Of course when people are afraid that they might die from some extremely deadly outbreak, they are far more likely to accept measures that they would usually not even consider during normal times.

In the Northeast, there is a tremendous amount of concern about the Eastern Equine Encephalitis virus right now.  People in Massachusetts have been instructed to “limit their time outdoors” due to a confirmed case in that state, and now confirmed cases have appeared in Vermont and New Hampshire…

Last week, it was reported that an 80-year-old man in Massachusetts tested positive for the rare virus, sparking public health concerns.

Officials then discovered the disease in mosquitoes across the state and warned residents to limit their time outdoors.

The virus then started appearing in neighboring states, with cases popping up in Vermont and New Hampshire, where the unidentified victim was pronounced dead.

It is being reported that this virus “has also been found in horses in eight New York counties”.

So this virus is already in at least four different states, and that is not good news at all, because it has a very high death rate in humans…

Approximately 30 percent of those infected with the virus die, and those who survive, are often left with neurologic problems. There are no vaccines or medicines to treat or prevent the disease.

Usually, cases of Eastern Equine Encephalitis are quite rare.

But if hundreds of people start dying after catching this virus in the months ahead, we are going to see extreme panic.

Due to fears of Eastern Equine Encephalitis and an outbreak of West Nile virus, New York City is preparing “to spray pesticides to help prevent the spread of mosquitoes”…

New York City is planning to spray pesticides to help prevent the spread of mosquitoes, and potential diseases.

The announcement comes days after Dr Anthony Fauci, former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director and the government’s top infectious disease official during the pandemic, was hospitalized with West Nile virus.

Dr Fauci, 83, spent around a week in the hospital after developing fever, chills, and severe fatigue. He believes he contracted West Nile in the backyard of his Washington DC home, and is expected to make a full recovery, CBS News’ chief medical correspondent Dr. Jonathan LaPook tweeted on Saturday.

So now the entire Big Apple is going to be doused with dangerous chemicals in a desperate attempt to kill the mosquitoes that are carrying these diseases.

If you live in New York City, now may be a good time to take a vacation.

Meanwhile, scientists are warning that the new Monkeypox strain is mutating faster than they anticipated…

Scientists studying the new mpox strain that has spread out of Democratic Republic of Congo say the virus is changing faster than expected, and often in areas where experts lack the funding and equipment to properly track it.

That means there are numerous unknowns about the virus itself, its severity and how it is transmitting, complicating the response, half a dozen scientists in Africa, Europe and the United States told Reuters.

So far they have had no luck fighting the outbreak that is absolutely ravaging the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Sadly, the number of cases and the total death toll both continue to rise…

Congo has had more than 18,000 suspected mpox cases and 615 deaths this year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), which declared an mpox health emergency this month after a new variant called clade Ib emerged.

There have now been confirmed cases in several neighboring countries, and travelers have brought it to Europe and Asia.

In 2022, a strain of Monkeypox that was being spread by sexual contact rapidly spread all over the globe.

Apparently this new strain often spreads without any sexual contact at all, and we are being told that children are being infected in very large numbers…

Children in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo are worst-affected by the current outbreak of mpox, which has been declared a public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organization. The country accounts for nearly all of this year’s recorded cases and more than 450 deaths.

“It began like a small, inflamed spot. The mother squeezed it and watery discharge came out. Then another developed, and after a short period, they were all over the body,” says Alain Matabaro, describing how mpox developed in his six-year-old son Amani.

At this point, the experts do not fully understand why so many children are being infected.

One theory that is being proposed is that it is because children have “less developed immune systems”…

Some 75% of the cases being seen by medics there are under the age of 10, according to Dr Pierre-Olivier Ngadjole who works for the charity Medair.

Young people seem to be particularly badly affected by the mpox outbreak because of their less developed immune systems.

If this new strain of monkeypox starts infecting children all over the western world, there will be widespread panic and we will likely see very harsh lockdowns.

