As of now, the person of interest identified by the FBI in connection with the explosion, Anthony Quinn Warner, is believed to have been "paranoid about 5G technology" (another frequent subject of conspiracy theories) rather than possessing any election-related motive. "Very, very interesting.". The FBI confirmed that a man named Anthony Warner was responsible for the bombing and was killed in the blast. 4 min read. Its disgusting. He claimed on his podcast that he'd infiltrated a call with Denver-area antifa members that included a man identified as "Eric from Dominion.". Cynthia McFadden is the senior legal and investigative correspondent for NBC News. The location of the heavily damaged buildings seen in the photograph accompanying the post appear to show 170 to 176 2nd Avenue North in Nashville after the explosion. The post provides no links to evidence for their allegations. In the wake of the Christmas morning explosion in Nashville, Tenn., a baseless conspiracy theory started circulating online that claims Nashvilles downtown AT&T complex, which was damaged in the blast, had gotten a contract to conduct a "forensic audit" on Dominion Voting Systems machines. Copyright 2023 Politifact. More:Fact check: Joe Biden legally won presidential election, despite persistent contrary claims. Some posts have said the Nashville explosion was caused by a missile. "The minute I saw it, it left a big pit in my stomach," he said. ", More:Three firefighters hurt battling three-alarm blaze in Rochester. In a Dominion-themed segment, an Infowars host speaking during a November Washington, D.C., rally presaged the January 6 violence by hyping the . Social media posts from the event tagged the far-right group the Proud Boys. The post was flagged as part of Facebooks efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. In an all-caps tweet on Saturday night, Trump highlighted a report from One America News Network (OANN), a right-wing outlet, that claimed voting machines made by Dominion Voting Systems. CLAIM: AT&T got a contract to do a forensic audit of Dominion Voting Systems machines and those machines were recently moved to Nashville, Tennessee to the same AT&T building that was damaged in a Christmas morning explosion. The building of City Blue Imaging (www.cityblueimaging.com/), a printing company in Rochester, New York, burnt down on Christmas morning after catching fire the night before ( here , here and here ). All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. Jim Greer, a spokesperson for AT&T, told USA TODAY the claims are "not true. First, QAnon. More on Dominion:Fact check: Viral photo shows fake logo and slogan for Dominion Voting Systems. The row housed Simply the Best $10 Boutique at 176 (here), Ensemble boutique at 174 (www.ensemblenashville.com/) and the Pride & Glory Tattoo Parlor at 172 (www.prideandglorytattoo.com/), as well as apartments on the upper floors (here). On Monday, The Associated Press debunked claims that Dominion has any connection with AT&T. Its true that an AT&T-owned building in Nashville was one of many buildings damaged in Fridays. The reason? There is no reason to suppose that it would be likely, or even possible, that these buildings, would be used to audit voting machines. "So, the explosion just happened to be at the AT&T location where they just so happen to control the cooling system for the super computer and house the dominion voting machines and drives for forensic audit", "Wait, the bombing in Nashville was at the AT&T data center right after they got the contract to audit the Dominion voting machines?,"onefrom Dec. 26 reads. James Murphy, a spokesperson for MetLife, confirmed the company owns the building. AT&T did not have a contract to audit Dominion machines and was not holding Dominion machines in its Nashville building, both companies confirmed to The Associated Press. Fact-checkers have debunked claims that the explosion was the result of a missile strike. Secretary Hargett is the chief executive officer of the Department of State with oversight of more than 300 employees. A Dominion voting machine in Georgia. "Anthony Warner is the bomber. A spokesperson for the FBI's Denver Field Office confirmed that the FBI executed the . The video, which was posted by a Facebook page called Red Pill Radio on Dec. 28, shows the outline of buildings and a highway in Nashville. The New York Attorney Generals office said they could not confirm nor deny any investigation. (Photo by James Leynse/Corbis via Getty Images). Dominion Lawsuit Showcases Paul Ryan's Influence over Fox News Channel's Editorial Control. This material may not be reproduced without permission. The post also mentions the Kraken or supercomputer and says that the cooling system for this computer was located in the AT&T building. causing widespread communications outages. The post, which has been shared almost 900 times, makes two claims: A building damaged in the Nashville explosion was holding Dominion Voting Systems machines set to be audited, and in New. Facebook post:The Nashville bombing was an attempt to stop an