A Pennsylvania postal worker says he lied about there being a ballot tampering issue.
Richard Hopkins led the nation to believe that he was instructed by a postmaster to backdate ballots mailed after Election Day, a made-up story that was picked up and shipped by Republicans who are hell-bent on saying that Joe Biden won the presidential election due to voter fraud. Now, Hopkins is walking back those statements.
His lies made it to GOP officials, and Republicans like Sen. Lindsey Graham who wrote a letter to the Justice Department for a federal investigation, Yahoo! News reports via The Washington Post. Hopkins’s statement stood as confirmed evidence for Red Ties, and it led to Attorney General William Barr authorizing federal prosecutors to look further into the allegations. Barr received some pushback from Democrats and department officials, who noted that Barr’s move was going against a long-standing policy that the federal government should not investigate voter fraud claims until after the election results are in and certified, writes Gerren Keith Gaynor of the Grio.
Hopkins took back his claim on Monday in an affidavit after talking to investigators from the U.S. Postal Service of Inspector General, according to the Post. After learning the new information, Democrats serving on the House Oversight Committee tweeted the “whistleblower completely RECANTED.”
No details about why Hopkins made up the story have been confirmed. However, Trump supporters and others donated more than $136,000 to the man in a GoFundMe fundraiser. “Your donations are going to help me in the case I am wrongfully terminated from my job, or I am forced into resigning due to ostrizization [sic] by my co-workers,” the page said. “It will help me get a new start in a place I feel safe and help me with child support until I am able to get settled and get a job.” Hopkins postmaster, Rob Weisenbach, maintained that Hopkin’s claims were “100 percent false.”
