{"id":15840,"date":"2023-09-23T00:24:26","date_gmt":"2023-09-23T00:24:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/business\/smartmatic-implicated-in-alleged-bribery-scheme-involving-top-filipino-election-official\/"},"modified":"2023-09-23T00:24:27","modified_gmt":"2023-09-23T00:24:27","slug":"smartmatic-implicated-in-alleged-bribery-scheme-involving-top-filipino-election-official","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/?p=15840","title":{"rendered":"Smartmatic implicated in alleged bribery scheme involving top Filipino election official"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\n Smartmatic, the voting technology company suing Fox News and former President Donald Trump\u2019s top allies over their false claims that its machines rigged the 2020 election, was implicated in an alleged bribery scheme involving the former top election official in the Philippines, according to court filings obtained by CNN.\n <\/p>\n

\n The court documents indicate that the Justice Department has filed money laundering charges against former Filipino election administrator Andres Bautista \u2013 and that four executives from Smartmatic subsidiaries are implicated as uncharged co-conspirators.\n <\/p>\n

\n The bribery claims are sure to reverberate in Smartmatic\u2019s ongoing defamation cases. Trump allies repeatedly peddled the lie that the company manipulated the results in 2020, despite the fact that its machines were only used in one California county that year.\n <\/p>\n

\n Smartmatic spokeswoman Samira Saba said in a statement that the Florida-based company \u201chas never won a project through any illegal means\u201d and stressed that the claims in the Bautista case are \u201cnot related to Smartmatic election security or integrity.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Smartmatic filed massive defamation suits against Fox News, Newsmax, OAN, several individual Fox hosts, ex-Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, former Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and others. They all deny wrongdoing.\n <\/p>\n

\n Some of these pro-Trump figures have tried to push back against the defamation suits by highlighting Smartmatic\u2019s ties to Venezuela and its involvement in foreign elections.\n <\/p>\n

\n OAN recently asked a judge to let them seek records from the Philippines government and other countries as part of the discovery process, claiming they have files about \u201cinvestigations\u2026 scandals.. and major problems\u201d involving Smartmatic machines.\n <\/p>\n

\n The Smartmatic co-conspirators in the Philippines-related criminal case aren\u2019t identified by name in the court filing obtained by CNN, which says they allegedly \u201ccaused or attempted\u201d to funnel $4 million to Bautista \u201cin violation of US money laundering laws.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n According to the charging documents, the Smartmatic executives used \u201cslush funds\u201d and \u201cfake contracts\u201d to facilitate alleged bribes and masked their actions with phony email accounts. \u201cSalsa\u201d was their code word for \u201cmoney,\u201d the documents alleged.\n <\/p>\n

\n Bautista awarded $199 million in contracts to Smartmatic for about 94,000 voting machines and to handle the results of the Philippines\u2019 presidential election in 2016.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI did not ask for nor receive any bribe money from Smartmatic or any other entity,\u201d Bautista posted Thursday on X, formerly known as Twitter, adding that the elections he oversaw were \u201chailed\u201d by observers as being the \u201cbest managed\u201d in Filipino history.\n <\/p>\n

\n He also said he would \u201crespond to the alleged charges at the proper forum and time.\u201d The criminal charges were filed Tuesday, according to the court filing. There is no indication that Bautista is currently in US custody.\n <\/p>\n

\n Saba, the Smartmatic spokeswoman, said, \u201cwinning a bid in the Philippines is never solely one individual\u2019s preference or decision\u201d and that the company has \u201cboth won and lost bids in the Philippines\u201d over the years.\n <\/p>\n

\n The new allegations of corrupt foreign dealings could boost the defense for Fox News and the other Trump allies currently fighting Smartmatic in court. They could argue that it wasn\u2019t their lies about the 2020 election that caused Smartmatic to lose business, but rather the company\u2019s reputation was tarnished by the allegedly criminal behavior of some of its employees.\n <\/p>\n

\n The criminal complaint against Bautista doesn\u2019t accuse Smartmatic of tampering with election results in the Philippines or any other jurisdiction. A State Department report concluded that the 2016 elections in the Philippines \u201cwere generally free and fair.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n A spokesperson for the US attorney for the Southern District of Florida, where the charges against Bautista were filed, did not respond to CNN\u2019s requests for comment.\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Smartmatic, the voting technology company suing Fox News and former President Donald Trump\u2019s top allies over their false claims that its machines rigged the 2020 election, was implicated in an alleged bribery scheme involving the former top election official in the Philippines, according to court filings obtained by CNN. The court documents indicate that the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15841,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15840","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business"},"yoast_head":"\nSmartmatic implicated in alleged bribery scheme involving top Filipino election official | Prosfunds<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Smartmatic, the voting technology company suing Fox News and former President Donald Trump\u2019s top allies over their false claims that its machines rigged\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/?p=15840\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta 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