On September 30th and October 1st, 2024, attorney Charlene McGowan, general counsel for the Georgia Secretary of State’s (SOS) Office, testified before the Washington D.C. Bar Disciplinary Board seeking to disbar three attorneys who litigated election cases following the 2020 Presidential Election.
Lawrence J. Joseph, who assisted Rep. Louie Gohmert, and Julia Z. Haller and Brandon C. Johnson, who assisted Sidney Powell face potential sanctions ranging from suspension of their law licenses or even disbarment.
According to filing at the D.C. Bar, “In each of the lawsuits, Respondents alleged there was election fraud on a vast scale as a result of a conspiracy to falsely inflate or increase the vote count in favor of Biden.” The conspirators alleged included, among others, Dominion Voting Systems, foreign actors from Iran and China, members of the Democrat and Republican parties, state officials, and local election workers.
The complaint states that the Respondents “knew or should have known” that “the lawsuits were frivolous” and had no plausible factual basis for the claims.
As General Counsel for the Georgia SOS, McGowan was called to testify in the hearings against the Respondents regarding Georgia’s conduct during the 2020 Presidential Election. According to a Bar Complaint submitted in early July, McGowan allegedly made several false statements.
The first allegation involves the destruction of ballot images for in-person voting. When asked, “374,128 in-person ballot images for the original count are missing. Are you aware of that allegation?” McGowan responded, “That is an allegation that has been made.”
She was also asked, “Are you aware of any material that has been destroyed or not kept?” and responded:
“I’m not aware of any documents being destroyed, nor – I’m not aware – other than that one particular investigation that we just talked about, I’m not aware of any corroborated findings that a county has failed to preserve certain election documentation.”
According to the complaint, the “investigation” was a reference to SEB2023-025, which The Gateway Pundit has previously reported on as part of a four-part series. That case was limited to 17,852 ballot images that were missing from a candidate-requested recount.
As far as the 374,128 in-person ballot images McGowan was asked about under oath, that is not an “allegation.” In fact, it was an admission made directly by Fulton County during a Request for Admission in Curling v. Raffensperger, a case in which her client, SOS Brad Raffensperger, is a party to.
The complaint continued:
Moreover, Ms. McGowan knows that the ballot images from nearly half of the approximate five million ballots cast across the state of Georgia for the November 3, 2020, General Election were destroyed. Based on a state-wide effort by VoterGA, seventy-four (74) of Georgia’s one-hundred and fifty-nine (159) counties failed to produce the ballot images from the November 3, 2024 count. Fifty six (56) of those provided written admissions that they failed to preserve the ballot images.
Ms. McGowan’s statement that “[she’s] not aware of any other corroborated findings that a county has failed to preserve certain election documentation” is verifiably and materially false.
McGowan testified that Georgia law did not require the preservation of ballot images for the 2020 General Election, stating, “The result was that ballot images were not required by law to be preserved in 2020 like they are now. And so it was not a finding of legal violation of the law.”
However, contrary to her testimony in this disbarment hearing, McGowan was the sole signatory in an amicus brief filed in Favorito v. Wan where in regards to the 2020 election, she stated:
Ballots are then scanned through optical voting scanners selected and furnished by the State of Georgia pursuant to O.C.G.A. § 21-2-300. Once
scanned, an electronic ballot image is created and stored on a memory card (“ballot images”). Following the election, county officials must deliver all ballots and ballot images “in sealed containers to the clerk of the superior court,” and those ballots and ballot images are to be held by the clerk under seal for a period of 24 months. O.C.G.A. § 21-2-500(a).
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McGowan went on to argue that the Court in the Curling case should “permit Petitioners to inspect the ballot images only” and “deny…requests to inspect and scan ballots.” She also argued:
Based upon the controlling law discussed above, the Secretary respectfully requests that Petitioners’ Motion to Unseal be granted only as to ballot images, and Petitioners’ request to inspect and scan ballots be denied. Such a results is consistent with Georgia law and allows Petitioners access to inspect ballot images, while maintaining the confidentiality, security, and integrity of ballots that Georgia law requires and the voting public expects.
Adding more support to the claim that ballot images were in fact meant to be retained, she argued:
The Georgia Court of Appeals has held that both ballots and ballot images are not public records open to inspection by the general public under the Open Records Act because they must remain sealed under O.C.G.A. § 21-2-500(a). Smith v. DeKalb County, 288 Ga. App. 574 (2007). In Smith, the plaintiff sought production of ballot images maintained on a CD-ROM that were being maintained under seal by the clerk of superior court. The Court of Appeals held that “because the CD-ROM is statutorily designated to be kept under seal, it is by law prohibited or specifically exempted from being open to inspection by the general public and, therefore, is not an open record subject to disclosure.” Id. at 577. Accordingly, “the trial court did not abuse its discretion in granting the Secretary of State’s petition for a permanent injunction prohibiting the custodian from opening the record in response to Smith’s Open Records Act request.” Id.
McGowan made the same claim to the Georgia State Election Board (SEB) in May 2024 about the law not being enacted until 2021 with the passing of Senate Bill 202, however, she was corrected by SEB member Dr. Janice Johnston:
All right. So I would like to read State Election Board Rule 183-1-12-.13, storage and returns. This was adopted January 23, 2020, and made effective February 12, 2020. After tabulating and consolidating the results, the election superintendent shall prepare an electronic file which shall contain a copy of the information contained on each memory card which shall include all ballot images as well as vote totals and a copy of the consolidated returns from the election management system. Further the electronic file shall be stored on a secure medium placed in a sealed envelope or container and shall become a part of the election materials which shall be deposited with the clerk of the superior court, along with the signed results tape, along with the paper ballots, given to the clerk of the superior court.”
There are two instances in which McGowan once, herself, acknowledged the retention requirement, and then was corrected regarding the same. But her testimony, just four months after the SEB correction, contradicted this in an effort to bolster the lawfare levied against the three Respondents.
McGowan also testified in the D.C. Bar hearing that the investigation in SEB2023-025 was investigated and the findings were presented to the SEB.
“The state election board voted originally to resolve that case with a letter of reprimand to Fulton County,” McGowan testified, and that “there was one particular board member that was not happy with that result and that particular board member attempted to reopen the case.” She added, “The Attorney Genera’s office responded to that and said that there was no legal authority to reopen the case and conduct any further investigation.”
However, on August 7th, 2024, two months prior to her testimony at the D.C. Bar, the SEB voted to continue the investigation in SEB2023-025, with a majority of the Board voting in favor.
Some of the unresolved issues from SEB2023-025 include:
- No credible records for ten advance voting tabulators and the 20,718 ballots to which they were attributed for the November 3rd count
- 17,582 missing ballot images for the Recount
- 3,125 ballots intentionally scanned and counted more than once
- Unauthorized and unsolicited involvement by The Election Group that was assigned and tasked by and through CTCL grants (Zuckerbucks) – who participated in the hands-on and intimate facilitation of every facet of Fulton County’s 2020 election, hand count, Recount, and Senate Runoff.
Coverage of this Bar Complaint will be continued in a follow-up article.
The Gateway Pundit has reached out to the Secretary of State’s Office for comment regarding the bar complaint and will update with a response if received.