Speaking of that, it is being reported that a school in Alabama and a school in Tennessee were just temporarily shut down because too many kids were catching COVID…

Schools in two states experiencing a rise in Covid cases announced they were closing facilities and switching to remote learning.

Alabama and Tennessee announced the closure of two schools — affecting more than a thousand children — just days into the new academic year, with officials saying the virus had forced them to shut and carry out a ‘deep clean.’

At one of the schools, children had to abandon their desks and revert to remote learning for two days — a move reminiscent of the early days of Covid.

Why is this happening?

I thought that we agreed that we weren’t going to do this anymore.

Right now there are lots of news stories about how COVID is making a major comeback, but most Americans are not buying it.

By now, just about everyone understands that it has an extremely low death rate.

However, it is just a matter of time before a horrifying worldwide pandemic that has a very high death rate comes along.

When that day arrives, the panic that we have seen during the past several years will pale in comparison to what we will witness.

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

Credit cards are not the issue. In fact, the victims whose identities are being used to funnel in donations aren’t even being charged from their own accounts. Large bundles of cash come in, then are distributed as small donations through unsuspecting “donors.” Adding this new security requirement does absolutely nothing to impact the funneling operation. So to us, this is nowhere near being a win. It’s just action so Republican lawmakers can pretend like they’re doing something. With that said, here’s the article…

(The Epoch Times)—ActBlue agreed to tighten its donation security requirements, according to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who, along with other Republican-controlled states and a congressional committee, is investigating the Democratic fundraising platform.

Paxton said in an Aug. 8 statement that ActBlue has cooperated with the Texas investigation and will now require CVV codes for credit card contributions.

One primary focus of the Texas probe launched in December 2023 involved ActBlue’s failure to require donors to provide CVV codes, which are numerical codes printed on credit cards commonly used to combat credit card fraud.

“ActBlue has been the subject of numerous allegations of illicit activity, including that its platform may enable fraud,” the statement said.

Paxton said his office issued a supplemental civil investigative demand in his ongoing probe to obtain additional information relevant to allegations of wrongdoing regarding ActBlue.

Enforcing the law surrounding elections and campaign contributions is critical, he said.

“Certain features of campaign finance law may incentivize bad actors to use platforms like ActBlue to covertly move money to political campaigns to evade legal requirements,” Paxton said.

State attorneys general from Virginia, Wyoming, and Missouri have launched similar investigations into ActBlue.

ActBlue has denied wrongdoing.

“This investigation is nothing more than a partisan political attack and scare tactic to undermine the power of Democratic and progressive small-dollar donors,” the organization said in a statement on Aug. 2 as Virginia announced its investigation.

Republicans have resorted to “political attacks and spreading false accusations” because they can’t accept that millions of Democrats are donating, according to the group’s statement.

ActBlue did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times.

On the federal level, Rep. Bryan Steil, (R-Wis.) chairman of the House Administration Committee, initiated a probe into ActBlue last fall amid allegations it facilitated illegal contributions to political committees nationwide.

In an Aug. 5 news release, Steil asked the FEC to require political campaigns to verify online donors’ CVV codes and stop taking donations via prepaid credit cards and gift cards.

In March 2023, O’Keefe Media Group reported that senior citizens in Maryland and elsewhere denied making all the donations attributed to them in Federal Election Commission records.

Donors contacted by O’Keefe Media Group said they made political contributions to ActBlue but had no knowledge of making what amounted to thousands of donations—with some totaling more than $200,000— in a few years.

The media group found similar anomalies in data from WinRed, a Republican platform similar to ActBlue. The House Administration Committee does not appear to be investigating the WinRed fundraising organization.

The Associated Press and Epoch Times reporter Samantha Flom contributed to this report.

Congress decided three decades ago that transparency is an essential component of any election infrastructure. That’s why the National Voter Registration Act, usually called “Motor Voter,” deemed all records related to who is eligible and not eligible to vote to be public records–except in six states. These records include voter rolls, removal records of individuals who were found to not be citizens of the United States and many more key records that often reveal mistakes by election officials.

