Fact Check: Did Michigan police uncover 2020 Democratic election plot?

Following another grand jury indictment this week, Donald Trump is now facing charges from two investigations alleging that he and others made attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

The former president, who denies all wrongdoing, faces 13 charges in Fulton County, Georgia, in addition to the four charges he already faces in Washington, D.C., for alleged attempts to alter the outcome of the presidential race two years ago.

Trump has long maintained the election was stolen, a lie that supporters have attempted to keep alive since he lost to President Joe Biden. With allegations of interference now pointing at him, one story tried to push the attention the other way, claiming “Democrat operatives” joined a plot to register thousands of fraudulent voters in Michigan ahead of the election.

The Claim

A post on X, formerly Twitter, by @DC_Draino, on August 8, 2023, and viewed more than 11 million times, claimed that there was “Proof of rigged Michigan election” with “Democrat operatives caught in October 2020 turning in up to 10,000 fraudulent voter registrations *per day*, many with same handwriting & fake addresses.

“Police investigated (report attached) and found guns w/silencers, burner phones, rental cars, and warehouses where ballots & registrations stored all funded by Democrat strategy firm.

“Ballots would be mailed to fake addresses, intercepted, and put in dropboxes by mules. Video from Detroit vote count center shows 3AM drop of estimated 100,000+ ballots w/out GOP supervisors by *rental car* from out of state.”

The Facts

Most of the claims appear to be based on a report by The Gateway Pundit, a news site rated by media vetting service NewsGuard as “unreliable because it severely violates basic journalistic standards.” NewsGuard’s 2023 report found that Gateway Pundit repeatedly publish false content, did not gather and present information responsibly, and did not regularly correct or clarify errors.

The article relies upon a heavily redacted police report about voter registration applications. The report contains allegations that bogus forms were submitted to Muskegon City officials in Michigan in October 2020.

The report does not contain any charges. It details how after a city clerk told police that she suspected voter fraud, officers carried out an investigation into addresses including hotels and businesses associated with vehicles and names connected to that claim. The clerk suggested that information in the forms may have been faulty or contained handwriting that was similar.

As part of the police investigation, searches were carried out at multiple premises, with officers finding items at one location in Southfield, Michigan, that they say included “completed and partially completed voter registration forms” and “semi-automatic rifles joined with suppressors and optics and customized pistols.”

However, the report makes no conclusion of wrongdoing. The weapons were also examined and found to be legal.

The notion that the people behind the operation were Democratic operatives appears to be based on a police search of a business that in the 2018 mid-term campaign cycle was paid “$1,571,386 by the Doug Jones for Senate Committee, $657,260 by the New American Jobs Fun and $188,000 by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.”

Another search allegedly showed receipt of an estimated $242,133 from Joe Biden for President and $242,133 from Gary Peters for Senate.

It appears that the business was GBI Strategies, which is named in passing in the police report. Some of the figures in the report match those recorded by Open Secrets.

However, the payment information alone is not proof of a conspiracy between the firm and the Democratic Party.

The allegation that “operatives” said to be working for the companies were caught is not supported, either, as there are no charges or confirmation of wrongdoing.

The Michigan State Police public information officer for Muskegon district told Newsweek that no arrests were made following the investigation.

A spokesperson for the Michigan Attorney General’s Office told Newsweek that the 2020 election was “thoroughly litigated and audited and has been proven well beyond a reasonable doubt that it was fair and accurate” and called the Gateway Pundit’s story inaccurate.

A review of the investigation into allegations of voter fraud in Michigan was also provided by the Michigan Attorney General’s Office to Newsweek.

The review stated that the person associated with the 8,000 to 10,000 fraudulent voter registration forms was a representative of GBI Strategies, which it described as a national company that conducts political field work including voter registration drives.

The Bureau of Elections did not identify any fraudulent voter registrations or ballots cast in connection with the forms.

While fraudulent forms were mixed with legitimate registrations, the attorney general, Department of State, Bureau of Elections and Michigan State Police were unaware of any successful fraudulent application.

The review also stated that a search warrant was carried at GBI Strategies’ Southfield location “in pursuit of documents, financial records and electronic files to determine criminal guilt of a possible violation of MCL 168.933a, Election Fraud by Forgery.”

“Detected in this search were pay cards, pre-pay style cell phones, and voter registration forms, all determined to be normal operational devices in GBI Strategies’ line of work,” it read.

“Also found during the search were several firearms, which prompted a response from federal agents of the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms. All detected firearms were determined by federal authorities to be legally owned, and incidentally stored in the location by an employee irrelevant to the business purposes of GBI Strategies. None of the materials seized resulted in furthering evidence of voter fraud.”

The review adds that while fraud was determined to have occurred at the lowest levels of the company, it was committed “to fabricate work product without conducting the work expected of them, and not in explicit pursuit of defrauding the election infrastructure of the state.”

In other words, the investigation found that employees allegedly completed forms to pretend they had completed work.

The case was referred to the FBI on grounds of “national jurisdiction” and the decision was made to close the state-level investigation after the FBI assume the case.

“This attempted fraud was detected because the system worked,” the review said. “The City Clerk in Muskegon detected the fraudulent material provided and alerted the proper authorities.

“A thorough investigation was conducted by multiple agencies within the state and no successful fraud was perpetrated upon the state’s election process or qualified voter file.”

Newsweek has reached out to the FBI via email for comment. Newsweek also contacted a phone number attached to GBI Strategies LLC, based in Tennessee, and left a voicemail.

Whatever the circumstances of follow-up investigations by the FBI, as of now there is no verifiable information that proves election fraud was committed in Michigan.

The police report, provided as evidence of fraudulent voter application submissions, did not conclude any wrongdoing. No one has been arrested or charged in connection with the claims. Investigations involving a multi-disciplinary team in Michigan found the likely motivation behind fraudulent applications was poor work ethic, not a plot to overturn the 2020 election process.

In 2021, the Michigan Bureau of Elections released a report on 250 post-election audits conducted across the state that found the November 2020 election was “fair secure and accurate, and that the results reflect the will of Michigan voters.”

In short, not only does the claim about fraudulent voter registrations prove nothing, but the investigation into the 2020 election found insufficient evidence of voter fraud either.

The Ruling

False.

There is no evidence in the report highlighted by @DC_Draino and published by The Gateway Pundit of voter registration fraud in Michigan.

No one has been charged in connection with an investigation conducted in 2020 over concerns by a city clerk.

Although fraudulent applications were detected, they did not spoil the results of the 2020 election. The motivation for completing fraudulent applications was not associated with an attempted election plot. Two-hundred and fifty post-election audits conducted in Michigan found the 2020 election was “fair, secure and accurate.”

FACT CHECK BY Newsweek’s Fact Check team