On Jan. 7, 2021, a group of forensics experts working for lawyers allied with President Donald Trump spent eight hours at a county elections office in southern Georgia, copying sensitive software and data from its voting machines.
Under questioning last month for a civil lawsuit, a former Georgia Republican Party official named Cathy Latham said in sworn testimony that she briefly stopped by the office in Coffee County that afternoon. She said she stayed in the foyer and spoke with a junior official about an unrelated matter at the front desk.
“I didn’t go into the office,” Latham said, according to a transcript of her deposition filed in court. She said she had seen in passing a pro-Trump businessman who was working with the experts. She said they chatted for “five minutes at most” — she could not remember the topic — and she left soon after for an early dinner with her husband.
Surveillance video footage reviewed by The Washington Post shows that Latham visited the elections office twice that day, staying for more than four hours in total. She greeted the businessman, Scott Hall, when he arrived and led him into a back area to meet the experts and local officials, the video shows. Over the course of the day, it shows, she moved in and out of an area where the experts from the data forensics firm, SullivanStrickler, were working, a part of that building that was not visible to the surveillance camera.
She took a selfie with one of the forensics experts before heading out at 6:19 p.m.
A Post examination found that elements of the account Latham gave in her deposition on the events of Jan. 6 and 7, 2021, appear to diverge from the footage and other evidence, including depositions and text messages. Many of those records, including Latham’s Aug. 8 deposition, were filed in a long-running federal civil court case involving election security in Georgia.
During the 2020 election and its aftermath, Latham was a member of the Georgia Republican Party’s executive committee and sat on its election confidence task force. She was also chairwoman of the Coffee County Republican Party. She was one of the “fake electors” who signed unauthorized certificates in a bid to keep Trump in power after his 2020 election defeat.
In response to questions from The Post, Latham’s lawyers said, “Failing to accurately remember the details of events from almost two years ago is not lying.” They have said she did not take part in the copying or in anything improper or illegal.
Her attorneys Robert D. Cheeley and Holly A. Pierson wrote in a court filing last week that the alleged security breach was “actually less of a breach or criminal undertaking and more of a permissible exercise of the County Elections Board’s authority.”
They wrote that “the parties involved plainly believed that they had the authority to authorize it and the authority to do it, and that belief seems to be at least reasonable and likely accurate, which negates any possible criminal intent.”
The surveillance footage shows that Latham appeared to introduce the SullivanStrickler team to local officials when they arrived that day. She then watched as they began looking at county voting equipment, it shows.
Digital forensics experts look at voting equipment
2:58
Coffee County, Ga. GOP Chairwoman Cathy Latham and digital forensics experts hired by lawyers allied with former president Trump on Jan. 7, 2021. (Video: Obtained by The Washington Post)
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation and a grand jury in Atlanta are probing the incident in Coffee County, a Republican stronghold about 200 miles south of Atlanta. Federal and state prosecutors are also investigating the “fake elector” scheme, in which Latham and dozens of other Republicans in battleground states signed certificates proclaiming Trump the rightful winner.
Under questioning last month for a civil lawsuit, a former Georgia Republican Party official named Cathy Latham said in sworn testimony that she briefly stopped by the office in Coffee County that afternoon. She said she stayed in the foyer and spoke with a junior official about an unrelated matter at the front desk.
“I didn’t go into the office,” Latham said, according to a transcript of her deposition filed in court. She said she had seen in passing a pro-Trump businessman who was working with the experts. She said they chatted for “five minutes at most” — she could not remember the topic — and she left soon after for an early dinner with her husband.
Surveillance video footage reviewed by The Washington Post shows that Latham visited the elections office twice that day, staying for more than four hours in total. She greeted the businessman, Scott Hall, when he arrived and led him into a back area to meet the experts and local officials, the video shows. Over the course of the day, it shows, she moved in and out of an area where the experts from the data forensics firm, SullivanStrickler, were working, a part of that building that was not visible to the surveillance camera.
She took a selfie with one of the forensics experts before heading out at 6:19 p.m.
A Post examination found that elements of the account Latham gave in her deposition on the events of Jan. 6 and 7, 2021, appear to diverge from the footage and other evidence, including depositions and text messages. Many of those records, including Latham’s Aug. 8 deposition, were filed in a long-running federal civil court case involving election security in Georgia.
During the 2020 election and its aftermath, Latham was a member of the Georgia Republican Party’s executive committee and sat on its election confidence task force. She was also chairwoman of the Coffee County Republican Party. She was one of the “fake electors” who signed unauthorized certificates in a bid to keep Trump in power after his 2020 election defeat.
In response to questions from The Post, Latham’s lawyers said, “Failing to accurately remember the details of events from almost two years ago is not lying.” They have said she did not take part in the copying or in anything improper or illegal.
Her attorneys Robert D. Cheeley and Holly A. Pierson wrote in a court filing last week that the alleged security breach was “actually less of a breach or criminal undertaking and more of a permissible exercise of the County Elections Board’s authority.”
They wrote that “the parties involved plainly believed that they had the authority to authorize it and the authority to do it, and that belief seems to be at least reasonable and likely accurate, which negates any possible criminal intent.”
The surveillance footage shows that Latham appeared to introduce the SullivanStrickler team to local officials when they arrived that day. She then watched as they began looking at county voting equipment, it shows.
Digital forensics experts look at voting equipment
2:58
Coffee County, Ga. GOP Chairwoman Cathy Latham and digital forensics experts hired by lawyers allied with former president Trump on Jan. 7, 2021. (Video: Obtained by The Washington Post)
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation and a grand jury in Atlanta are probing the incident in Coffee County, a Republican stronghold about 200 miles south of Atlanta. Federal and state prosecutors are also investigating the “fake elector” scheme, in which Latham and dozens of other Republicans in battleground states signed certificates proclaiming Trump the rightful winner.