Jan. 6 State Department meeting
Joe Oltmann and Matthew DePerno were hardly household names before the 2020 election: Oltmann was a conservative podcaster in Colorado, while DePerno practiced law in Michigan.
But in the run-up to Jan. 6, the two men emerged as key players in a frenzied effort to gin up wild claims of election fraud that would provide legitimacy to Trump’s effort to hold on to power.
Oltmann, for his part, helped launch a conspiracy theory spread by Trump-friendly media outlets such as One America News Network and Newsmax — and amplified by Trump allies Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell — that centered on the baseless claim that Dominion Voting Systems electronically manipulated the 2020 vote.
Oltmann claimed that he infiltrated a secret conference call of “antifa journalists” and overheard a man identified as Eric “the Dominion guy” say, “Don’t worry about the election. Trump is going to win. I made f---ing sure of that.”
Oltmann linked the purported comments to Eric Coomer, then employed as director of product strategy and security at Dominion. Coomer has denied Oltmann’s claim.
A Colorado judge opined that “the sheer implausibility of the claims” Oltmann made after the election should have prompted his listeners to question their “veracity,” and concluded that “Oltmann’s statements regarding that conference are probably false.”
Meanwhile, DePerno filed a lawsuit challenging the election results in Michigan based on a clerical error that initially showed Biden leading in Antrim County, a rural, Republican-leaning county, but were easily corrected to show that Trump carried the county by a wide margin.
But through his lawsuit, DePerno was able to obtain an order from a judge allowing “forensic imaging” of the Dominion voting machines.
A team hired by Powell extracted the data, and a company called Allied Security Operations Group used it to produce a report reaching the wild conclusion “that the Dominion Voting System is intentionally and purposefully designed with inherent errors to create systemic fraud and influence election results.”
DePerno claimed that the review of the county’s election results revealed “an issue of national security,” and the report reached the desk of President Trump in mid-December 2020. But then-Attorney General William P. Barr called the report “amateurish,” and a former Trump administration official responsible for election security said it was “factually inaccurate.”
With those track records of results, Oltmann and DePerno together obtained a meeting with at least one State Department official on Jan. 6, 2021, as Trump’s supporters rampaged through the Capitol.
Robert A. Destro, then serving as the assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, has confirmed to the Washington Post that he met with the two men at the State Department on Jan. 6.
What exactly they discussed remains unknown, as well as what, if any, action was taken as a result of the meeting. Destro declined to reveal the substance of the talks to the Post.
Oltmann has said on his podcast that officials at the State Department reacted in shock when he shared information about purported election fraud and said, “If this is true, this is a coup,” according to the Post. DePerno, who mounted an unsuccessful campaign for Michigan attorney general in 2022, wrote on a campaign questionnaire: “On January 6, 2021, I was in the State Department briefing Mike Pompeo’s staff on how the election was stolen. (NOTE to reader: don’t tell the Feds!)”
Oltmann and DePerno could not be reached for comment for this story. DePerno was indicted by a special prosecutor in Michigan earlier this year after being accused of taking part in an unlawful scheme to breach voting tabulators in Roscommon, Barry and Missaukee counties following the 2020 election.
Whatever they talked about and what, if anything, came out of the meeting, Destro’s predecessor at the State Department told the Post that such a meeting would be highly irregular.
“I cannot understand why anyone who was examining U.S. election practices and who was not foreign would have had a meeting with the State Department,” Virginia Bennett said. “The State Department has no authority from statute or other mandate over U.S. elections. Period. End of sentence.”
Joe Oltmann and Matthew DePerno were hardly household names before the 2020 election: Oltmann was a conservative podcaster in Colorado, while DePerno practiced law in Michigan.
But in the run-up to Jan. 6, the two men emerged as key players in a frenzied effort to gin up wild claims of election fraud that would provide legitimacy to Trump’s effort to hold on to power.
Oltmann, for his part, helped launch a conspiracy theory spread by Trump-friendly media outlets such as One America News Network and Newsmax — and amplified by Trump allies Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell — that centered on the baseless claim that Dominion Voting Systems electronically manipulated the 2020 vote.
Oltmann claimed that he infiltrated a secret conference call of “antifa journalists” and overheard a man identified as Eric “the Dominion guy” say, “Don’t worry about the election. Trump is going to win. I made f---ing sure of that.”
Oltmann linked the purported comments to Eric Coomer, then employed as director of product strategy and security at Dominion. Coomer has denied Oltmann’s claim.
A Colorado judge opined that “the sheer implausibility of the claims” Oltmann made after the election should have prompted his listeners to question their “veracity,” and concluded that “Oltmann’s statements regarding that conference are probably false.”
Meanwhile, DePerno filed a lawsuit challenging the election results in Michigan based on a clerical error that initially showed Biden leading in Antrim County, a rural, Republican-leaning county, but were easily corrected to show that Trump carried the county by a wide margin.
But through his lawsuit, DePerno was able to obtain an order from a judge allowing “forensic imaging” of the Dominion voting machines.
A team hired by Powell extracted the data, and a company called Allied Security Operations Group used it to produce a report reaching the wild conclusion “that the Dominion Voting System is intentionally and purposefully designed with inherent errors to create systemic fraud and influence election results.”
DePerno claimed that the review of the county’s election results revealed “an issue of national security,” and the report reached the desk of President Trump in mid-December 2020. But then-Attorney General William P. Barr called the report “amateurish,” and a former Trump administration official responsible for election security said it was “factually inaccurate.”
With those track records of results, Oltmann and DePerno together obtained a meeting with at least one State Department official on Jan. 6, 2021, as Trump’s supporters rampaged through the Capitol.
Robert A. Destro, then serving as the assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, has confirmed to the Washington Post that he met with the two men at the State Department on Jan. 6.
What exactly they discussed remains unknown, as well as what, if any, action was taken as a result of the meeting. Destro declined to reveal the substance of the talks to the Post.
Oltmann has said on his podcast that officials at the State Department reacted in shock when he shared information about purported election fraud and said, “If this is true, this is a coup,” according to the Post. DePerno, who mounted an unsuccessful campaign for Michigan attorney general in 2022, wrote on a campaign questionnaire: “On January 6, 2021, I was in the State Department briefing Mike Pompeo’s staff on how the election was stolen. (NOTE to reader: don’t tell the Feds!)”
Oltmann and DePerno could not be reached for comment for this story. DePerno was indicted by a special prosecutor in Michigan earlier this year after being accused of taking part in an unlawful scheme to breach voting tabulators in Roscommon, Barry and Missaukee counties following the 2020 election.
Whatever they talked about and what, if anything, came out of the meeting, Destro’s predecessor at the State Department told the Post that such a meeting would be highly irregular.
“I cannot understand why anyone who was examining U.S. election practices and who was not foreign would have had a meeting with the State Department,” Virginia Bennett said. “The State Department has no authority from statute or other mandate over U.S. elections. Period. End of sentence.”
