Attorney General Dana Nessel | michigan.gov
Attorney General Dana Nessel | michigan.gov
A Michigan attorney is asking that certain expert witnesses’ identities remain confidential because they fear for their safety.
Matthew DePerno contended in a motion that the identities of key witnesses whose testimony led to a forensic audit of voting machines need to be kept secret to protect those witnesses.
A protective order was entered in the case to stop both county and state officials from disclosing the witnesses’ personal or business information to help keep them safe.
“Plaintiff and the forensic team fear that disclosing the names and personal information (Such as resume, curriculum vitae, address, and employer) will be detrimental to the forensic investigators,” DePerno wrote in the motion, according to The Epoch Times.
DePerno noted the witnesses feared for both their own safety and the safety of their families because of the “hyper-political climate.”
However, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said the investigators were aware when they accepted their roles in the case and that anonymous experts were not a thing.
“There is simply no such thing as an anonymous expert,” Nessel said in a statement, the news media reported. “These Plaintiffs have already eaten their cake — they can’t have it too.”
DePerno said to The Epoch Times that Nessel is misleading with her statements by saying that he is trying to conceal identities.
"In litigation parties routinely file motions for protective orders to keep testimony or documents hidden from public view,” he told the news media. “Dana Nessel is intentionally misleading in her statements that I am trying to conceal the identities of people who helped with the forensic report. She is engaging in propaganda and she knew the mainstream media would push her comments out without question.”
DePerno says there is a difference between expert witnesses who will testify and those who will not.
“We have publicly disclosed the names of those who will testify,” DePerno said in the email to The Epoch Times. “Public disclosure is not required for the others."
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