USPS Inspector General’s Report on 2020 Election: Read It For Yourself

Sit down for this, it might come as a shock, but it turns out the USPS worker cited by James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas, Senator Lindsay Graham, and others as proof of vote by mail fraud has admitted to lying. That’s the conclusion of the USPS inspector general’s report on the alleged fraud in 2020 election in Pennsylvania.

U.S. Postal Service investigators found no evidence to support a Pennsylvania postal worker’s claim that his supervisors had tampered with mail-in ballots, according to an USPS inspector general’s report — allegations cited by top Republicans to press baseless claims of fraud in the presidential election.

Richard Hopkins, a mail carrier in Erie, alleged in November that he overheard the local postmaster discussing plans to backdate ballots received after the Nov. 3 vote and pass them off to election officials as legitimate. Working with Project Veritas, a nonprofit entity that seeks to expose what it says is bias in the mainstream news media, Hopkins publicly released a sworn affidavit recounting those allegations.

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) cited Hopkins’s claim in a letter to the Justice Department in November calling for a federal investigation into election results in Pennsylvania, where Joe Biden beat President Donald Trump by more than 81,000 votes, and Democratic candidates outperformed GOP challengers in votes submitted by mail.

Graham and many other congressional Republicans refused to accept the outcome of the election for weeks, even after states audited and certified results.

Then-Attorney General William P. Barr subsequently authorized federal prosecutors to open investigations into credible allegations of voting irregularities and fraud before results were certified, a reversal of long-standing Justice Department policy.

Postal worker recanted allegations of ballot tampering, officials say

But Hopkins soon recanted, officials from the Postal Service’s Office of Inspector General told members of Congress on Nov. 10, and the new investigation confirmed. In an interview with federal agents, Hopkins “revised his initial claims, eventually stating that he had not heard a conversation about ballots at all — rather he saw the Postmaster and Supervisor having a discussion and assumed it was about fraudulent ballot backdating,” the report states.

Hopkins “acknowledged that he had no evidence of any backdated presidential ballots and could not recall any specific words said by the postmaster or supervisor,” according to the report, which was published by the inspector general’s office in late February and posted Monday to the blog 21st Century Postal Worker.

The Erie postmaster, Rob Weisenbach, called the allegations “100% false” in a Facebook post in November and said they were made “by an employee that was recently disciplined multiple times.”

“The Erie Post Office did not back date any ballots,” Weisenbach wrote.

Hopkins’s name is redacted in the investigative report, but the document refers extensively to his claim and involvement with Project Veritas and the group’s founder, James O’Keefe.

Hopkins has been suspended without pay since Nov. 10, according to a person with knowledge of the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential personnel matters. A disciplinary letter to Hopkins from a Postal Service supervisor states that Hopkins’s “actions may have placed employees and yourself as well as the reputation of the U.S. Postal Service in harm’s way,” the person said.

Read the whole USPS inspector general report that finds no evidence of claims of ballot fraud here: