Late Sunday Read but not a happy one

I spent my day diving down a rabbit hole and found a rat at the bottom

A tip and a deep dive…again

Yesterday I got a tip from a friend in Georgia that their local elections bureau had gotten a Freedom of Information Act request for all of the signature cards in the state of Georgia. That was a total of nearly 100,000 in their district alone. They are struggling with what to do and not getting any help. So, I decided to dive in.

I have done this before. During the 2020 campaign I spent a Saturday diving down a rabbit hole on Tommy Tuberville’s Veterans Foundation. I went through all of his IRS form 990’s to examine where his money came from and where it went. I found out the whole thing was mostly fake.

I posted an “Epic Thread” of my findings on Twitter and let it go crazy. In the end a host of news outlets in Alabama picked it up and eventually Tuberville ceased operations of the foundation and has not yet restarted it two years later. I found out later that it knocked his campaign off their plan for over a week.

I consider that a good day’s work. Well, today ended up being another.

Fake News…no…really

I dove into this request and created another ‘Epic Twitter Thread’ and I will use the Unroll of it for this. It starts with a “reporter” from the “local” news outlet the Peach Tree Times.

That was what caught my eye. If you’ve ever lived in Atlanta, or even driven through, you know it’s always spelled Peachtree. One word. Any local would get that right. That was what set off my spidey senses.

It starts with a simple tip that someone has done a FOIA request for all 7 million voter signature cards in Georgia. I was able to get a screenshot of the request. It's much more insane than I could have possibly thought and people need to know.

The requester is a guy named Vince Espi who claims to be a "reporter for the Peach Tree Times." More on him later, but, look at what he wants and think about the implications of a malicious actor getting the info he asks for in these signature cards just a year from a Presidential election. That’s before we talk about the ID theft aspects of having millions of signatures.

Look at this list from his email and ask yourself; why does a "reporter" need this? The overall request is this: "Copies of the signature cards used in the election process, including all relevant information associated with each card, such as the voter's name, address, and signature."

He lays out precisely what he wants in detail:
1) Voter signature cards
2) Absentee or ballot signature cards
3) Provisional ballot signature cards
4) Any other signature cards collected during the election process

You're talking about 7 million total records that will all need redaction. I ask again, why?

So Vince Espi says since he's a member of the media he gets the fees waived. Is he? He claims Peach Tree Times. As it turns out they are part of an astroturf media network. More on them later.

You see Vince has lots of jobs but his real job with a long line of online proof is being a right wing data miner with a company called Local Labs.

Google helps.

He's a busy beaver with lots of tasks and none of them are associated with Peach Tree Times. Here he works for "LocalLabs" in Illinois and in April 2023 wanted the mission statement of Antioch schools in Illinois. antioch34.com/cms/lib/IL0221…

Here he is again back in October, 2020 working for LocalLabs asking for two years of records on any guest speakers at Illinois' Crystal Lake School district northwest of Chicago. d47.org/cms/lib/IL0190…

Here is a fun one for Jacksonville, Illinois school district with LocalLabs again in September, 2021 requesting "A list of all materials in your district that fall under the 1619 project." 2021 FOIA Requests https://www.jsd117.org/board_of_education/f_r_e_e_d_o_m_o_f_i_n_f_o_r_m_a_t_i_o_n_a_c_t/2021_f_o_i_a_requests

Then in October of 2021 he hit Union Ridge Schools with the obvious whole list of what seems like the Moms for Liberty dream questions again from LocalLabs:
1) COVID-19 Protocol Response
2) 1619 Project Curriculum
3) American Rescue Plan Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief
campussuite-storage.s3.amazonaws.com/prod/1558520/7…

Now, if you Google ‘Vince Espi + Peach Tree Times’ he never shows up. He has never done a story for them. His company is LocalLabs and they advertise themselves as a data miner for media.

What news media? As I mentioned above, Peach Tree Times is part of a huge right wing astroturf operation of "local" news sites funded by a network of cut outs, foundations, billionaires, and PAC’s. Metric Media is the parent organization.

A couple of years ago Columbia Journalism Review did a deep dive on this dark money operation and it's many layers of foundations and cut out organizations to hide the money tied to "Metric Media." It's insane how big this operation is. Read the two stories here.

The Metric Media network runs more than 1,200 local news sites. Here are some of the non-profits funding them.

This is the first part of a two-part investigation. The second piece can be found here. As local news outlets across the US struggle to stay afloat, pop-up newsrooms are filling the void. Organizat…https://www.cjr.org/tow_center_reports/metric-media-lobbyists-funding.php

They are telling us

How do I know Peach Tree Times is part of this vast astroturf network? They tell you right on the About Page. You can’t find any names of staff. No contact info except an Info email address or physical address at all.

Metric Media is actually a 501(c)3 which tells you how broken the IRS system is for nonprofit oversight. This openly political hack group is a tax deductible nonprofit.

How obvious is it? Here is the number one story on this Georgia "local news" site right now. A hard hitting story about how we need to pay attention to the...Texas border. Notice the story is based on interviews with the right wing militia Tea Party Patriots. Fun fact, the founder of Tea Party Patriots is also a cofounder of Metric Media.

Martinez on border crisis: 'People need to get their heads out of the sand and pay attention'Amid the ongoing immigration crisis at the southern border the United States shares with Mexico, tensions seem to be on the rise.https://peachtreetimes.com/stories/647514863-martinez-on-border-crisis-people-need-to-get-their-heads-out-of-the-sand-and-pay-attention

Pretending to avoid fees

So, Vince Espi is not a reporter by any means. He's a well funded data miner for far right groups asking questions right out of the Moms for Liberty playbook. Now he is requesting ALL of the signatures of every voter in Georgia pretending to be a reporter to get it for free.

My source says they think it would cost around 30 cents per record based on a the labor involved. That’s a whopping $2.1 million if it has to be paid.

So, what would far right groups do with every single voters name, address and signature? Intimidate people who are scared that their signature might look different? Target them with disinfo? Challenge voters after the next election? Get them kicked off the voter rolls before? What is Georgia doing about this outrageous request?

Why haven't we heard about it until now? Is Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger quietly going to give millions of Georgians personal info to a dark money front group? Does Stacey Abrams, Senators Ossoff or Warnock know about this? I don’t know.

If I was a Georgia voter I would be losing my mind right now knowing that election offices around the state are working on filling this request and giving your info to a fake news group for uncertain reasons. This is voter intimidation, suppression, and anti-democracy in action.

What about Governor Brian Kemp? Is he going to let his citizens be treated like this or is he too afraid of the Mercers and the other right wing billionaires probably funding this? I'd love to see media with deeper research staffs jump on this.

Where else?

One of my biggest questions in the end is where else is this happening? We know an election denier played sock puppet for a right wing group in Illinois and won in federal court for access to voter roles there.

Have they dropped these requests in other states. Vince seems like a busy guy. I can't imagine Georgia is his only target and Media Metrics has 1200 websites now nationwide providing disinfo and cover to "reporters" to get our info.

They are already prepping to undermine the next election. 2020 was a rehearsal.

I will keep you posted. In the meantime catch the last episode of On Democracy on MeidasTouch today.