AT&T audit into Dominion software and cover up election corruption. Hart said that it has approximately 1,600 such tabulators in use in 11 counties in Michigan. Dominion Voting Systems, a company beset by dubious election fraud claims in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, said "human error" was to blame after machines in a Pennsylvania. The claim: Dominion Voting Systems is tied up in the Nashville bombing, based on the affected AT&T building's ownership and that the cellular company was contracted to audit Dominion's. Select an Infowars smear of Dominion Voting Systems. Cerberus Capital previously owned the AT&T Building, onceknownas the BellSouth Building,where the company has operated its Tennessee headquarters since the building's erection in 1994. "So, the explosion just happened to be at the AT&T location where they just so happen to control the cooling system for the super computer and house the dominion voting machines and drives for forensic audit", "Wait, the bombing in Nashville was at the AT&T data center right after they got the contract to audit the Dominion voting machines?," one from Dec. 26 reads. EDITORS NOTE (Feb. 7, 2020, 11:15 p.m.): A previous version of this article stated that Kevin Skoglund and his team had found election systems using ES&S scanners with wireless modems connected to the internet in 11 states and the District of Columbia. Behind it is the notion that if voting systems are not online, hackers will have a harder time compromising them. Dominion told AFP the claim is "another bizarre lie being spread by known conspiracy theorists.". "I've been threatened more times than I could even count. Those modems that ES&S [and other manufacturers] are putting in their voting machines are network connections, and that leaves them vulnerable to hacking by anybody who can connect to that network.. New York State Police Director of Public Information Beau Duffy told Reuters via email they were unaware of any state police investigations relating to the claims linking the paper company to ballots. There was no evidence of a shooting, but both officers and witnesses heard a warning blare from the RV: "Evacuate now. Shortly afterwards, social media users began circulating variants of a conspiracy theory holding that AT&T had been engaged to undertake a "forensic audit of Dominion voting machines," the latter of which were frequent targets of false election fraud claims made by President Donald Trump and his supports after Trump lost his re-election bid in November 2020: The implication of the conspiracy theory was that the explosion had been intended to destroy the machines before they were audited in order to cover up evidence of massive voting fraud. Spokespeople for both AT&T and Dominion told USA TODAY that AT&T was not contracted to audit Dominion voting machines, and no Dominion voting machines were being held in the AT&T building outside of which the RV exploded. Nashville's date on June 7 at GEODIS Park will feature Kelsea Ballerini and BRELAND -- and now, The Boykinz. The AT&T building the posts likely refer to was not the one outside which the bomb exploded on Christmas morning. CLAIM: AT&T got a contract to do a forensic audit of Dominion Voting Systems machines and those machines were recently moved to Nashville, Tennessee to the same AT&T building that was damaged in a Christmas morning explosion. But Skogland points to some good news. The largest manufacturer of voting machines, ES&S, told NBC News their systems are protected by firewalls and are not on the public internet. But both Skoglund and Andrew Appel, a Princeton computer science professor and expert on elections, said such firewalls can and have been breached. "To the misinformed people on @Twitter and @instagram #cityblueimaging does not print #ballots, does not do work for #Phoenixgraphics and was never owned by the owner of #phoenixgraphics," the company wrote on its Facebook page on Dec. 27. Statement:The Nashville bombing was an attempt to stop an AT&T audit into Dominion software and cover up election corruption. These two tech experts also agree on the path forward, saying they are comforted by the fact that most Americans will vote this year on hand-marked paper ballots which are counted by machine and can be recounted by hand if the situation warrants. Kevin Monahan is a producer for the NBC News Investigative Unit. We rate thisclaim as FALSE, because it wasn't supported by our research. While the voting machines themselves are not designed to be online, the larger voting systems in many states end up there, putting the voting process at risk. And I don't know that all these jurisdictions are aware of that because ES&S is advertising otherwise.. By the time the news conference occurred on Nov. 19, Mr. Trump's campaign had already prepared an internal memo on many of the outlandish claims about the company, Dominion Voting Systems, and. In a letter obtained by NBC News sent to the EAC on Tuesday, the nonprofit public interest group Free Speech for People and the National Election Defense Coalition asked the