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NEWS AND COMMENTARY

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 7, 2023

Contact: Marilyn Marks

Coalition for Good Governance

Marilyn@uscgg.org

704 292 9802

10,000+ Misty Hampton "Missing" Emails Found!

ATLANTA--Few people ever actually believed the bizarre claims made by Coffee County Board of Elections and their attorneys that all of former election supervisor Misty Hampton’s emails over the course of her years of work in Coffee were suddenly missing and irretrievable shortly after she was terminated in February 2021.  Coalition for Good Governance and co-plaintiffs served federal court subpoenas and Open Records Requests on Coffee County starting in the spring of 2022 to obtain emails and other documents that would provide evidence of the now infamous Coffee County voting system breaches. We were repeatedly told by the Elections Board through their attorneys at Hall Booth Smith that the emails were truly irretrievable—not in the cloud, not through Microsoft, and not on the hard drive of the desktop computer, based on their “thorough” IT contractor searches. 

However, it turns out that the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), in their plodding investigation, obtained Hampton’s office desktop computer on June 12, 2023, and found 10,477 emails and 4,552 documents that mysteriously were purportedly “not preserved” according the Elections Board and their attorney's claims over the past 18 months.  In response to a federal court subpoena, Jennifer Herzog, a partner in the Hall Booth Smith firm, the attorney for the Elections Board, had represented that no such records existed and thorough searches had been undertaken.  We didn’t ask just once, or twice, or three times. Our attorneys, incredulous that all official election-related emails for ten years could be “lost,” repeatedly requested more diligent searches. But Herzog always represented to us, that such documents had simply been innocently lost and were irretrievable. 

Here's all we know about those “lost” now “found” (but undisclosed) emails. This comes from a brief filed by Sidney Powell Thursday, where an excerpt of the GBI report is disclosed:

We at CGG do not yet have access to those “lost” documents and emails we requested from Coffee over the last 19 months, although they've been "found" on the office desktop. But Friday we demanded immediate production of those covered by our subpoena, from the Coffee Elections Board and their attorneys. 

A Coffee County Pattern

Coffee County seems to be a Bermuda Triangle for electronic election-related records! 



Ms. Herzog and her senior partner Tony Rowell at Hall Booth Smith, representing the Board of Elections, also wrongly denied for months the now ubiquitous Coffee security video records existed, despite many attempts on our part through subpoena and otherwise to obtain the video records. Coffee claimed repeatedly starting in March 2022 that the records were long since overwritten. Six months later, only when the GBI demanded the “non-existent” videos, those videos covering the period of breach activity were suddenly “found.” (It’s a felony to lie to the GBI about the existence of evidence.) The interior video security discovery “oops,” occurred in September 2022, after the first video “oops” suddenly “found” the exterior video in August 2022:

Then there’s the “missing” county laptop that Misty used for election-related activities and took with her when she worked remotely. It likely has emails as well. But alas, Herzog and Rowell and the Election Board seemingly developed amnesia about the that laptop. In September 2022, Rowell told the GBI that Hampton used a work laptop, but he was “not prepared to produce it” in response to the GBI request. Herzog’s repeated responses to our subpoenas was that there was no such laptop.

But Lordy, there are tapes! 

That’s Misty using the non-existent county laptop in the Elections Office.  When our attorneys pressed Herzog about the laptop and the files on it, sharing screenshots of the “non-existent” laptop taken from the previously “non-existent” security video recordings, her response was:

To our knowledge, Coffee County, Herzog and Rowell have, to date, successfully dodged producing that once “non-existent,” now “missing,” laptop to the GBI, Fani Willis, or us (in response to our subpoenas).  There is obviously more to learn here.  We intend to continue to do so, even if Secretary Raffensperger is still incurious. 

Hindering Law Enforcement Investigation of Coffee County Crimes 

Coffee County’s attorneys’ efforts to conceal Misty Hampton’s emails, some of which likely related to the three known 2021 breaches, have come at a high price in attempts to hold officials accountable. And at great harm to the efficiency of the criminal justice system, increasing the massive cost of criminal investigations and court proceedings. Yet, much evidence was likely available all along on Misty Hampton’s desktop office computer, but repeatedly concealed by Coffee County. 

Imagine the efficiency with which D.A. Willis could have moved if the Coffee County evidence on Misty Hampton’s desktop had been made available in early 2022, or if Coffee officials who knew of the breach had reported it in 2021. When the full story is finally told in several months, the public is likely to see how a combination of the Coffee County officials, their attorneys, the Secretary of State, the State Election Board, the Attorney General and the GBI all failed to transparently, diligently and timely address this massive voting system breach and hold the bad actors involved accountable. Coffee County’s concealing of the email, laptop, and video evidence is the root cause of the delay for operation of the justice system. 

Delays in investigating whether because of Coffee County obstruction or the Secretary of State’s unserious efforts have cost the public and law enforcement precious time and resources and delayed the much-needed mitigation of the security flaws in the state’s voting system. 

Now What? 

On Friday we and our co-plaintiffs demanded that Coffee Board of Elections produce the long overdue concealed emails and documents responsive to our 2022 subpoenas. If they fail to produce these records promptly, we can seek the intervention of the court to force Coffee’s compliance with the subpoenas. We will report back when we obtain some answers. 

We look forward to hearing from you with your questions and comments. 

Marilyn Marks

Marilyn@uscgg.org

Executive Director

Coalition for Good Governance

704 292 9802

Coalition for Good Governance is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization focused on fair and transparent elections, including the protection of voters’ rights to secret ballots.