‘If the FBI is trying to run the clock out, the Muskegon/GBI Strategies voter fraud investigation will die,’ MFE’s chairperson said.
Pressure is mounting for action concerning a 2020 incident in which Brianna Hawkins, an employee of GBI Strategies, a campaign services vendor, allegedly attempted to submit 12,500 new voter registration applications to the city clerk of Muskegon, Michigan, in the weeks leading up to the presidential election. Both Ms. Hawkins and GBI Strategies are named in an otherwise heavily redacted police report.
Dozens of the applications were quickly found to contain erroneous names, addresses, and signatures that appeared to be signed by the same person. The western Michigan community has a population of 38,000.
The clerk called the local police, and an investigation was launched that involved the Michigan State Police, the Criminal Investigation Division of the state Attorney General’s office, investigators from the Secretary of State’s office, inspectors of the United States Postal Service, and an agent from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATFE).
Within days, investigators found financial records linking GBI Strategies to the campaigns of Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden and the Democrat candidate for the U.S. Senate Gary Peters, according to the Michigan State Police (MPS) incident report.
It was also discovered that the operations of GBI Strategies extended to half a dozen of Michigan’s urban centers and multiple states. In the 2018 midterms, the company was paid $188,000 by the National Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and $1.5 million by Alabama Democrat Doug Jones’s campaign for U.S. Senate.
GBI Strategies specializes in voter registration and helping new voters to obtain absentee ballots. It also organizes get-out-the-vote efforts, primarily for Democrat candidates and PACs.
According to the MSP incident report, Ms. Hawkins, from Detroit, told investigators that her job was to go to Muskegon to ensure that voter registration applications were filled out properly and completely by prospective voters. She told authorities she oversaw the work of canvassers who went door-to-door distributing applications and helping people to complete them. The applications were then given to GBI Strategies for processing and eventual filing either by mail or in-person delivery.
By Steven Kovac