agency to look into whether ES&S violated agency regulations by implying that DS200 voting machines with modems are EAC certified. Immediately, Coomer knew things would blow up. "You may want to read a book some day to learn about my reference to rising like a #phoenix. At its core is the prediction thatan alleged mass arrest ofhigh-profile Democrats and celebritieswould be carried out while now-former President Donald Trump secretly savedthe world from a satanic cult of pedophiles and cannibals. Both sit on Dominion's board. The conspiracy theory has grown into a movement that is promoted by right-wing extremists. Similar claims have already been debunked by Reuters (here). AT&T not conducting voting machine audit near Nashville explosion site. The West Bend clerk wrote, "The wrong marking device was used to mark the . All of these businesses were reported to be damaged in the blast (here). These are conspiracies manufactured out of whole cloth.. Law enforcement authorities have suggested that Warner may have been paranoid about 5G technology, a QAnon-related conspiracy theory that makes an array of unproven claims including that ithelps spread COVID-19and is used as a spying tool by the government. On Thursday night, the group performed their set at the Shed in Maryville, Tennessee, with all six of its members wearing dresses in protest of the state's newly enacted law on public drag performance. Shasta County has become a hotbed for unproven conspiracy theories about rigged voting, fueled by former . Did City Blue Imaging Print Voting Ballots, Then Burn Down? There is no evidence to support the claim that the explosionin Nashville and fire in Rochester, New York,that occurred around the holidays point toward a broader conspiracy to hide election malfeasance. But that is an overstatement, according to a team of 10 independent cybersecurity experts who specialize in voting systems and elections. Tre Hargett was elected by the Tennessee General Assembly to serve as Tennessees 37th secretary of state in 2009 and re-elected in 2013, 2017, and 2021. But election integrity advocates worry the disinformation won't truly begin to recede until political leaders such as Trump stop questioning the election's legitimacy. Representatives for companies involved say there is no truth to the claims. The user who created the post did not respond to USA TODAY's request for comment. Voting Systems in Tennessee | Tennessee Secretary of State Proposed Constitutional Amendments Voting Systems in Tennessee View list by county (.pdf) and learn more about each system using the links below. The three largest voting manufacturing companies Election Systems &Software, Dominion Voting Systems and Hart InterCivic have acknowledged they all put modems in some of their tabulators. It is no longer federally certified. Then Acting Undersecretary for Cybersecurity and Communications at the Department of Homeland Security Jeanette Manfra said those words in 2017, testifying before Congress while she was responsible for the security of the nations voting system. Oltmann claimed that Coomer said with a laugh on the call that he would make sure Trump didn't win the election. On Christmas morning of 2020, a recreational vehicle exploded on the streets of Nashville near a building owned by AT&T that lies one block from the companys office tower. A widely sharedpost on Facebook alleges that four days before the bombing, a rumor circulated that AT&T was awarded a contract to audit Dominion's voting machines, which were supposedly being sent to Nashville. In counties that used Dominion systems, Biden got 888,259 votes to Trump's 851,069. But none of this is true. The bomb was located in a recreational vehicle that Warner owned. So many government officials like Manfra have said the same thing over the last few years that it is commonly accepted as gospel by most Americans. for the blast that rattled downtown Nashville on Christmas morning, social media users have invented their own far-fetched theories. The investigation of the Nashville bombing is ongoing, but the Facebook post is inaccurate and ridiculous. There is no evidence that suggests that the explosion was election-related. A post on Facebook theorized that the two disasters were connected by a plot to steal the election. While Kennard served at the FCC and as EU ambassador and he joined AT&Ts board of directors as Chairman in Nov. 2020 (here), Greer confirmed Kennard is not the former owner of the AT&T building that was destroyed in Nashville, as the posts claim. . This references the claim that supercomputer Hammer and software program Scorecard were used to change votes in Bidens favor in the 2020 Presidential election. (Read more about, Breaking news meme generators are frequently used online to create fabricated headlines and chyrons such as this one. Posts online claim that the Christmas Day bombing in Nashville was an attempt to cover up election fraud because AT&T was conducting an audit of Dominion Voting Systems machines and that the equipment was recently relocated to the companys building that was