Transparency in election administration allows the public to understand the activities of officials who grant and remove voting rights. Making the list-maintenance process public increases trust and confidence in our electoral process. Transparency enables the public to see when election officials are making mistakes. It also allows voters who are improperly removed from the rolls to find out why.

Six states—New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Wyoming, North Dakota and Idaho—get a pass from the transparency obligation.

It is a bedrock principle of our federal system that all states should be treated equally, particularly when it comes to how elections are run. States would not have joined the union if some states had to comply with federal laws and others could ignore them.

So why these six states? They offered same-day voter registration or did not even have voter registration, 31 years ago.

Today, states that have same-day registration don’t enjoy the transparency exemption. Worse, everything about election administration has changed since 1993. Exempting states from federal transparency obligations based on 1993 circumstances no longer is congruent and proportional with current circumstances in 2024.

I used the words congruent and proportional for a reason. That’s what the Supreme Court has held congressional actions must be when important federalist principles are violated. States cannot be treated unequally unless there is a very good reason, and reasons from 1993 shouldn’t count in 2024.

Our lawsuits in both Minnesota and Wisconsin seek records under the public information provisions of the National Voter Registration Act. Those states will claim they don’t have to comply with federal law to release public records. That’s the problem, not the defense.

The Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holder held that sometimes laws that upset the equal treatment of states go too far. In Shelby, the Court ruled that the federal system presumes that states enjoy equal sovereignty.  If Congress treats one state different than others, especially in election law obligations, the differential treatment must “make sense in light of current conditions.”

Offering same-day voter registration in 1993 should not have been a reason to be exempt from transparency in the voter list maintenance process. States with same-day voter registration still routinely grant and remove voting rights through the voter registration and voter list maintenance process. Congress’s intent to make this process transparent applied equally to the states, including those with same-day registration.

The world has changed since 1993. In 2024, 20 states and the District of Columbia offer same-day voter registration. Yet only 13 of those states and D.C. are subject to the election transparency requirements of the National Voter Registration Act.

At the heart of the matter is that states should be treated equally under the law and these arbitrary exemptions violate federal law.

America could use a little transparency and trust right now in election administration.

J. Christian Adams is a current commissioner on the United States Commission on Civil Rights, a former Justice Department Voting Section attorney, and the president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact [email protected].

According to the Census Bureau, 43 percent of American voters cast ballots by mail in 2020, double the 21 percent who did so in 2016.

While 2020 was an exceptional year because of the government’s response to the COVID-19 virus, the United States is nonetheless experiencing a longer-term transition to an absentee ballot system from an in-person system. Currently, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia have “mostly mail voting” systems, according to an analysis by the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL).

And while the 2020 election saw record levels of voter turnout, the shift away from traditional voting methods also coincides with a decline in trust in America’s electoral system. An October 2023 poll by the Public Affairs Council, found that only 37 percent of Americans believe the 2024 elections will be both “honest and open,” while 43 percent expressed “serious doubts” about election integrity.

This loss of trust raises the question of whether the problem stems from losing candidates charging that the elections were stolen from them, or from America transitioning to a system that prioritizes convenience from one that prioritized integrity.

Many pundits claim there is no tradeoff between the two and government officials, notably the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, called the 2020 election “the most secure in American history.”

However,, a large number of Americans, particularly Republican and Independent voters, remain unconvinced.

The NCSL cautions that “if a voter is marking a ballot at home, and not in the presence of election officials, there may be more opportunity for coercion by family members or others.”

According to a recent NCSL study, 28 states, including the key swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, currently offer “no-excuse” absentee voting, which means that any voter can request and cast an absentee ballot without offering a reason.

In addition, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, and Washington, D.C., automatically mail absentee ballots to all voters.

In the remaining 15 states, voters must provide an acceptable excuse (such as illness or disability, or being overseas on Election Day) to qualify for an absentee ballot.

