Dems: Postal worker withdraws initial claim of ballot tampering [Video]

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• Pennsylvania postal worker Richard Hopkins retracted his ‘mail-in ballot tampering’ claim during an interview with investigators, House Democrats announced on Tuesday.
• House Oversight Committee said that Hopkins did not elaborate his recantation.
• Trump’s campaign said that Hopkins’ allegation was part of their lawsuit in challenging the election results.

House Democrats revealed on Tuesday that a postal worker in Pennsylvania retracted his claims that his supervisor manipulated mail-in ballots during last week’s election.

According to the House Oversight Committee members, the US Postal Service Office of Inspector General investigators said that Richard Hopkins, 32, withdrew his claim of alleged tampering of mail-in ballots during Monday’s interview.

The committee said that Hopkins “did not explain why he signed a false affidavit.”

Citing three people familiar with the investigation, the Washington Post reported that Hopkins confessed that he just created his accusation.

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Saturday asked the Justice Department to investigate Hopkin’s sworn affidavit, claiming that his supervisors considered backdating the ballots with delayed mailing per Pennsylvania law.

The postal worker’s accusation was part of the federal lawsuit content submitted by President Donald Trump’s campaign on Monday.

The lawsuit claims that Pennsylvania state authorities made an unlawful “two-tiered voting system” that has preferential treatment for mail-in ballots. Moreover, the alleged voting system promotes “ballot fraud or tampering.”

“It has been reported by Project Veritas, in a release on November 5, 2020, that carriers were told to collect, separate, and deliver all mail-in ballots directly to the supervisor,” the suit says, adding that “plaintiffs have information that the purpose of that process was for the supervisor to hand stamp the mail-in ballots.”

Trump’s campaign lawyer Matt Morgan said that Hopkins’ accusation were just one of the “243 paragraphs” stated in their suit.

“The complaint is primarily focused on our equal access and our violation of equal protection [claims],” Morgan said.

“We use that as but one thing of many and we believe that when we obtain access to the 682,000 ballots in Philadelphia and Allegheny…that will continue to get us closer in Pennsylvania to the re-election of the president.”

Trump’s campaign spokesperson Tim Murtaugh said that Hopkins submitted a comprehensive affidavit.

“He named names. He described explicitly what it is that he experienced.”

Murtaugh also speculated that Hopkin could not be entirely willing to take back his own statement.

“Earlier today, we saw our own attorney, in some cases, doxxed on Twitter and public invitations to harass attorneys who have been involved in pursuing the president’s lawful avenues through the courts and also connected to what we will eventually pursue in recounts,” he said.

Source: New York Post