President Donald Trump's legal team presented what it deems is video evidence of voter fraud in Georgia before members of a Senate Judiciary subcommittee on Thursday.
The footage appeared to show poll workers counting ballots late at night after poll observers left and ballots being removed from suitcases hidden under tables inside a banquet room at Atlanta's State Farm Arena on Election Day, Nov. 3, as part of the Trump campaign's bid to overturn the results of the presidential election.
The video grabbed headlines across the country and was even publicized by Fox News' Sean Hannity. "Wow! Blockbuster testimony taking place right now in Georgia," Trump tweeted during the committee meeting. "Ballot stuffing by Dems when Republicans were forced to leave the large counting room. Plenty more coming, but this alone leads to an easy win of the State!"
'Observers Asked to Leave, Told Counting Would be Stopped'
The clip shows an overhead view of the room, and according to lawyer Jackie Pick, who narrates the video, a blonde woman with braids announced that ballot-counting would be stopped for the night before ushering the Republican observers out of the room.
"Everyone clears out, including the Republican observers and the press, but four people stay behind and continue counting and tabulating well into the night," lawyer Jackie Pick says in the video.
Pick added that the video footage shows Fulton County election workers waiting at their scanning areas until GOP poll watchers left the room before they illegally started counting ballots supposedly without any supervision.
'Ballots Removed from Hidden Suitcases'
She also pointed out images showing the blonde braided woman, whom she later identified as a spokesperson for Atlanta's Fulton County, placing a table in the room beforehand, under which poll workers are seen retrieving a suitcase of ballots after the observers leave.
"The same person who cleared the place out under the pretense that 'we're going to stop counting' is the person who put the table there," the lawyer told Georgia senators. "I saw four suitcases come out from underneath the table." Watch the video below:
No Evidence of 'Fraud,' Confirm Officials
According to the Fulton CountyBoard of Elections and Georgia's secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, the Trump campaign's allegations were false and there was no evidence of fraud to change the outcome of the state's results in Biden's favor.
A day after the testimony, Gabriel Sterling, a Republican who overseen voting systems for the secretary of state's office said agency investigators watched the surveillance tapes "in its entirety" and did not find any suspicious or illegal activity. "Shows normal ballot processing," he tweeted.
'Suitcases' Were Ballot Containers
Frances Watson, chief investigator for the secretary of state, also confirmed that the "suitcases" hidden under the banquet room's table were actually standard containers used for transporting ballots.
"It was an empty bin and the ballots from it were actually out on the table when the media were still there, and then it was placed back into the box when the media were still there and placed next to the table," Watson told LeadStories.com
"If you look at the video tape, the work you see is the work you would expect, which is you take the sealed suitcase looking things in, you place the ballots on the scanner in manageable batches and you scan them."
'Observers' Were Not Asked to Leave the Room
According to the county's election director, Rick Barron, no one told anyone (including the observers) to leave the banquet room on the night of Nov. 3. The people who were seen leaving were poll workers who were done with their shift, and the other staff members were considering ceasing operations when Barron instructed them against it and that a state-designated monitor was present at the time poll workers started scanning the ballots.
"I told them not to do that," Barron said. "At about 11:15 [p.m.] they were fully scanning again, and once they were scanning, Carter Jones, the State Election Board monitor, he told me 11:42 or 11:52 [p.m.] that he arrived." He added that an investigator with the secretary of state's office also monitored the ballot counting.
In summary, no evidence showed poll workers at the Atlanta site conspired together to hide one or more ballots from Republican observers. Additionally, elections officials said the footage did not show suitcases, but rather standard bins for transporting ballots.
