During election week, Trump buddy and GOP operative James O’Keefe of Project Veritas released claims from a U.S. Postal Service employee named Richard Hopkins. Hopkins says that his office backdated ballots that arrived after election day.
On Sunday, Hopkins tells USPS investigators that he lied and signed an affidavit taking back his allegation. In fact, he didn’t write the confession. O’Keefe wrote it, and Hopkins signed.
The news comes out early Tuesday evening after the Postal Service Inspector General’s Office informs Congress of the investigation’s results. This happens about 24 hours after the false claim is cited as a reason for the Justice Department to open investigations into the election.
The allegation is also used by the Trump campaign on Monday in a federal lawsuit against Pennsylvania election officials.
Why would Richard Hopkins lie for James O’Keefe?
Project Veritas’ founder James O’Keefe on Saturday hailed Hopkins as “an American hero” on Twitter. A GoFundMe page created under Hopkins’ name had raised more than $135,000 by Tuesday evening, with donors praising him as a patriot and whistleblower.
The Washington Post
Richard Hopkins isn’t the only Project Veritas “whisteblower” profiting from unproven claims, either.
The descriptions for these fundraisers even appear to be written by the same person.
Since unproven claims are so popular right now, I’d like to make one, too: James O’Keefe creates these GoFundMe pages himself to pay the bad actors who lie for him. He even gets a cut of the money.
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Photo: Gage Skidmore
