Smartmatic's Non-Denial Denials: "It Depends on What the Meaning of 'is' is"

OPINION - Smartmatic's Non-Denial Denials: "It Depends on what the meaning of 'is' is"

After the Arizona hearing last Monday, I went to look, again, for that Smartmatic manual they say has instructions for how to weight and skew votes, and flip votes from one candidate to another. I have only put in a cursory effort in trying to find that. (If there is one, by now Smartmatic has likely already taken it down from their website, given all of the negative publicity surrounding it.)

However, what I did stumble across is pretty intriguing. They posted a "Smartmatic Fact-Checked" webpage at their website, where they attempt to refute many of Sydney Powell's allegations. Strangely missing however, as I see it, is a specific or explicit denial that their software is designed to weight votes more heavily for one candidate versus another. Nor is there an explicit denial that their machines can flip votes from one candidate to another. They allude to it, but they don't expressly deny it (in my opinion).

What I found especially intriguing is that several of their attempts at "denial" or refutation of what Sydney Powell had to say about them (and Dominion) sounds strikingly similar to that famous Bill Clinton line: "It depends on what the meaning of 'is' is."

We all remember that line. Bill Clinton was asked about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky in an interview with Bill Lehrer. Lehrer asked him,

"The news of this day is that Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel, is investigating allegations that you suborned perjury, by encouraging a 24 year old woman, a former White House intern, to lie under oath, in a civil deposition, about her having had an affair with you. Mr. President, is that true?"

And, Bill Clinton responded, "That is not true. That is not true. I did not tell anyone to tell anything other than the truth. There IS no improper relationship. And, I intend to cooperate with this inquiry."

See: https://youtu.be/XBzHnZiSv7U

And see: https://youtu.be/j4XT-l-_3y0

He went on to say, on another occasion, "I want to say one thing to the American people, and I want you to listen to me. I'm going to say this again. I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time. Never. These allegations are false. And, I need to go back to work for the American people. Thank you."

See the video of it here: https://youtu.be/Lctt8Gc5WKM

He was later accused of lying, or misleading the public, because of those statements, after they found the semen-stained dress with his DNA on it.

But, former President Clinton was technically correct. He was not lying in either statement. "Is" is present tense. "There 'IS' no improper relationship." He could have ended it five minutes before he walked into that interview and that statement would have still been true. He never said there WAS no improper relationship, because there was. And, in the second statement, he didn't technically lie either. Most people would consider oral sex to be "sex." However, technically, by definition, what he and Lewinsky were reported to have engaged in, is Sodomy, not sex. Nevertheless, while technically not lies, it appears he did intend to deceive.

Ergo, Smartmatic and their, what I call, Non-Denial denials, in very Clinton-esque fashion.

Let's take a look:

#1. "Smartmatic’s software was developed by our own engineers ..."The founders of Smartmatic were born in Venezuela." "The company, however, was founded in Boca Raton, Florida in 2000 and still maintains its US base there." ... "Many other American companies were founded by people born outside the US. A US company is still a US company, regardless of where its founders or shareholders happened to be born."

Contrast the above to the following Wikipedia Bio about their founder, "Antonio Mugica (born May 1974) is the founder and CEO of Smartmatic, a multinational electronic voting company. ... "He graduated from the Universidad Simón Bolívar in Caracas, Venezuela, where he earned an Electrical Engineering degree. ... "In the late 1990s, Mugica along with two other Venezuelan colleagues, Alfredo José Anzola and Roger Pinate, created a system ..."after the 2000 United States presidential election, they decided instead to dedicate the system toward electoral functions" ...

"Smartmatic formed out of the SBC organization that was owned 51% by Smartmatic, 47% Venezuelan state telecommunications organization CANTV ...

"Bizta, also owned by the owners of Smartmatic, with a board member from the Bolivarian government during the time an industry-fostering loan from a government institution was in force. In 2004 Smartmatic was granted a contract worth $128 million with the CNE, the government's elections agency, to acquire its products (an automated voting system, voting machines and support services)" ...

"But then, after collecting the required number of citizens' signatures, the 2004 Venezuelan recall referendum was activated to remove Hugo Chávez from the presidency, and Smartmatic had to hastily tailor the Voting System to the changed requirements" ...

"On January 8, 2007, President Hugo Chávez announced that Venezuela would re-nationalize CANTV, a move aimed at returning the company's control to the state. On April 8, 2007, the Venezuelan Government launched a tender offer to acquire Cantv’s shares in Venezuela (Class D) and in the United States (ADS). One month later on expiring the offer, the Government acquired 79.6% of the outstanding shares of the Company, in addition to the 6.6% which it previously owned, obtaining control of the Company with a total of 86.2% of its total shares."

Remember, CANTV OWNED 47% of Smartmatic at their inception, according to the above.

