Updated March 9, 2021 at 1245pm with statement from Michigan SoS
The Clerk of Antrim County, Michigan, tried to quietly close the only case that has resulted in a forensic examination of Dominion Systems voting machines in the country last week. The judge in the case, 13th Circuit Court Judge Kevin Elsenheimer quickly reinstated it.
County Clerk Sheryl Guy – without warning or explanation – quietly instructed county officials to dismiss and close the case last Wednesday. Elsenheimer reinstated the case the following day and issued two orders, one of which called Guy’s actions “improper.”
The attorney in the case, Matt DePerno, stressed that Guy, as county clerk, does have the authority to dismiss cases but says that authority is limited, and that the conditions that call for a case dismissal do not apply here.
“I want people to understand that the clerk of a county certainly does have the power to dismiss a case if a defendant has not been served with the summons and the complaint within the 90-day period that is allocated for that process,” DePerno told radio host Justin Barclay yesterday.
“But in this case there are over 100 docket filings. The county has filed an appearance, they’ve attended motions, they’ve filed pleadings, the Secretary of State intervened…everyone has been participating in discovery. This case is active and she would know that. This is black-letter law, very simple stuff. There’s 83 counties in Michigan and apparently 82 of those clerks understand the rule and one of them doesn’t,” he adds.
Guy’s actions appear all the more brazen when one considers she has actually been named a material witness in the case. According to DePerno her deposition is about to be scheduled and her office has already received numerous discovery requests. The information requested relates to IT data that includes IP addresses, ISP information and connection logs for all of the computers in the county.
ITN has reached out to the office of Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson for comment. We have asked whether she agrees Guy’s actions were improper and whether she believes Guy should recuse herself from all activities related to the case going forward. We received the following reply: “Hi Mike, As this is related to pending litigation, we do not have a comment at this time, Thank you.”
Antrim County Clerk Sheryl Guy (via 100PercentFedUp)
A forensic examination of Dominion Systems voting machines in Antrim County found that they produce an error rate on ballots that is exponentially higher than what is allowed under federal regulations. That examination concluded the error rate is deliberate and that it allows for a large number of ballots to be adjudicated, or counted, manually by local officials with little to no oversight.
Troublingly, DePerno also reveals that he is currently under “investigation” from his financial institution, PNC Bank, for accepting donations to help fund the case. PNC has threatened to close all of his accounts for his affiliation.
A request for comment from PNC on why they feel it necessary to threaten the accounts of a lawyer participating in a case that a circuit court judge believes has merit has gone unanswered.
“That’s the state we live in right now,” DePerno says. “It’s scary in many ways. It’s unconstitutional in other ways. And there’s always a question of where this comes from. Who’s putting the pressure on PNC Bank to make a move like this? It’s unprecedented. It’s very scary times.”
Anyone interested in donating to DePerno’s efforts can do so on his website here.