Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and her staff, who are representing Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, argued that these investigators “knowingly accepted their role” in the case and asserted that there is “simply no such thing as an anonymous expert.”

Nessel and her team said they would agree to an order that would keep the home addresses and contact information of the investigators confidential, but not their names.

“Simply put, plaintiff — having already eaten his cake — wants to have it, too. He wants the public to be able to read the report, but not know who was responsible for creating it. But the public should be allowed to know upon whose word plaintiff bases his claims, and whom he asks the public to believe,” state attorneys said.

A hearing on the request for a protective order is set for Jan. 11, according to court records.

Trump’s legal team, led by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, drew attention to Antrim County when it was reported that thousands of votes were erroneously tabulated, temporarily, for Biden instead of Trump. Antrim County Clerk Sheryl Guy, a Republican, claimed responsibility for the snafu, blamed on a failure to upload a software update to all the county’s Dominion tabulators.

Still, scrutiny of the small northern Michigan county was drawn out thanks to the legal challenge by Antrim County resident William Bailey against a local marijuana retailer proposal that passed by a slim margin following a retabulation not factoring in three damaged ballots. Michigan Circuit Court Judge Kevin Elsenheimer allowed what was described as a “forensic audit” of Dominion equipment by the plaintiff and later permitted the release of their report with few redactions.

Russell Ramsland Jr., the co-founder of the Dallas-area Allied Security Operations Group, signed his name to the report that claimed there was an error rate of 68.05% that is far above the “allowable election error rate established by the Federal Election Commission guidelines” at 0.0008% and “demonstrated a significant and fatal error in security and election integrity.” DePerno has spoken to Gateway Pundit, a far-right news website, which reported that “seven highly trained forensic IT experts” made up the team he assembled.

Dominion, which began as a Canadian company that was later incorporated in the United States, denies that it is controlled by any foreign national or any involvement in a vote-switching scheme as alleged by Trump’s allies, such as attorney Sidney Powell, and the report produced by the Allied Security Operations Group.

High-level members of Trump’s own government, including former Attorney General William Barr, said they have not seen evidence to support claims of widespread voter fraud. The Homeland Security Department’s cybersecurity agency released a joint statement declaring: “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”

Trump tweeted in response to a media report on the findings from the ASOG: “WOW. This report shows massive fraud. Election changing result!”

John Poulos, the CEO of Dominion, voluntarily testified under oath before the Michigan Senate’s Oversight Committee on Dec. 15. He condemned the characterization of his company’s machines by the report and said the election fraud claims made about Dominion are “complete lies.” He also testified that the ASOG is a “biased, nonindependent organization” and that the report was “categorically false and technically incomprehensible.” Poulos told CNN on Thursday that a flurry of defamation lawsuits are imminent a day after the company’s legal team sent notices to Giuliani and White House counsel Pat Cipollone, instructing them to preserve all records.

Ramsland is a former congressional candidate from Texas who made headlines in recent weeks because of an affidavit championed by the Trump legal team claiming widespread voter fraud in Michigan that was found to have cited precincts in Minnesota. He told Newsmax in a recent interview that he hoped Trump would act on the findings from the Dominion examination.

“I think that there is going to be some information coming forth in the next few days that is going to drastically change the playing field,” he told host Greg Kelly, a staunch supporter of Trump’s election challenges. Ramsland also said there is “tons of evidence” of election irregularities but claimed the courts have chosen to ignore it across the country.

In addition, Ramsland claimed “log evidence” in the report, hidden under the redactions required by the judge, is what would show suspicious activity by a Dominion algorithm, “massive” error messages, and down-ballot contests being flipped, including with the local marijuana proposal on which the legal challenge in Antrim County is based. “What are these people so afraid of?” he asked.

An audit conducted last week affirmed Trump’s victory in Antrim County, with the president getting a net gain of 12 votes out of 15,962 cast. “Dominion’s voting machines accurately tabulated votes cast for President. Now it’s time for the disinformation campaigns to end, and for all leaders to unequivocally affirm the Nov election was secure, accurate & fair,” Benson wrote in a tweet.

Trump’s minimal gains had no bearing on the state of the race, as Biden won Michigan and its 16 Electoral College votes by roughly 150,000 ballots, but Trump and his allies have pointed to examinations of Dominion machinery as a potential wild card. This includes in Maricopa County, Arizona, where GOP lawmakers are waging a legal battle to gain access to voting machines and records.

Last week, Trump huddled at the White House with conservative lawmakers who are planning a long-shot bid to object when the House and Senate meet on Jan. 6 to certify the Electoral College results.