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Dominion says OAN's 'expert mathematician' who claimed to prove election fraud had a job 'setting up swing sets'

Aug 11, 2021, 04:32 IST
Business Insider
Rudy Giuliani wipes sweat away after an interview with One America News Network's Chanel Rion outside the White House West Wing July 01, 2020 in Washington, DC. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
  • In January, One America News Network presented an "expert mathematician" in an interview.
  • The "expert" claimed to have uncovered evidence that the 2020 election was rigged against Trump.
  • He was a swing set installer on Long Island at the time of the interview, a Dominion lawsuit says.
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The right-wing media organization One America News Network presented a Long Island swing-set installer as an "expert mathematician" who claimed to uncover evidence that the 2020 election was rigged, a new lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems says.

OAN's Christina Bobb interviewed the man, Ed Solomon, on January 27 in a segment about the 2020 election, which President Joe Biden had won nearly three months earlier.

In the interview, Solomon said he conducted a mathematical analysis showing that the results in Fulton County, Georgia, "can only have been done by an algorithm." He added that the probability of Biden's victory in the county was "1 over 10 to an exponent so large there's not enough stars in the universe, there aren't enough atoms in the universe, to explain the number."

It's not clear where Solomon got his data set. Factcheck.org compared the numbers he used in his analysis with the data available from Georgia's secretary of state and found that they did not match. An audit of the ballots cast in Georgia in the 2020 election found that the results were correct.

One America News claimed Ed Solomon was a "Mathematician" when he actually installed swing sets, Dominion Voting Systems said in a lawsuit. One America News/Dominion Voting Systems

Dominion's lawsuit says Solomon is not an "expert mathematician" but "was in fact a convicted felon with no college degree." The lawsuit adds that Solomon's "current job was setting up swing sets in Long Island, New York."

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A spokesperson for Stony Brook University, with which Solomon said he was affiliated, previously told Factcheck.org that he took several math classes over the course of seven years at the school but never received an undergraduate degree.

A person who appeared to be Solomon was arrested in 2016 on drug-related charges and served two years in prison, Vice reported.

Dominion included these claims in a lawsuit filed Tuesday against OAN, alleging defamation over election conspiracy theories and seeking over $1.6 billion in damages.

Representatives for OAN didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment. A Twitter account that appeared to be associated with Solomon didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Dominion previously decried Solomon in a letter sent to MyPillow CEO and conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell. The letter, dated February 4 and obtained by Insider, also said Solomon "is not a 'mathematician'" and that he "is currently employed as an 'Installer' at a swing set construction company." Dominion is suing Lindell, as well as a host of other entities, over conspiracy theories about the company's role in the 2020 election.

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The same day, Dominion said in its lawsuit it sent a letter to OAN demanding a retraction of Bobb's interview with Solomon. OAN then took down the interview from its website but left it up on other platforms, the lawsuit said.

Dominion's lawsuit said OAN "had effectively acknowledged" the claims were false "by secretly removing several articles and broadcasts from its own website that made similar claims."

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