"Controversy
Public surveillance
"In an El Nuevo Herald, former SEBIN officials and security experts state that the Venezuelan government has allegedly spent millions of dollars to spy on Venezuelans; using Italian and Russian technology to monitor emails, keywords and telephone conversations of its citizens; especially Venezuelans who use CANTV for telecommunications. Acquired information is used to create a "person of interest" for Venezuelan authorities, where only selected individuals could have been fully spied on and where a database had been created to monitor those who publicly disagreed with the Bolivarian Revolution."

#2. "There are no ties between Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic." Notice the Present tense "ARE." "There IS no improper relationship." There ARE no ties. "There are no ties between Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic – plain and simple. No ownership ties, no software leasing, no business at all between them."

But right after that, in the very next breath they admit there WAS a relationship: "In 2009, (that’s more than a decade ago) Smartmatic licensed scanning machines from Dominion for use in The Philippines for a Smartmatic election project. Our one contract with Dominion was short-lived and ended in a lawsuit. That was the first and last time that Smartmatic and Dominion tried to do business together."

"Ended in a law suit" - See the attached lawsuit where Smartmatic and Dominion fight it out over their non-compete clause in regard to one of them using the other's technologies ...

#3. "Smartmatic does not have any operations in Venezuela." Once again, this denial is very Clintonesque. There IS no improper relationship. Smartmatic DOES NOT HAVE ... Oh but there WAS ONE. DOES NOT currently have operations in Venezuela, BUT they did for 13 or 14 years ...

Check out what they say next:

"We did election projects in Venezuela from 2004 to 2017, and Smartmatic’s equipment, software and people all performed successfully every time."

13 or 14 years? That is no small amount of time. Hugo Chavez was President of Venezuela from 1999 to 2013. That's quite A LOT of overlap.

#4. "There are no ties between Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic" ...

Once again There "ARE" no ties, ie. present tense.

"Smartmatic has only owned one election company in the US, Sequoia Voting systems. Smartmatic sold the company in 2007 to Sequoia’s management team. More than three years later Sequoia was bought by Dominion Voting Systems."

That sounds like a "tie" to me. So does their lawsuit over non-compete agreements over shared technology between Smartmatic and Dominion. (Please see attached law suit.)

Sydney Powell also said A LOT of web pages were disappearing from the Internet. I came across the same thing while researching the above. However, I was able to access them by clicking on "cache" which led me to several former Smartmatic web pages that had been removed.

#5. "George Soros is not one of those angel investors mentioned above. Mr. Soros has no ownership interest in Smartmatic. He’s not on the Board, nor is he employed by Smartmatic. He never has been."

In other words, There IS no improper relationship with that man, George Soros.

However, I did stumble across this from the Washington Examiner:

"Litigation over Smartmatic “glitches” alleges they impacted the 2010 and 2013 mid-term elections in the Philippines, raising questions of cheating and fraud. An independent review of the source codes used in the machines found multiple problems, which concluded, “The software inventory provided by Smartmatic is inadequate, … which brings into question the software credibility,” ABS-CBN reported.

"Smartmatic’s chairman is a member of the British House of Lords, Mark Malloch Brown, a former vice-chairman of George Soros’ Investment Funds, former vice-president at the World Bank, lead international partner at Sawyer Miller, a political consulting firm, and former vice-chair of the World Economic Forum who “remains deeply involved in international affairs.” The company’s reported globalist ties have caused members of the media and government officials to raise questions about its involvement in the U.S. electoral process.

In my mind, all of the above begs the question. Why lie? Why try to minimize? Or, try to deceive?

See: Smartmatic Fact-checked

https://www.smartmatic.com/us/smartmatic-fact-checked/

Sources:

Venezuela election turnout figures manipulated, voting firm says

https://www.cnn.com/2017/08/02/americas/venezuela-election-turnout-manipulated/index.html

Bill Clinton tells Jim Lehrer there 'is no sexual relationship' with Monica Lewinsky
https://youtu.be/XBzHnZiSv7U

Bill Clinton - I did not have sexual relations with that woman
https://youtu.be/-rS0O7UKH4Y

Bill Clinton It Depends on what the meaning of the word is is
https://youtu.be/j4XT-l-_3y0

Antonio Mugica
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Mugica

CANTV
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANTV

Smartmatic Fact-checked
https://www.smartmatic.com/us/smartmatic-fact-checked/

SMARTMATIC INTERNATIONAL
CORPORATION, ET AL.,
Plaintiffs,
v.
DOMINION VOTING SYSTEMS
INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION, ET AL.,
Defendants.

https://law.justia.com/cases/delaware/court-of-chancery/2013/ca-7844-vcp.html

Officials raised concerns for years about security of US voting machines, software systems

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/officials-raised-concerns-for-years-about-security-of-us-voting-machines-software-systems