Yesterday prosecutors in Florida took the unusual move of charging voting machine vendor Smartmatic with violating Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for a bribery/money-laundering scheme aimed at winning contracts overseas (Smartmatic currently only supplies voting machines in the US to Los Angeles County). Previously the feds had charged only three executives of the company. Charging a company is rare, so it raises questions of why the feds have added the company to the indictment. Last February, Trump paused all enforcement of the FCPA and ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to review all current cases being investigated/prosecuted under FCPA. Any cases allowed to continue after this have to be specifically authorized by the AG, suggesting that Bondi must have authorized adding Smartmatic to the indictment. I spoke with a former federal prosecutor who says charging Smartmatic may be political. Smartmatic is currently embroiled in lawsuits against Trump supporters after the President and allies accused the company of vote-rigging in the 2020 election to give Biden the win. Here's my piece about it.
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Voting Machine Company Smartmatic Charged in Federal Indictment That Previously Only Charged Executives
The Justice Department has filed charges for the first time against a voting machine company whose systems are used in Los Angeles County, one of t...