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank that keeps a running tally of proven cases of voter fraud, has documented more than 1,500 cases to date and 1,276 criminal convictions.

“Each and every one of the cases in this database represents an instance in which a public official, usually a prosecutor, thought it serious enough to act upon it,” the report states. “And each and every one ended in a finding that the individual had engaged in wrongdoing in connection with an election hoping to affect its outcome—or that the results of an election were sufficiently in question and had to be overturned.”

According to Hans von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, the numbers cited in the report are probably an understatement.

“The thing about these 1,500 cases is that they’re clearly just the tip of the iceberg because fraud is very hard to detect,” he told The Epoch Times. “A lot of times it’s just found by accident, particularly in a state like New York or California where there’s no voter ID requirement at all.”

Many of these cases cited in the report involved the fraudulent use of absentee ballots. In the case of one Michigan resident who was convicted of voter fraud, “an employee at an assisted living facility, completed roughly two dozen absentee voter applications, forging individual signatures of residents.”

However, the left-leaning Brennan Center for Justice, an affiliate of New York University, criticized what it said was the “myth of voter fraud.”

“Politicians at all levels of government have repeatedly, and falsely, claimed the 2016, 2018, and 2020 elections were marred by large numbers of people voting illegally,” the institute said in a report. “However, extensive research reveals that fraud is very rare, voter impersonation is virtually nonexistent, and many instances of alleged fraud are, in fact, mistakes by voters or administrators.

“The same is true for mail ballots, which are secure and essential to holding a safe election amid the coronavirus pandemic,” its report states.

In the manic weeks following the 2020 election, data analytics expert Ken Block, president of Simpatico Software Systems, was hired by the Trump campaign to data-mine for voter fraud in the key states of Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and find “factual, hard evidence that can underpin successful legal challenges.”

“It started with assessing the deceased voters and duplicate voters,” Mr. Block told The Epoch Times. “We looked at every single mail-in ballot cast in the swing states, looking for deceased voters.

”We found, in terms of actual deceased voters that we could confirm through data, a couple of dozen.”

Mr. Block said he found a small number of people who voted twice, typically wealthy individuals who had two residences, but the cases of detected fraud were not nearly enough to sway the election. He was also asked by the Trump campaign to investigate various “hearsay claims” of voter fraud.

“We looked at every single voter fraud claim, and I was able to show with evidence and proof why it was flawed, or just completely wrong in the first place, and those findings were accepted by [President Trump’s] lawyers,” he said. “I think it’s crucially important that everybody understands how hard we looked and how important it was, from a legal standpoint, that the claims of fraud that I evaluated were looked at as hard, if not harder than the defense attorneys who would be fending off these lawsuits.”

And yet, despite all efforts to assure the public that elections are sound, many Americans continue to suspect that something is amiss.

While some instances of voter fraud may be detectable in data and audits, others, such as whether voters are noncitizens, or engaging in ballot harvesting, or illicitly filling out ballots on behalf of others, are more difficult to detect unless witnessed in person or caught on camera.

A particular issue with mail-in ballots is the proliferation of ballot drop-off boxes since 2020, few of which are monitored.

According to Mollie Hemingway, editor-in-chief of The Federalist, and others who analyzed the 2020 election, the funding and locations of many ballot drop boxes in 2020 was directed by an organization called the Center for Tech and Civic Life, backed by hundreds of millions of dollars from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Ms. Hemingway argued in her book, “Rigged,” that the donations from Mr. Zuckerberg, called “Zuck Bucks,” were partisan and focused on swing states.

The influence of private money in state electoral systems has only heightened the suspicions of many Americans.

A 2021 report from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Election Lab states that “even many scholars who argue that fraud is generally rare agree that fraud with VBM [vote-by-mail] voting seems to be more frequent than with in-person voting.

“There are two major features of VBM that raise these concerns,” the report states. “First, the ballot is cast outside the public eye, and thus the opportunities for coercion and voter impersonation are greater.