damaged in the blast. "I'm in fear for my family's safety. That's false. Now the process of counting these votes . An executive for a voting machine company that has been the target of conspiracy theories in the aftermath of Donald Trump's 2020 election loss and been baselessly accused of swinging the. Didi Martinez is an associate producer with the NBC News Investigative Unit. The bomb was located in a recreational vehicle owned by Warner. "AT&T got a contract to do forensic audit on Dominion voting machines and those machines were being moved to Nashville this past week," one Dec. 27 post says. "It does appear that the intent was more destruction than death," said David Rausch, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, inan interview on NBC's "Today." Jim Greer, associate vice president for corporate communications at AT&T, was blunt in an email response to PolitiFact: "That is not true," he wrote. Last fall, when ES&S gave NBC News an exclusive tour at its headquarters in Omaha, Neb., Chief Executive Officer Tom Burt defended using modems when asked about the Sprint and Verizon modems seen in ES&S's testing area. The conservative network has seen its ratings surge in . In 2020, the controversy revolves around Dominion's voting machines, sparked by an erroneous result out of a Michigan county that's been blamed on human error, allegations of rigged Dominion software in Georgia and the fact Texas rejected Dominion's system due to security concerns. Early Christmas morning, police in Nashville came across an RV parked on Second Avenue, outside an AT&T transmission building, whileresponding to reports of shots fired in the area, Metro Nashville P, Fact check: Joe Biden legally won presidential election, despite persistent contrary claims, Neighbor recalls warning, countdown before Nashville explosion, Fact check: Viral photo shows fake logo and slogan for Dominion Voting Systems, Fact check: No, Joe Biden's brother-in-law does not own Dominion Voting Systems, Nashville officials resolved to find bombing suspects, learn motive behind explosion, "Nashville bombing: What we know about downtown explosion on Christmas morning, FBI Memphis Special Agent in Charge Announces Identity of Remains Discovered in Nashville Explosion Site; Multi-Agency Investigation Continues, FBI identifies suspect in Nashville bombing, AT&T outage Sunday updates: 'Progress continues' in restoring service after Nashville bombing, Dominion Voting Systems Acquired by its Management Team and Staple Street Capital. Those modems connect to cell phone networks, which, in turn, are connected to the internet. Across the country on Christmas Eve, a printing press company in New York burned to the ground. Trump has repeatedly made comments about Dominion's voting machines and retweeted reports perpetuating the conspiracy theory, calling the company's voting machines "a disaster all over the . So we will clear it up: Its fake. ES&S has repeatedly advertised its DS200 with internal modem a critical component to ES&Ss voting systems as being EAC certified when, in fact, it is not, the letter said. It's the first . AT&T got a contract to do forensic audit on Dominion voting machines and those machines were being moved to Nashville this past week, read one post. On Tuesday, Coomer sued the Trump campaign and a number of allies, alleging defamation. Newsmax TV aired a stunning fact-check on Monday of claims made on the network about voting companies used in the 2020 presidential election. Some have also received threatening letters. The wishes are that I forever have to look over my shoulder," Coomer said. These are conspiracies manufactured out of whole cloth. The Christmas morning bomb went off on Second Avenue, outside an AT&T transmission building. "The specific steps taken would depend on the recommendation and the timeline required to make changes effectively.. The three largest voting manufacturing companies Election Systems &Software, Dominion Voting Systems and Hart InterCivic have acknowledged they all put modems in some of their tabulators and scanners. A spokesperson for Dominion Voting Systems confirmed to Reuters via email that the Stephen Owens at Staple Street has no family ties or business affiliations with Bidens sister, Valerie Biden Owens. He also serves on 16 boards and commissions, on two of which he is the presiding member. "That's all still speculation at this point as we continue in our investigation with all of our partners. Others are not so sure, and the state has set up an advisory committee. hide caption. So did the type of explosives used to detonate the blast. Heres more information on Facebooks fact-checking program: https://www.facebook.com/help/1952307158131536. So that unofficial election results can more quickly be relayed to the public. Coomer oversees product strategy and security for Dominion Voting Systems, the Denver-based company that has suddenly found itself at the center of many of President Trump's false claims about November's election, spread by allies and pro-Trump media.
Sherwin Williams Calming Colors,
Articles D