An alleged witness to voter fraud in the 2020 election testified before Michigan’s House Oversight Committee on Wednesday and became an instant social media sensation.
The moment: Melissa Carone, a contractor for Dominion Voting Systems who worked a day-long shift at Detroit’s vote-counting center on Election Day, told the House Panel on Wednesday that tens of thousands of votes had been counted multiple times.
A clip of Carone’s feisty exchange with Republican state Rep. Steven Johnson has been viewed on Twitter more than 13 million times.
- With President Donald Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani sitting alongside her, Carone sparred with Johnson, who questioned the contract IT worker on her claim that votes had been recounted up to “30,000” times, noting that poll books did not reflect such figures.
- “We’re not seeing the poll book off by 30,000 votes,” Johnson said, to which Carone replied: “What’d you guys do, take it and do something crazy to it?”
- “Democrats like to ruin your lives, just like they do to Trump,” Carone later said.
At one point during her testimony, after she repeatedly interrupted Johnson’s line of questioning, Giuliani reached out to grab Carone in an attempt to reel her in.
The reaction: Carone’s appearance drew loud applause from the pro-Trump crowd in attendance, and the president’s supporters lavished her with praise on social media.
“I dont give a f**k if Melissa Carone is drunk or f**king sober I LOVE her for speaking truth and going ape sh*t on Rep Steve Johnson in this hearing,” tweeted one commenter.
Trump critics, meanwhile, noted that the claims of voter fraud in an affidavit filed by Carone last month had been shot down by a Wayne County judge as “not credible.”
Carone also became an object of mockery among journalists and liberals who emphasized her “lip-biting” and other quirks.
“a drunk woman is trump team’s star witness in michigan,” tweeted journalist Marisa Kabas in response to a clip of Carone’s testimony.
Meanwhile, a Washington Post report described her “Midwestern lilt and poofy, blond updo.”
Electoral controversy: Trump and his campaign have promoted wild allegations about how the 2020 election was allegedly stolen from him.
- But Trump’s campaign have made moves to distance the president from Sidney Powell and Lin Wood, two of the most prominent lawyers pushing election fraud claims and newfound icons among the “MAGA” crowd.
- Last week, Powell was removed from Trump’s legal team after she seemed to implicate Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s administration in her claims of a widespread conspiracy that threw the election to Joe Biden.
- On Wednesday, the Trump campaign turned on Wood, tweeting out a Breitbart News article about the Georgia litigator’s record of supporting Democrats.