“Second, the transmission path for VBM ballots is not as secure as traditional in-person ballots. These concerns relate both to ballots being intercepted and ballots being requested without the voter’s permission.”

The report cites, among others, the case of a campaign manager in a North Carolina congressional race who collected empty mail-in ballots and then filled them in for his own candidate. Ultimately, that led to the election being overturned.

A recent study by the Heartland Institute infers from a voter survey that mail-in ballot fraud likely occurred in large enough numbers to have swayed the 2020 presidential election.

The study found that, in swing states, mail-in votes in 2020 heavily favored candidate Joe Biden, typically outnumbering mail-in votes for President Donald Trump by 2 to 1. Based on a 2023 survey of 1,000 voters conducted jointly with Rasmussen Reports, Heartland found that 28 percent of respondents said that they had voted in a way that could be illegal, including filling out ballots for others, forging signatures, or voting in states where they weren’t permanent residents.

By removing 28 percent of mail-in ballots from both candidates in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, Heartland calculated that Trump would have won the Electoral College, 311–227.

Critics of this study have countered that the framing of the questions may have confused those being surveyed. Filling out ballots for others, for example in the case of a blind or disabled family member, isn’t always illegal.

Critics also questioned whether respondents to the survey may have confused request forms to receive mail-in ballots—to which the voter fraud issues don’t apply—with the actual ballots themselves.

To allow for error, however, Heartland reduced the number of disqualified votes to 3 percent from 28 percent and calculated that President Trump would still have won the Electoral College, 279–259.

“It’s not worth re-litigating the 2020 election,” Jack McPherrin, a research editor at the Heartland Institute and one of the study’s authors, told The Epoch Times. But he says that claiming the 2020 election was the most secure in U.S. history is “a pretty ridiculous assertion.”

“This analysis was not done to say Trump is our rightful president,” Mr. McPherrin said. “This analysis was done to show that the 2020 election was tainted by mail-in ballot fraud so that we can fix it moving forward.

“It just provides a great avenue for fraud because there are so few restrictions and policies in place to prevent it,” he said. “Those policies were intentionally relaxed in 2020 in many states, and that opened the floodgates for fraud to occur.”

Asked how he could reconcile his findings with investigations that indicated voter fraud was exceedingly rare, he said that “mail-in ballot fraud is extremely difficult to prove.”

One aspect of mass mail-in voting that causes particular concern is ballot harvesting, or the process of private citizens or organizations collecting and submitting ballots on behalf of others, outside of the supervision of election officials.

According to a 2022 report authored by Mr. von Spakovsky, the potential for voter fraud “is made worse in the many states like California that allow vote trafficking, which proponents of mail-in voting call ‘vote harvesting’ because that sounds better.”

Every state allows absentee ballots to be mailed back or delivered personally to election officials by voters, their immediate family members, or a designated caregiver, he notes.

“But vote-trafficking states allow any third-party stranger to go to voters’ homes to pick up and deliver their ballot,” the report states.

“In other words, these states give political actors with a stake in the outcome of the election the ability to handle a very valuable commodity—the ballots that can ensure the victory (or defeat) … of the candidates who they work for and support, giving them the opportunity to complete, alter, or simply fail to deliver those ballots.”

Advocates of mail-in voting counter that states that have all-mail elections typically require voters to sign the envelope in which the ballot is mailed and then match it with the signature in the state’s voter rolls. In addition, they say, many counties place bar codes on ballot envelopes that can be tracked by the U.S. Postal Service.

How bar codes would track votes in the case of ballot drop boxes is unclear, however. And according to the NCSL, only 31 states verify signatures on mail-in ballots, and 10 states and Washington, D.C., verify that a mail-in ballot envelope has been signed but don’t conduct signature verification.

With the November election fast approaching, what can be done to restore trust among American voters so that, whoever wins, the result is accepted by both parties as legitimate and fair?

