Fox News played an interview of Dominion Voting Systems spokesperson Michael Steel Sunday morning. From the get-go, the “interview” was framed as a debunking session for “conspiracy theories” being exposed by President Trump’s attorneys, particularly Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani.
Here’s how the stage was set by Fox News anchor Eric Shawn:
“One of the claims of election fraud that’s been disputed centers on Dominion Voting Systems,” Shawn began. “The machines are used in 28 states. You know, the company has repeatedly denied allegations of switched votes, foreign or Democratic Party influence, secret tampering, but its responses have done little to dampen skeptics even though the head of the Department of Homeland Security Cyber Security and Infrastructure Security Agency, Christopher Krebs, was fired for reporting quote, ‘There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.’ The President called that quote highly inaccurate.”
Before even asking a question, the Fox News host established innocence for Dominion, credibility for their claims through Christopher Krebs, and criticism for President Trump for firing him. It’s a public relations masterpiece and they were just getting started.
“With us now is Michael Steel, a principal with the Washington, D.C., firm Hamilton Places Strategies, which is representing Dominion,” Shawn continued.
Steel is a partner with Hamilton Places Strategies. His political history is crowned through his work with three of the most notorious Republican Establishment and Trump-hating men in America. He was Press Secretary for Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan, Press Secretary for Speaker of the House John Boehner, and Senior Advisor for Policy and Communications for the 2016 Jeb Bush Presidential campaign.
“The first question people want to know, did a Dominion machine change one vote from Biden to Trump or from Trump to Biden?” Shawn asked.
Steel responded with an immediate half-truth. “No. This is a non-partisan American company. It is not physically possible for our machines to switch votes from one candidate to the other.”
Technically speaking, this is true. And it’s conspicuous that the question and answer were unnecessarily specific about a “machine” switching votes. It is, as Steel said, physically impossible. But that’s not the real question Americans want answered. We want to know if people operating the machines in person or remotely changed votes. As we discovered shortly after the election, this was definitely the case, admitted as such by Dominion and Michigan election officials a day after we broke the story.
“Let’s be very clear,” Steel continued. “Our election system is run by local elected officials and non-partisan poll watchers. We simply provide a tool to count the ballots and to print and count ballots. There is no way such a massive fraud could have taken place and there are no connections between our company and Venezuela, Germany, Barcelona, Kathmandu, whatever the latest conspiracy theory is.”
It’s true that the system is run by local election officials, but what Steel did not mention is that shortly after testifying before the Senate in January, Dominion released a correction to their testimony that stated many of their machines had remote access capabilities. He was also accurate when he said the company he’s representing has no known connections with Kathmandu. The rest of what he said is comprised of lies. Even CNN had to acknowledge a connection to Venezuela in their attempt to debunk a connection to Venezuela, George Soros, and the Clinton Foundation.
He repeated the lie about Venezuela later in the interview. How can he do this? Because Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic are in the process of hiding all ties between the companies. As CNN reported, Smartmatic is the originator of Dominion and had direct ties to Venezuela.
Smartmatic was founded in Florida by two Venezuelans, and did provide election technology to the Venezuelan government.
Later in the interview, Steel claimed that the reason Dominion’s machines were rejected by Texas was because they were too complex for Texans. Seriously.
“Well, look, the great thing about our system is that every state gets to certify their own equipment,” Steel said. “Texas being Texas is a little bit different. They were afraid that our system was a little too complex and they chose to go elsewhere.”
The rest of the “interview” reads like an exercise in the proper use of propaganda for gaslighting. Shawn played his role as skeptical, smirking host perfectly while Steel had his prepared answers to preordained questions ready to unleash. As our EIC noted on Twitter:
Love the focus on "machines."
Completely avoided any question about how the actual hacks occurred.
This was an infomercial with finely catered questions and answers.
The sad part is Eric Shawn is proud that he played his part in the cover-up.
You were a journalist once.
— JD "Not a Fox News Contributor" Rucker (@JDRucker) November 22, 2020
Fox News is not a left-leaning news outlet cheering for Joe Biden. They are actively playing the role as Dominion Voting System’s PR firm and colluding with the cheaters to cover up the plot. Sadly, some Americans still believe them.
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