On January 6, 2021, the day on which supporters of President Donald Trump gathered in Washington, DC to challenge the certification of the 2020 presidential election results by Congress and finally storm the US Capitol, posts began to spread widely on social media claiming that an employee of an Italian security firm interfered in the election to secure Joe Biden’s victory. The allegations are shared online with the hashtags #ItalyDidIt and #ItalyGate, and are part of a conspiracy theory intended to arouse doubts in the US electoral system and reinforce the claims of Trump and his allies that the election was hampered. The alleged evidence, analyzed by Reuters, contradicts the main allegations presented in this theory.
Examples of postings that make these claims can be seen here, here and here.
WHAT IS #ITALYGATE?
This theory began when an organization called Nations in Action published a press release on January 6 with the headline ‘Senior IT expert at Global Defense Contractor testifies in Italian federal court; He and others alternated throughout America in the U.S. presidential race. “(Here).
According to its website, Nations in Action is based in Sarasota, Florida and was established in 2017 ‘to address the collapse of civil society with families struggling to uphold faith, values and virtues’ (nationsinaction.org/#about-us ). Nations in Action did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment or extension on their “evidence” for these allegations. If they do, this article will be updated accordingly.
The press release, which claims to have come from Rome, Italy, on January 5, alleges that an employee of the Italian defense, security and aviation company, Leonardo SpA, made a shocking deposit in which he played his role in the most extensive criminal act concerning a US. election. It names Arturo D’Elia as the employee and states that he ” set out the scheme that was successful in using Leonardo’s computer systems and military satellites in Pescara, Italy ” to interfere in the US election in favor of Joe Biden.
The press release quoted the group’s chairwoman, Maria Strollo Zack, as saying, “Make no mistake, this is a coup d’etat that will stop us in the name of justice and free and fair elections.”
That day, several sites like ‘Shock Ya!’ (here), “En Volve” (here) and “No Q Report” (here) have started sharing the press release, which will soon migrate to Facebook. An editorial at the top of the article, “No Q Report”, acknowledges: “We did not independently verify it, but we felt it was necessary to keep it out taking into account the late hours in this election cycle. “
LEONARDO IN ARTURO D’ELIA
On December 22, 2020, Reuters published an exclusive report here in which an investigation into a data theft at Leonardo took place between 2015 and 2017.
Italian police said on December 5, 2020 that they had arrested Arturo D’Elia and Antonio Rossi, who both worked for Leonardo, over their alleged role in hijacking 94 computers, 33 of which were in the group’s factory in Pomigliano. , a congregation in Naples. The burglary took place years before the US election in 2020 (between 2015 and 2017).
The 108-page arrest warrant investigated by Reuters reporters showed that the hood was targeting the details of Europe’s largest unmanned fighter program and aircraft used by the military and police. The US election is not mentioned anywhere in the document. (In the 108 pages, the judge cited various possible reasons behind the 2015-2017 burglary for which D’Elia is being investigated: ‘the use of data for industrial and commercial purposes, extortion and military espionage activities or simply the intention to destroy the image of the business by demonstrating its organizational and IT vulnerability. ”)
Reuters spoke by telephone with D’Elia’s lawyer Nicola Naponiello, who had earlier commented on the December 22 report on the Leonardo investigation. Naponiello said that when his client was questioned by prosecutors in Naples on January 12, he denied any involvement in an alleged plan to change the outcome of the U.S. election. According to Naponiello, who assisted his client during the interrogation, D’Elia called any allegations of his involvement in a plan against Trump ‘pure fantasy’.
Reuters reporters also spoke to a Naples police officer involved in the arrest of D’Elia, who said that Naples prosecutors are now investigating allegations of D’Elia’s interference in the US election, but the conspiracy theory is likely. considered unfounded. The official also told Reuters that D’Elia made no mention of a conspiracy in which Trump was involved during the police interrogation in December.
In addition, a Leonardo spokesman told Reuters by telephone that D’Elia, a former consultant for the company, has not worked for Leonardo since 2017.
PROOFED CONFIRMATION OF ALFIO D’URSO
Some posts on social media (here, here) contain an alleged affidavit containing the signature of ‘Alfio D’Urso’ stating that D’Elia ‘was charged by the Naples State Prosecutor with tampering with technology / data and the implanting viruses into Leonardo SpA’s main computers’ to ‘transfer’ data from the November 3, 2020 US election from a significant victory margin for Donald Trump to Joe Biden in a number of states where Joe Biden lost the vote total. ‘
Reuters could not independently confirm the authenticity of the document.
Naponiello, the lawyer for Arturo D’Elia, told Reuters that he and D’Elia had never heard of Alfio D’Urso.
A person named “Alfio D’Urso” is listed in Italy’s national bar database (here). Reuters could not reach D’Urso to ascertain further details.
The Naples police officer said prosecutors D’Urso, whose name did not appear in the 108-page arrest warrant for D’Elia, would ask about the alleged statement when they found him (according to the officer, his location is currently unknown).
US Foreign Service Worker and CLAUDIO GRAZIANO
Some social media posts (here, here) shared an audio recording (vocaroo.com/1e976QE4oDoy) of a conference call in December 2020 between President Maria Strollo Zack of Nations in Action and other supporters of President Trump.
At the beginning of the call, Zack says that the result of the US election was’ orchestrated in the embassy of Rome ‘by a 20-year-old foreign service official who she said was’ coordinated with General Claudio Graziano who is in charge of Leonardo is’ to use the firm’s “military satellite uplink to download and transmit the software to change Trump’s votes to Biden.”
The 108-page arrest warrant for D’Elia for the Leonardo hijacking case, which was reviewed by Reuters, does not mention the name of the alleged foreign service officer given in the survey, or Claudio Graziano, who is currently an officer of the Italian army is not. serves as Chief of General for the Italian Defense (here). Zack’s claim that Graziano is on Leonardo’s board is untrue for his board (here), according to the company’s website.
Similar theories, safe elections
In mid-November, the Reuters Fact Check team dismissed similar false allegations on social media of interference in the European election. According to reports, the US military has raided the offices of the electronic voting company Scytl in Germany to seize their servers for evidence of manipulation in the US election in 2020 (here). Scytl confirmed that they were not attacked by the US military and did not have offices in Germany. Some #ItalyGate posts have referred to this false theory and said that the information from “Rome to Frankfurt.”
On November 12, Chris Krebs, who campaigned for the protection of the 2020 election against hackers as head of the Department of Homeland Security’s cyber security and infrastructure agency (CISA), voted for 2020 ‘the safest in US history ‘(here). Five days later, President Trump fired Krebs, a lifelong Republican, in a message on Twitter, accusing him without proof that he had made a “highly inaccurate” statement confirming the November 3 election, and he allegations of fraud rejected (here).
The then Attorney General William Barr, U.S. Attorney General William Barr, said on Dec. 1 that the Department of Justice found no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the election, even as President Trump persisted in his shaky legal efforts to defeat him to reverse (here). Two weeks later, Barr (here) announced his resignation from the Trump administration.
USA Today also unleashed the #ItaliaGate theory here.
VERDICT
Untrue. There is no legal evidence that an employee of the Italian defense company Leonardo SpA interfered in the US presidential election in 2020.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here.