Capitol News

A judge denied a request to keep suppressed the identities of forensic investigators whose claims of voter fraud in Antrim County were shared by supporters of President Donald Trump.

Circuit Court Chief Judge Kevin Elsenheimer allowed the names of the investigators to be released. 

Matthew DePerno and his client, Bill Bailey, hired the investigators to author a report that alleged fraud in the Dominion Voting Systems voting machines.

DePerno wanted Elsenheimer to issue a protective order to block Attorney General Dana Nessel and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson from releasing the names, saying it would cause security issues.

“We can’t trust Dana Nessel to do anything to curb against violent threats against Trump supporters,” DePerno said to the Record-Eagle. “And that would equally apply to the forensic team in this case.”

Elsenheimer said that because the report had gone far beyond Antrim County, the names should be released.

“The court system is an open one and when one participates in it there is a loss, if you will, of privacy absent some specific clear threat against a person that is actionable,” Elsenheimer said, the Record-Eagle reported. “I’ve seen nothing here beyond the communications I’ve already discussed here on the record that would justify that kind of extraordinary limitation on this court file. So the motion is denied.”

Elsenheimer did, however, rule that phone numbers, home addresses and email addresses should be kept private.

Nessel said last month that the identities of the experts should not be kept private.

“There is simply no such thing as an anonymous expert,” Nessel said in a statement, Capitol News previously reported. “These Plaintiffs have already eaten their cake — they can’t have it too.”

DePerno said Nessel was misleading with her statements, saying that those who will testify were publicly disclosed, but that public disclosure was not required for other experts.

Many in Michigan have been pushing for an audit of the voting machines used by Dominion Voting System. One IT worker, Melissa Carone, said she witnessed poll workers running the same batches of ballots multiple times.