The legal effort by attorney Sidney Powell to overturn the election in President Trump’s favor hit another snag with the apparent disclosure of the identity of a code-named witness claiming to be a former military intelligence official.
Powell, a former federal prosecutor, told a federal court in Milwaukee on Wednesday she wants to have sealed the identity of “Spider,” who claims to have been an electronic intelligence analyst for the Arizona-based 305th Military Intelligence Battalion and a “white hat hacker.”
The only problem, as Reuters reporter Brad Heath pointed out on Twitter, is that the metadata in previous filings indicate the name behind the redaction is Josh Merritt.
It’s sweet to give witnesses cool codenames and stuff, but I don’t know how you can possibly move to seal somebody’s declaration — especially your cybersecurity expert! — when you’ve already done this:https://t.co/uQ3npgdsT8 pic.twitter.com/mTEQI5o3h8
— Brad Heath (@bradheath) December 9, 2020
Powell’s team did not immediately return a request for comment.
Spider, sometimes styled as “Spyder,” has written an affidavit used by Powell’s lawsuits in multiple states, including Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Powell said in filings that Spider’s identity has been withheld for “security reasons.” Spider alleges “Dominion Voting system and software are accessible — and was compromised by rogue actors, including foreign interference by Iran and China,” even though Spider does not say he has personally analyzed their machines, according to Business Insider.
So far, Powell’s legal challenges have been unsuccessful, and Dominion Voting Systems has vociferously denied being involved in a vote-switching shame, pointing to a joint statement released by Trump’s own Homeland Security department that asserted the 2020 election was “the most secure in American history,” adding, “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”