Mr. von Spakovsky has proposed systematic election audits as one solution. Typically, he said, post-election analyses amount to hand recounts of ballots, but don’t verify if all ballots cast were legitimate.

He proposes pre-election audits of voter rolls to ensure that all registered voters are eligible to vote. He also proposes, among other things, equipment audits to ensure voting machines are accurate, procedure audits to ensure that election laws were followed, and chain-of-custody audits for ballots.

While it may be impractical to conduct full audits of every voting district, Mr. von Spakovsky proposed a model adopted in Texas where a minimum number of randomly selected districts are audited each election cycle, and additional audits conducted where credible cases of malfeasance have been charged.

Election audits have received some pushback from Democrats, Mr. von Spakovsky said. The Biden administration initially sued to block the process of post-election audits, claiming that it was voter intimidation and a violation of the Voting Rights Act.

“I think that was a purely partisan decision,” he said. To date, the Justice Department hasn’t pursued this claim further.

Many also propose tightening up ID requirements, despite the objections of organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Brennan Center, which consider it voter suppression.

“We strongly recommend that a state not only have ID requirements for in-person voting, but that they also have it for absentee balloting,” Mr. von Spakovsky said. “While a family member might have the ID of someone that they’re voting for in their family, it might make it more difficult for strangers to be able to do that.”

Currently, seven states require the signature of a witness on absentee ballots, in addition to the voter’s signature, and three states—Mississippi, Missouri, and Oklahoma—require the absentee ballot envelope to be notarized. In Arkansas, a copy of the voter’s ID must be returned with the absentee/mail ballot.

Proof of U.S. citizenship is another area where illegal voting is hard to detect, as there are no nationwide databases of citizenship. Audits to confirm citizenship sometimes rely on purchases of data banks from credit agencies, but that would not include those who do not have loans or credit cards, including many students.

This is complicated by the fact that many states provide driver licenses to noncitizens, and some states allow noncitizens to vote in local elections.

In addition, a 2013 Supreme Court ruling in the case of Arizona v. Intertribal Council of Arizona barred states from requiring proof of U.S. citizenship in federal elections. According to the decision, states can “require only that an applicant aver, under penalty of perjury, that he is a citizen.”

According to Mr. Block, another challenge that the electoral system faces is the sheer variety of voting regulations, not only among states, but among counties as well. There are more than 5,000 different voting jurisdictions across the United States, he said.

“We have a basic framework problem in the way that we’re organized and the infrastructure that we have,” he said. “It lacks the basic things we need for integrity in terms of ensuring people can’t vote twice, ensuring that deceased voters are efficiently removed from voter rolls, etc.”

Given that there is now less than a year before the election begins, analysts say that the 2024 election will likely proceed under election rules and systems that are similar to those in 2020, despite the absence of a pandemic. And if the election is close, as many expect it will be, many will continue to mistrust the outcome.

Mr. McPherrin argues the United States is capable of going back to a system where the majority of people, on election day present ID, vote in person, and the country knows the results by the next day.

“It’s absurd to think we can’t do that,” he said. “We’ve done that many times in the past and we can continue to do that moving forward; we just need to revert back to the systems that we had in place in 2016, 2012, and 2008.

“What can be more important than ensuring election security in a democratic republic?” Mr. McPherrin said. “I can’t think of a single other thing that’s more important because it’s the foundation of our entire constitutional republic, and without secure elections, we will not have a functioning democratic republic for much longer.”

Attorneys for Michael Roman, a former Trump campaign aide, filed a motion on Jan.8 alleging that Willis, who hired Nathan Wade to help prosecute the former president, was in a romantic relationship with Wade. Habba criticized Willis and other attorneys involved in what she called “politically motivated” legal actions against Trump.

“She had her friend, alleged boyfriend, whatever it is, now being paid and is involved here on a politically motivated election interference case that we know President Trump did nothing wrong,” Habba told Fox News host Martha MacCallum. “These cases were brought in a very timely manner. We’ve seen it time and time again.”

