coomer for every day he didn’t provide evidence to the court.
Fact check: States won’t finalize vote totals until days or weeks after Election Day
In a court document filed Sept. 17, 2021, Coomer said he “did not take any action to subvert the 2020 presidential election” and “did not participate in a scheme to change votes from one candidate to another and am aware of no such election-rigging activity.”
“I did not participate in an Antifa conference call or boast about my supposed ability to rig the election,” he said, according to the court document. “Such conduct is antithetical to my belief system and would constitute criminal conduct.”
In a guest column for The Denver Post published Dec. 8, 2020, Coomer described the claims made against him as “wholly fabricated” and wrote that he had “no connection to the Antifa movement” and “did not ‘rig’ or influence the election.”
Coomer has acknowledged that he wrote Facebook posts critical of President-elect Donald Trump in 2016, which Oltmann later shared on his podcast, The New York Times reported. The posts called Trump “autocratic,” “fascist” and “narcissistic.”
Dominion was the target of false claims that its software rigged the 2020 presidential election against Trump. In 2021, Newsmax, a conservative news network, apologized for broadcasting false claims about Coomer, saying it found no evidence they were true. About two years later, Fox News agreed to pay Dominion $787.5 million to settle a defamation lawsuit.
Multiple recounts, reviews and audits have confirmed that the results of the 2020 presidential election were legitimate.
The social media user who shared the post could not be reached for comment. The X user who originally shared the post also could not be reached.
The Associated Press and PolitiFact also debunked the claim.
Our fact-check sources:
- Colorado District Court, Sept. 17, 2021, Transcription of Conservative Daily Podcast November 9, 2020
- Colorado District Court, Sept. 17, 2021, Declaration of Eric Coomer
- The Associated Press, Jan. 5, 2021, Dominion worker sues Trump campaign and conservative media
- USA TODAY, Sept. 5, Conservative activist Joe Oltmann fined $1,000 a day until he discloses evidence to court
- The Denver Post, Dec. 8, 2020, Guest Commentary: I work for Dominion Voting Systems. I did not commit voter fraud. The attacks against me need to stop.
- The New York Times, Aug. 24, 2021, He Was the ‘Perfect Villain’ for Voting Conspiracists
Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or e-newspaper here.
USA TODAY is a verified signatory of the International Fact-Checking Network, which requires a demonstrated commitment to nonpartisanship, fairness and transparency. Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Meta.