Willis secured a 13-count indictment against Trump and other defendants, including Romans, in August over the former president’s efforts to contest the results of the 2020 election in that state.

“I think there’s a general concern in this country right now and this sheds light on that, Martha, in that we’re appointing these individuals to positions of power, where they have access to taxpayer money and they’re selecting cases to become more famous, not do the right thing,” Habba continued. “And then we see this slew of corruption that comes down including this story. And it’s a complete revelation that Americans should be used to at this point, but we have to clean up. It’s disgusting and if the allegations are true, she’s going to have her hands full with ethics issues and other things.”

Wade was paid over $600,000 for his work as a special prosecutor. Willis also reportedly gave contracts to Wade’s law partner, Christopher Campbell, that netted their firm over $120,000, according to court documents reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Wade reportedly earned $250 an hour while working on the case against Trump, compared to $200 for a RICO expert, according to billing records obtained by the DCNF. Other documents obtained by the DCNF show that John Floyd, the RICO expert Willis hired, was initially paid $150 an hour.

Habba compared Willis to Democratic Attorney General Letitia James of New York, who campaigned on investigating Trump and the National Rifle Association. James brought civil fraud charges against Trump in New York over loans he obtained for his business, and is seeking over $370 million from the former President.

“If you look at the motivation, look at the fact that they campaigned on it, it’s like the case that I have in New York with Letitia James,” Habba said. “This case was tainted from the start. It should never have been brought. My client did absolutely nothing wrong.”

“The fact of the timing, who brought it, state level, never mind all of the other things that we’re seeing come out that show absolute corruption,” Habba continued. “It’s all planned, it’s election interference. The case should not stand. It should be completely wiped away and dismissed.”

Willis did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the DCNF.

In a WND video interview (embedded below), Epstein contended, however, that his ever-growing, unique “Nielsen rating-type” system of monitoring Google’s manipulation of search results provides the solid evidence needed to stop the Big Tech behemoth in its tracks. In the meantime, he said, the novel “Brave New World” has come to life.

“This is power that’s never existed before in human history. This is power that the worst dictators in history could have only dreamt of,” Epstein told WND. “But this is real. This is occurring now.”

Epstein recalled a lesser-known theme in President Dwight Eisenhower’s famous “military-industrial complex” farewell address in 1961, warning of a “technological elite” that could control public policy without the public’s knowledge.

The technological elite is now in power, he said, but there are ways to counter its tactics through technology itself. By the end of 2023, he plans to have a “massive monitoring system” – a “digital shield” – in place with at least 20,000 field agents across 50 states.

“We will be monitoring in real time, and we will be exposing every single anomaly that we find,” he said, adding that “sunlight is the best disinfect.”

Epstein, a research psychologist for four decades, has served in various editorial positions at Psychology Today magazine and Scientific American MIND. He’s the author of 15 books and more than 300 scientific and mainstream articles on artificial intelligence and other topics. He currently is a research psychologist at the non-profit American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology in Vista, California. His work can be seen at MyGoogleResearch.com.

‘To do what we want them to do’

A 2016 Hillary Clinton supporter, Epstein in 2012 discovered what he calls the Search Engine Manipulation Effect (SEME), which describes a change in consumer and voting preferences through search engines, as WND reported in an interview story in 2018. His first scientific paper on SEME was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2015. SEME, he noted, also has been replicated by a research team at one of the Max Planck Institutes in Germany.

He observes SEME by “looking over the shoulder” of the volunteer field agents, who allow their searches to be monitored, similar to how Nielsen monitors TV viewing habits. Their “ephemeral experiences” online – including search results – are captured before they disappear.

In 2016, his team recorded 13,000 searches on Google, Bing and Yahoo, and found that Google – and not the others – was generating results in Hillary Clinton’s favor through its search algorithm. He estimated the impact was 2.6 million to as many 10.4 million votes shifted to the Democratic candidate, without anyone knowing. In 2020, his team – expanding the scope to YouTube, Facebook and others – preserved 1.5 million searches, estimating some 6 million votes were shifted in favor of Joe Biden, for whom he voted.

Epstein emphasizes that not only does such a system of social engineering exist, there’s evidence Google is intentionally deploying it.

In July 2019, for example, a senior software engineer at Google admitted the company is not politically neutral and that it manipulates search algorithms “to do what we want them to do.” Epstein also noted that Google internal emails leaked to the Wall Street Journal showed the company deliberately created “ephemeral experiences” to change people’s views about Trump’s ban on travel from terrorist nations.

Epstein doubts that lawmakers will make a serious attempt to take on Big Tech, with Democrats “lavishly” supplied with Google cash – 95% of Big Tech donations go to Democrats – and Republicans having a distaste for regulation. In any case, regulation moves at a snail’s pace, he said, arguing tech needs to be fought with tech, and his scientific evidence can be used in lawsuits.

“I’m in touch with some state AGs and some other officials who are champing at the bit,” he said. “They’re just waiting to use the kind of data that we are collecting to go after these people.”

The RNC, he noted, recently sued Google, alleging the company suppressed tens of millions of emails.

“I doubt that the RNC has strong evidence,” he said. “But we do. And we can, over time, be monitoring that 24-7.”

‘Fact checking’

Epstein recalled to WND that on Oct. 30, 2020, just before the Nov. 3 election, a New York Post reporter wrote a story about “election rigging” featuring his work. But a Post editor did some “fact checking” – which, said Epstein, likely meant he contacted a Google official – and killed the story. Significantly, only two weeks before that, the Post confronted Twitter after it suppressed the paper’s blockbuster Biden-family influence peddling stories.

“So, they weren’t afraid of Twitter. But Twitter was only sending them 3% of their traffic,” said Epstein. “But at that time Google was sending them about 45% of their traffic.”

However, two days after the election, on Nov. 5, 2020, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and two other senators sent a “very intimidating” letter to Google summarizing Epstein’s preliminary findings.

“Instantly, Google turned off all of the manipulations, all of them, in the Georgia Senate races,” he said. “How do I know? Because we had more than 1,000 field agents who were monitoring content.”

If the bias is there, Epstein said, “we see it.” And if it disappears, “we see that, too.”

In Georgia, while Google stood down, Epstein found that on Election Day, Facebook and Instagram shifted thousands of votes to each of the Democratic candidates through targeting vote reminders to Democratic voters.

Epstein said he has information indicating that Google might turn off its manipulation software as Election Day on Tuesday approaches, adding that he is not at liberty to disclose details.

‘You have their attention’

The personal cost of his work – which he sees as an effort to preserve free and fair elections and ultimately the republic itself – has included the loss of friendships and some family members who “think I’m crazy.” But he’s also been warned that his safety is at risk.

After presenting his Google findings to the Senate in 2019 and drawing the attention of Hillary Clinton, Epstein gave a private briefing to state attorneys general. After the briefing, one of the state AGs took Epstein aside and shared his concern that Epstein might “die in an accident in the next few months.”

Shortly after that, Epstein’s wife was killed in a car accident under what he described as suspicious circumstances. A couple of months ago, there was a knife attack on a key staff member and her husband. And recently, a reporter told him of a conversation with a woman in Google’s PR department who “screamed” at the reporter regarding Epstein.

The reporter told Epstein there were two things he learned from that interaction. One is that “you have their attention.” And the second is, “I would take precautions.”

“We live in fear, all of us do,” Epstein told WND. “We’re tremendously excited about the science that we do, about the discoveries that we’ve made. But we’re also scared. I am.”

Epstein was asked why he’s willing to pay such a high price to continue his work.

“I’ve always felt that I was put here on this earth for a reason,” he said. “I’m fulfilling my mission. I’m doing important work that needs to be done, especially because no one else will do it.”

See the WND interview with Dr. Robert Epstein:

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